“Greatness comes along so rarely that when we see it we want to touch it.” (150)

This quote is a line from a former Messina football player giving a speech at Coach Rake’s funeral. The idea behind this line is simple and straightforward: greatness is a rare thing to achieve. This being said however, all of Coach Rake’s players reached greatness playing for him, and though many people dislike or even hate Rake, he was truly a great man with a few drastic mistakes. These mistakes would include the death of one of his players during their conditioning of running bleachers, and the fight with Neely Crenshaw in the ’87 championship game; both of which he apologizes for through a note at his funeral. Again, however, there were many ways in which he was a great, loving man: he loved his players even if he cussed at them and never showed affection. He hurt with every loss of his team the same way they did, even if he couldn’t accept losing and wouldn’t show that affection. He loved his family even if he dominated them at times. He genuinely cared for those that were mistreated or in need of care, and would see to it they were helped even if he didn’t get any credit for his work. He believed in equality of all races, genders, and kinds of people. His former players could never get his voice out of their head after graduating high school, and would always be reminded of him when they seemed about to fail. He was a constant source of motivation for his former players, and molded to them into better characters for the most part, with the exception of a few juvenile people that used to play for him. He taught the next generation valuable lessons, motivated them to achieve more than they thought possible by themselves, and those same lessons will be taught to the generation below them. And that is what makes Coach Rake a truly, truly great man.