Coach found a fullback; Chuck Lewis found a dad

GARY CORSAIR DAILY SUN

The spent man lay motionless under Skyline Medical Center sheets and incandescent lights.
     His visitor, who traveled 642 miles from The Villages to reconnect with his hero, was taken aback.
     Coach Brimm had been so robust. He’d always had a presence - a persona - that commanded respect.
     But Father Time had battered the legendary coach who shaped hundreds of boys into men — the coach whose teams were 9-1, 7-3, 8-2, 8-2, 9-1, 9-1, 10-0, 8-1-1 and 7-2-1 from 1955 through 1963.
     The 89-year-old tethered to the heart monitor had been wrestled to the turf by old age, knocked out of bounds by a stroke.
     Chuck Lewis, Madison High School Class of ’61, pulverizing linebacker and punishing fullback, strode to the bed.
     “I wanted to make sure he felt my love, and stuff. I gave him a great big hug, gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him I would not have had the success I did without him,” said Lewis, of the Village of Orange Blossom Gardens.
     The hug was long and strong.
     The frail man in the Nashville hospital didn’t respond.
     “Then I stepped back,” Lewis said. “And then I gave him another hug and another kiss’
     No one who knew Chuck Lewis at age 17 would have thought him capable of such tenderness.
     “Chuck was probably one of the toughest players in Nashville,” said Johnny Jenkins, who played in the same backfield as Lewis. “You’d look into his eyes and see the fire burning. He was — still is — an intense guy. He doesn’t back off If you were picking guys for a sandlot game, he’d be the first guy you’d pick. He was a linebacker; he hurt people, he literally people:’
     Lewis would have plowed through brick and mortar for Bill Brimm.
     Most of Brimm’s boys felt that way.
     “Coach Brimm had a big impact on all of us. He was a solid disciplinarian who expected a lot of you,” Jenkins said.
     Lewis may have been Brimm’s most gung-ho player.
     “We wore white headgear, and my goal was to have the other team’s colors on my helmet,” Lewis said. “I loved to lower my head and drive it into people. There’s no space between my fourth and fifth vertebrae today,’ and I’m sure it’s from the way I hit people on the football field:’
     Like father, like son.
     “His daddy was all-city. So there was a heritage of being a hard-nosed, gifted athlete,” Jenkins said.
     Lewis heard all the stories while growing up. But he didn’t want to follow his dad, who moved to Detroit, started a family and became a prizefighter after his exceptional prep foot ball career in Nashville. Chuck wanted to erase the memory of Andrew Gotau Lewis.
“He never knew how to be a dad. I didn’t want to be like him,” Chuck said. “He drank too much and ‘he didn’t have time for me. He’d get into bar fights and I'd have to go pick him up.”
     The family came apart when Chuck was in sixth grade.
     Chuck checked out after his mom remarried.
     “He came from Detroit to live with his grandparents,” Jenkins said.
     “I wanted to go. South to beat my daddy’s records,” Chuck said.
     If ever a boy needed a role model, it was Chuck Lewis.
     His need was met at Madison High School, just across the river from DuPont, where Chuck’s dad had been a football star.
     “Coach Brimm took me under his wing,” Chuck said. “He saw something in me:’
     And Chuck saw what a father should be: caring but firm, patient but demanding.
     “When I grew up, a lot of kids had idols in baseball, football and basketball’— a pro athlete that they wanted to be like. But I never had an idol like that. Coach Brimm was an idol to me. He inspired me to keep going,” Lewis said.
Chuck responded with big performances week after week.
     One of Chuck’s biggest games came the night pouring rain delayed the fan bus. He scored two touchdowns against Central High before the bus pulled in. Never one to disappoint, Chuck scored three more TDs after his schoolmates arrived.
     Chuck averaged two and a half touchdowns per game and was named All-State honorable mention after playing 42 consecutive quarters — that’s every quarter of every game for four years.
     After a stellar college football career, Chuck followed Brimm into coaching. And he did his coach/father/mentor proud by winning seven state track-and- field championships and 10 city titles.
     “My coaching career wouldn’t have happened with out him,” Chuck said. “With out him, I would have ended up being a wage roller at the DuPont factory, a line worker. And that’s OK; that’s American. But Coach Brimm showed me I could do more:’
     When news of Brimm’s stroke reached Chuck, he rushed to be by his coach’s side.
     “I felt I was meant to be there after his stroke, just like he was meant to be there when I moved down from Detroit Chuck said.
     Friday, Brimm was awake and active when Chuck visited. He hopes to be released to the assisted-living facility he chosen as home since his wife passed away last month.
     Today, Lewis will point the car toward Florida — but not before giving coach one more loving squeeze.

     Gary Corsair is managing editor and columnist. He can be reached at gary.corsair@tiIagesmedia.com or 7853-1119, ext. 7907.