By Bryan Rothamel / Special to Scrimmageplaycva.com
For the last 35 years Munro Rateau has coached the Fluvanna boys’ basketball team. He’s won 525 games. It is remarkable. That’s averaging 15 wins a year.
But the most remarkable thing is he averaged positively influencing 15 team members a year, for 35 years.
Rateau, who will always just be Coach to me and countless others, has said many things to me. He talked to me as a little kid when my brother started for him. He talked to me as his manager in high school. He’s given me hundreds of interviews when I covered the team as a reporter.
Of all of those, there are two instances in my life that will forever shape my judgment of the man.
One was when I played golf for him in high school. I was being an 18-year old punk and skipping team practice to work at another golf course. Before work, I would get in my swings and keep my skills sharp but I was missing practice. Coach never would bring me to matches because I was skipping team activities. Somehow, I was quite convinced that he wasn’t giving me a fair shake.
It finally boiled over at school when he saw me in the hall. He said his usual, “Hey Bryan!” I turned and looked at the man I called Coach since I was 10 and said, “Hello Mr. Rateau.”
He brought me into his office and we traded barbs. He stood up with tears in his eyes and put out his hand. He said, “Bryan, no matter what, you know I love you.”
Instantly, the rocks I was using for a brain crumbled. Why would this man who I treated terribly love me? I had just shouted at him how he was “ruining my senior year.”
That moment, him saying those three words, is one of the moments of my time in high school I cherish. When I worked with my church youth group I strived to make sure, even when they were being stubborn 18 year olds, they knew I loved them no matter what.
The second instance first happened when I was about 10 years old and I heard again when I was managing the basketball team in high school.
At the end of the year banquet Coach stands up and gives out awards like a lot of other coaches across the country, often saying a thing or two about each player as they come up. Mrs. Rateau makes a scrapbook of news articles the team garnered throughout the year.
After finishing the team awards, he stood at the podium and said to the families and players, “You know, I told this team in the locker room after the last game, as I tell every team at the end of the year, ‘Fellas, we won some games and we lost some games this year. But the greatest victory you will have in your life is when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.” That was all he said. A mother in the audience shouted, “Amen.”
Not every player heard that and agreed. Nor did every player hear that and believe.
But every player, for 35 years heard their coach share his most personal relationship with them because he cared that much about them.
And because of that, 15 players a year averaged a win for 35 years: They played for a coach who cared deeply about them.
I hope the next coach who leads the Blue and Gold does two things. First, that person gets to coach in a gymnasium named Munro Rateau Gymnasium. It should’ve happened when the new school opened, but it has to happen now.
The second and most important thing I hope the new coach does is care for the kids like Coach did.
That’s enough winning for everyone.
Bryan Rothamel is a Fluvanna County graduate who currently writes for the Free Enterprise Forum. He played golf when Rateau coached that squad and served as a scorekeeper for Rateau’s basketball squad while at Fluvanna. He covered FCHS sports for four years while operating Fluco Blog and Fluco Sports Net.
