Retiring Naperville coach teaches life skills through football

Football has its share of detractors, but Jim Brown, retiring president of the St. Raphael program in Naperville, is a staunch defender of the game because of the values he's seen it impart.

By the time Brown retires today, he will have coached football for 47 years, not so much as a game of passing, catching, running and hitting, but as a tool to help boys learn how to live their lives.

“We use football as a vehicle for teaching life skills,” says Brown, 76.

Eleven very ambitious life skills, to be exact, including some of his favorites: Do your best. Never give up. Deal with adversity proactively. Always give an extra 20 percent to be “exceptional.” Never take shortcuts.

“All the characteristics we teach are all life skills that you control,” Brown says.

He's taught these skills to generations of Naperville boys, boys who have grown to become men and in some cases, fellow coaches.

Brown's big-picture perspective helps him convey that life isn't all about football — even while he's teaching boys to play and enjoy the sport, says one player who's now a coach, Pat New, of Benet Academy in Lisle.

“Part of it is just his personality. He just takes that bigger perspective on life. He never gets too caught up in trivialities,” said New, who played on a St. Raphael's team coached by Brown when he was in fifth grade in the 1970s. “He's always thinking of the big picture and how one learns a lesson from life experiences.”

Paul O'Toole, a former St. Raphael's player who is taking over the program's presidency from Brown, said he frequently uses many of Brown's favorite life lessons.

“In football, you get knocked down, you get up. You have a bad day at work, you get back up. You don't give up. You practice hard, work hard, get ready for the season or the game,” said O'Toole, 51. “It's the same thing with work or homework at school.”

Creating a culture

Brown began coaching for St. Raphael's in 1969, when the man in charge of the league put out a call for help at the church Brown attended. Brown had an interview and didn't hear back for three days, despite being the only candidate for the volunteer position.

A former high school quarterback from Michigan who practiced for a couple of weeks with the Northwestern football team when he was in college, Brown got the gig. He's kept up the tradition of carefully scrutinizing volunteer coaches ever since.

“Every coach is vetted to make sure they are capable of using positive reinforcement only,” Brown said. “We never demean a kid or say anything that will have a negative impact on his self-esteem.”

Even with the bad rap football gets for putting players at risk for concussions or breeding violence, Brown says there's no good reason not to play the sport in a positive environment where safe tackling skills are emphasized.

“The main concern isn't physical injuries, it's mental injuries,” Brown said. “I'd be most concerned about getting my child with a coach that destroys his self-esteem. We guard against that; it's part of our culture.”

Culture is a big focus for Brown, who has coached more than 15,000 kids during his 47 years. And it's what he covered in his book, “More Than a Game,” a collection of stories with messages that apply to child development.

Even while teaching big life lessons — fulfill your commitments at all costs, act from your values in everything you do, be a leader in your own way — Brown kept the game enjoyable, New remembers.

“Mr. Brown was the greatest at just keeping it fun, keeping it light for all of us,” New said.

As a kid, New said he soaked it in, reveled in the joy of the game.

“Then you realize how that approach really works,” he said.

‘You can't lose'

Brown most enjoyed working with eighth-graders — St. Raphael's oldest among players as young as first grade. The program had 2,500 players at its peak, but with more sports options in Naperville, fewer kids as the city ages and a decrease in football participation during the past three years because of safety concerns, next fall's enrollment is expected to be between 1,500 and 2,000.

The league might need slightly fewer coaches, but they'll all be just as meticulously chosen.

Ray McGury of the Naperville Park District, who volunteered to coach when two of his sons played in the league, remembers his interview with Brown before he was allowed to help. He said it's part of the way Brown built a constructive environment where players and parents alike know it's about more than the score and the action on the field.

“Sometimes parents can be more of a problem than the kids could ever be, and so Jim was the teacher of both,” McGury said. “Jim was not going to tolerate parents that vicariously live through their kids because they think they're the next Walter Payton, Brett Favre, whoever.”

The end result of all the thoughtful volunteer selection, positive atmosphere building and life lesson teaching is a reputation that carries throughout the sprawling city of Naperville.

“When you say St. Raphael's football, that means something,” McGury said. “It's not because of the caliber of players — it's the caliber of people.”

Now O'Toole, who considers Brown almost like a “father figure,” will be the next face of the league with its in-house teams for younger players, its travel teams of boys from five churches, and its feeder teams for schools including Benet, Naperville Central and North, and Metea, Neuqua and Waubonsie Valley high schools.

Brown has one piece of advice for his successor, and it's something O'Toole already has heard.

“If you can use football to teach life skills, you can't lose,” Brown says. “You can lose a game, but you can't lose in life.”