LAPEL — Just before the tipoff of the Lapel-Beech Grove boys basketball game Feb. 19, fans, players and coaches stood for a moment of silence to honor one of their own.
Former coach Woody Fields, 71, had passed away, and the Bulldog gym went silent in remembrance of a man who was an educator, coach and mentor to many who passed through Lapel.
Fields taught sixth grade and coached many sports, but is credited with being instrumental in the founding of the Lapel football and wrestling teams.
As a 1966 graduate of Lapel High School, he went on to Ball State University and returned to the Frankton-Lapel Community school system, where he spent 43 years until his retirement in 2013. Fields coached through the tough times, when football had but 30 players out for the team and had to wear the same uniforms for years because the budgets were not there. But he also coached Lapel to its first football sectional championship in 1995.
Current Bulldog football Coach Tim Miller said everyone he’d heard talk about Fields had something positive to say.
“He truly coached and started programs at Lapel not because he cared about his win-loss record or moving to a bigger school; he did it because he cared about students and their experiences,” Miller said.
Lapel assistant football coach Tommy McMillian said he had the honor of both playing for and coaching with Fields.
McMillian said Fields was like a father figure to him and his teammates.
“He was always looking out for best interest,” McMillian said.
It was nothing for Fields to make a trip to a player’s home to have discussions with the parents.
“He made sure we became men,” McMillian said.
Even when McMillian went to college, he could always call Fields to ask for advice.
“He was a gentle man who cared about you,” he said.
Later, when McMillian was an assistant coach with Fields, the dynamic changed from coach to friend.
“As coaches, we wanted to be ‘that guy,’” McMillian said.
Fields would catch them arguing with officials and tell them “Boys, I’m here to tell you, you’re only going to make things worse.”
After Fields retired and moved away from Lapel, McMillian said he didn’t have as much contact with him, but when he did see him, he always had a smile.
