COVER S10ZY
For the most part, Ray Lee is a family
man. His idea of a good time is renting a movie
or going to a Softball game to watch his daugh
ters, Brittney, 6, and Jessica, 8, play. He takes
his daughters to practice with him during the
season (MMy wife and I talk about (life) B.C.,
before children," he says. "But I wouldn't trade
them for anything.") .
Ray Lee is also a good cook, with his spe
cialties being pepper steak and sweet potato
pie. His wife reports that the coach believes he
spoils here, and sometimes he'll stop with the
Betty Crocker stuff. 1 *
"He just doesn't do enough of it," Sue
said.
But when Smith loses a football game,
Ray Lee changes. He's not much of a yeller
and a screamer, but losing bothers the man.
He's a perfectionist. When Smith blew a
chance for its first winning season in 10 years
by failing at N.C. Central in its final game last
year, Lee stormed off the field. Bulls alumni
and friends offered handshakes. He shook
quickly and kept walking. When he got to
Smith's dressing room, he slammed his clip
board against the wall, breaking it in three
pieces.
Then, he walked back and forth down a
hallway, like a father waiting on an overdue
child. No doubt, later that night, he and Sue got
little sleep. Whenever Smith loses, Lee often
brings the game film home with him. He and
Sue will review that film, while Lee describes,
in intimate detail, what his team did wrong.
"I'm a sounding board," Sue Lee said.
"He just likes to replay those games out loud.
And he can remember everything."
All throughout theTee's house are memo
rabilia from his career, trinkets telling of Lee's
all-conference high school days as a linebacker
and offense guard at Lake Worth High School
in Boynton Beach, Fla., and of his college
career at Potomac (W. Va.) State Junior Col
lege and later West Virginia Wesley an.
Lee started for Wesleyan for two years at
tight end. Wesleyan ran a veer offense, and Lee
didn't catch many passes. "Just eight or nine in
two years," he said. "I Mocked a lot"
But he did meet his wife in college in
1981. They had a biology class together, and
Ray would always save Sue a seat next to him.
She never took it "I was bashful," she said. But
one day, Ray stopped her while she was walk
ing on campus.
"I laid the line on her,** he said.
Must've been some line. The pair got mar
ried in 1983, when Lee was working in Boyn
ton Beach as a highway patrol officer. Lee's
first job out of college bad been at Atlantic
(Fla.) High as an assistant, and after he wrote a
Coach Lee celebrates a victory with players.
w traffic tickets, he missed coaching. So in
>8$, he took a head junior varsity job at San
luces High in Lantana, Fla.
Then, in 1989, he applied for and got an
sistant coach's job at Providence High, a new
hool that was forming in Charlotte. But a few
tys before he was to move, he got a call from
est Virginia Wesleyan. They wanted him to
i an assistant coach. "And I'd always wanted
plished a lot considering he had such a young
team."
Said Jeremy Williams, a senior of Park"
wood's 1991 squad: "Coach Lee came in and
helped the program. He started turning things
around."
Lee was looking forward to returning to
Parkwood for his second year. He felt confi
everyone wrong.
$ I'm no whiner . . . you do the best
you can with what you've got.
to coach on the college level," Lee said.
The Lees stayed at Wesleyan for two
years, both earning their master's degrees. Ray
Lee, though, had always like North Carolina
and wanted to come back. In fact, he sub
scribed to a newspaper's Sunday edition and
eventually saw that Parkwood High in Monroe
was looking for a head football coach. And Lee
had always dreamed of being a head football
coach.
It happened quickly, the three interviews
and the long drives to Parkwood, but Lee got
his first head coaching job. It was now fall of
1991. By winter, Paikwoud has lost nine of 10
games. Still, there were signs that Lee was
doing the right things to change a piogiam that
had endured several years of losing seasons.
"He did things we liked," said Parkwood
athletic director Doug Jones, "and be accont
dent he could turn the program around, and as
he and his wife were driving to West Virginia
for Christmas vacation, that was what they
talked about Until Lee decided to stop to buy a
Charlotte Observer.
"I opened it up and I saw where Johnson
C. Smith's football coach resigned," he said. "It
stunned me. 1 thought about it. 1 thought my
chances were slim, but 1 always believed that
you can't hit a home run unless you go to bat"
Lee went to bat all right and he quickly
became one of four finalists, out of more than
20 candidates, to succeed John Wright at
Smjlh. And in February of 1992, Lee got the
job. He plans to stay.
This season, the conferences' coaches
have picked Smith to finish in the same place it
finished last year, tenth, or next to last Smith's
players say that they' re again going to prove
There have been some problems, (hough.
Lee lost assistant Sam Washington to N.C.
Central, and another assistant, Moses Sharpe,
who died of a heart attack in the off-season. On
top of that, Lee must replace both of his start
ing running backs, and one of them, Tyrone
Corlew, ran for 1,000 yards last year, some
thing no Smith player had done since Ernest
Williams in 1976.
"It's another challenge, or set of them, that
you have to overcome," Lee said.
"And I'm no whiner. I feel you do the best
you can with what you've got I look at Martin
Luther King's straggle. It showed me that no
matter hoW^nany times you get knocked down,
you can get up, fight on and succeed."
And Lee plans to fight on, to bring some
respect to Smith, one of the nation's oldest his
torically African-American institutions. He
wants people to know where his school is and
what it's about. It's almost as though he can
close his eyes, see the future, and write the per
fect ending to this story.
"I can see where we're at a banquet and
the players are receiving their championship
rings. That's the ultimate ending to a story like
this." Lee looks over at the poster of the cham
pionship rings on his wall. "And you tell me
one reason why we can't do it?** There is
silence in the room.
? LmmgMtom WertiJr.