Tivoliâs coach showed students what a black man could do if he believed in himself
Arthur Woodard has one of the best win records of any high school football coach in the history of Florida but to those who know him, that's not what makes him a great man.
His 12-year record of 110 wins, six losses and four ties, including three straight undefeated series (62-64) as a coach in Walton County is what got him nominated to the Florida High School Athletic Hall of Fame. His .916 winning percentage, the highest of any Florida coach with more than 10 seasons, is what cinched his appointment into the Hall of Fame.
And that was only in the first part of his career as a coach.
Woodard is to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, along with former Freeport coach Aubrey Rentz on April 6 in Gainesville.
Woodard was the coach at the all-black Tivoli school from 1955 until 1967. To him, his students were the best and the brightest, black or white, and his only gift was to be able to motivate and aspire them to what could be.
"I wanted to push them into college and put them in a place where they could get a better job," said Woodard. "All of them made me proud."
Woodard credits his mother for endowing him with the ability to motivate people and to accept things.
He said it was those qualities that later on in his career as a principal and then athletic director in the Miami/Dade school systems, earned him a reputation of being able to deal with the "rough ones."
"You find out what kids need. If one needs a soft touch, then you give him a soft touch and if he needs some muscle, you gave him some muscle," said the now 80-year-old retiree.
Woodard and his wife, the former Mary Williams of DeFuniak Springs, now live in Miami, where Woodard went to work in the 1960s as integration forced him from his head coaching job at Tivoli.
"I saw the handwriting on the wall. Integration was coming and there wasn't room for a black coach at Walton High School," said Woodard. Despite having one of the most winning careers as a high school coach, winning the Northwest Florida Big Bend Conference title 11 times and being named Coach of the Year in 1962-63, Woodard was offered a job as an assistant coach within the Walton School District.
Despite the school district's attempt to reduce his coaching position , Woodard regards that time without rancor.
"I knew if you're going to integrate, it was going to be through athletics," recalled Woodard.
He taught all sports, football, baseball, basketball, track and field, in addition to a number of academic classes. The school had little or no equipment and didn't have a gym until sometime in the 1960s.
"He taught us about life, some in sports and others in the classroom," said former Tivoli student Alfred Campbell. Campbell is now the deputy regional director of probation and community intervention for the state's Department of Juvenile Justice.
Woodard and Campbell have remained in close contact through the years and consider themselves good friends.
"He made learning fun. He put it in a context we could understand. He made us believe we were winners not only in athletics but in life as well," said Campbell.
"He was a motivator and sculptor (of strength and character)."
Campbell said Woodard exerted more influence over his students than anyone other than a student's parents or family, and sometimes even more than them.
When questioned about his accolades through the years, Woodard shrugs it off.
"Am I remarkable? Maybe crazy," he said with chuckle. He then went on to describe how he set up a circus in the gym to use as a training tool.
"Today, they probably wouldn't let me do such a thing, but no one got hurt."
In addition to upcoming Hall of Fame honor, Woodard has approximately 50 other awards, most of which were swept away a few years ago by a hurricane, many of them relating to the time he headed up the Optimist Club's community football program.
It is his accomplishments in education that now seem to please him most.
"When you get to be my age, you're just glad to be alive and you become appreciative of what you have and what you've done. I am so grateful that I was in education. And my kids that made it were poor kids. I showed them what they could do ... I showed them what a finished product looked like," said Woodard.
School Board member Mildred Wilkerson remembers Campbell as a man with a big heart. Wilkinson's husband Henry (now deceased), was the principal at Tivoli for a number of years and worked with Woodard.
Wilkerson recalled an incident where a boy at Walton High School, "a white boy," was badly injured playing football. Woodard saw the family struggling and suggested to Henry Wilkerson their school donate the proceeds from that night's ballgame to the ballplayer's family. Wilkerson agreed.
"He was a good person," said Wilkerson. "Henry loved him to death."
Sonny Yates grew up in DeFuniak Springs and recalls seeing Woodard walking down Baldwin Avenue.
"He looked so imposing but interesting," said Yates.
During the year he played for the San Francisco 49'rs, Woodard's weight reached 285 where it hovered for several years afterward, including his time at DeFuniak Springs.
"When I was 10 years old, he looked like a giant coming down Baldwin Avenue," said Yates.
Woodard took the things he learned in life, in school and in the Army and put them to use in the classroom and on the field. He learned to adapt, overcome and win despite the odds being against him or his team.
"He was a remarkable coach," said Campbell.
"You have to appreciate the past even if there were some things that happened that shouldn't have. I remember the good ole DeFuniak Springs," said Woodard.
After leaving DeFuniak Springs, he went on to become athletic director at Miami Central High School and principal of Miami Douglas MacArthur High School North.
Arthur Woodard's record as coach at Tivoli 1955 - 1967
• 110 wins
• six losses
• four ties
• three undefeated series
• a .916 winning percentage, the highest of any Florida high school coach with more than 10 seasons.
• winner of the Northwest Florida Big Bend Conference 11 times
• Coach of the Year, 1962-63
