He taught about life

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, August 16, 2006

DARRINGTON – Rob Wales loved football, literature and Grand Funk Railroad. But teaching was his passion.

And it showed Wednesday when about 200 people, including many current and former students, packed into the Darrington Community Center for his memorial service.

To them, Wales was an English instructor who taught about life.

“Everything he said to you, you believed because he had such passion and heart for everything he said,” said Corey Gullikson, a 2004 Darrington graduate who is pursuing a teaching degree largely because of Wales. “He’d never say anything he didn’t believe.”

Wales died Aug. 5 after a two-year battle with testicular cancer. Some 400 people, including the entire Darrington High School football team, attended his funeral Saturday in Seattle. There was standing room only at Wednesday’s service as people vied for a chance to share their memories of the 46-year-old divorced father of three.

“He’d like to be remembered as someone who really affected people’s lives and their ability to think and write,” said social studies teacher and longtime friend Greg Powell. “He’s kind of remembered as a football coach, but that’s only half the story. If he had the chance to come back for only teaching or coaching, he’d choose teaching.”

Wales was tough. No doubt about it.

Big and bald, he was known to terrify many a freshman. His booming bark was feared both on the Darrington football field, where he coached for 19 years, and in the classroom.

“He seemed to be like 20 stories tall and loud and powerful,” said 2006 graduate Emmett Sapp. “If it looked like you were dozing off, he’d pound on your desk and say, ‘If this is not interesting to you, I’ll take you back to kindergarten.’”

But once in his class or on his team, teens usually saw beyond his gruff exterior. They found a man so moved by poetry, he’d frequently recite Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe. They found a man who told them to call their tattered English text books their “lovables and huggables.” They found a man who would do almost anything to help them view learning as a worthwhile and noble pursuit.

“He’d encourage us to go do something in the world,” Sapp said. “He’d tell us to boldly go beyond Oso. … I think many of us will take his words to heart.”

As he lay in bed nauseous from chemotherapy drugs or sore from surgery, the dream of teaching another group of students kept Wales fighting, said Powell, his former colleague.

And even then he was teaching.

A month before Wales died, fellow teacher Marvin Kastning visited him at his parents’ home, where Wales stayed throughout his illness. Kastning told Wales that he loved him. They spoke about faith – and Kastning was reminded of the pleasure Wales took in merely being.

On Wednesday, Kastning recalled accompanying Wales on humanities field trips and finding inspiration not in the subject matter, but in Wales.

“You got the feeling that you were really alive,” he said. “The stuff around him was so stimulating to him, he could make you feel excited about just living.”

At the memorial service, people cried as they watched a slideshow of Wales’ life – Wales as a baby licking an ice cream cone, Wales in his Western Washington University football uniform, Wales fishing with twin daughters.

On a table in the back of the auditorium Wednesday, Wales’ coaching whistle lay atop a football.

“Rob was incredible as a teacher,” the Rev. Les Hagen said. “He loved kids. He loved to teach. He loved to coach. He was quite a guy.”

Then recalling several other teachers who died recently, Hagen said to the crowd: “Instead of thinking ‘Am I next?’ you need to be thinking, I need to step up. There’s some shoes to fill.”

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.