LITTLE ROCK — In 1968, Gene Copeland’s Little League team was tied with the bases loaded in the semifinal game when he sent his 12-year-old son into the pressure cooker to pitch.
“For putting [me] in that situation, my mom could have wrung his neck,” Scott Copeland said.
However, pitching was only a portion of the equation, and Copeland had some words of wisdom for Walt Dickinson Jr., the young catcher: “I don’t care if you have to catch it with your teeth, you stop that ball.”
The team went on to win the state championship.
Walter E. “Gene” Copeland died Sunday at Hospice Home Care in Little Rock from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
He was 86.
Growing up in southwest Little Rock, Copeland told stories about the “rough trek” from his house to the school.
“He was getting paid by [another] kid’s family to walk him to-and-from,” Scott Copeland said. “He was kind of the protection. He was not very big, but he was tough.”
In high school, Copeland played for the Little Rock American Legion Doughboys.
“[Baseball] was always his first love,” his son said. “He was a really good pitcher ... he had really good control.”
After serving in the U.S. Navy and earning a college degree, Copeland spent most of his career in life insurance as a “numbers cruncher,” which fit his obsessive-compulsive personality, his son said.
“If he wanted to have a conversation on a specific topic with me, he’d have a legal pad out with notes on it,” ahead of time, Scott Copeland said. “Everything was organized.”
In 1958, Copeland began coaching a PONY Baseball League team, with his 3-yearold son as bat boy.
“That should have been what he did for a living,” his son said. “He was a good teacher. He was a good motivator. He knew how far to push you.”
As a young child, Scott Copeland said his father had him start pitching off the field.
“Once summer started, I threw six innings every day,” his son said. “It didn’t matter if it was the Fourth of July or what holiday it was. If it wasn’t raining outside, we were out there.”
Until 1970, Copeland coached Little League players.
“He was just a good fundamentals coach,” Dickinson said. “[He] would get the best out of the players he had and made them feel good about the game.”
Scott Copeland, who coached baseball and softball for 16 years, said he learned accountability from his father’s coaching style, which left no room for excuses.
Once, Copeland had a player that was “fast as lightning,” but had trouble concentrating and missed two steal signals while standing on first base, his son said.
“Dad called time-out, walked halfway out to the field and yelled at the top of his lungs, ‘Andrew, steal second on the next pitch,’” which he finally did, Scott Copeland said. “We laughed about that for years.”
Copeland had a soft spot for boys growing up in tough neighborhoods.
About midnight one evening, he woke up to a call from a young teenage player.
“One of his players got caught stealing a car,” Scott Copeland said. “He called Dad and Dad went out there and handled it for him, bailed him out, talked to his parents,” and allowed him to stay on the team.
It was countless scenarios like that that made Copeland more than just a baseball coach, his son said.
“He came out on the wrong side of the tracks and made it and wanted to help other kids [succeed],” Scott Copeland said.
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 11/14/2012