By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
Only a handful of people have won state coach of the year honors in two sports. But that was hardly the most remarkable quality of Will Marston, whose impact over 55 years at Haughton High School and in the coaching community was profound and indelible.
Marston, 78, was lovingly remembered Monday by coaching colleagues and many others after he passed away, ending a battle with lymphoma.
His loyalty to the community and school, and to his players and coaching and teaching colleagues, resonated as they shared memories and comforted his son Michael, a Buccaneers’ assistant coach. His willingness to mentor younger coaches, and his unflinching willingness to step in and help Haughton High in any way possible, were treasures shared by HHS coaching mainstays Jason Brotherton and Glenn Maynor.
“To know Will was to love him. He was a fun guy to be around,” said Maynor, the Buccaneers’ baseball coach for 31 years and also for many years, a football assistant. “He was as old school as old school could be, and I mean that in as good a way as possible. Great values — he taught us all.”
Brotherton’s father, Bob, was a coaching colleague of Marston’s. It went much deeper.
“Coach Marston was the head coach when I was playing. When I got hired here (as an assistant coach) in 1998, he was still the head coach. He was the first coach I worked under.
“When I got the (head coaching) job (in 2016, succeeding Rodney Guin), he was still very much around here. He was always an encourager to me, when things weren’t going good. He was always positive, telling me to stick with it,” said Brotherton, who moved into an assistant principal’s role last spring. “Of course, he could always tell me when I thought we were really good, we weren’t that good. He could point that stuff out, but he did it with a kind heart and in a loving way.”
A Coushatta native and proud Northwestern State graduate, Marston came to Haughton out of college in 1969 and never left. He was an assistant football coach for Bobby Ray McHalffey, defensive coordinator for the 1977 3A state champions, until being elevated to head coach for the 1984 season. By then, he had already started the Buccaneers’ baseball program in 1973 and earned Class 3A state coach of the year honors when he guided HHS to the 1981 state finals.
In 1990, Marston won state coaching honors in football after guiding the Bucs to the 1989 semifinals and the 1990 quarterfinals, high points of his 15-season run with 101 victories. He handed off to Guin, a longtime assistant who spent 16 seasons in charge of the Bucs and now is the championship-winning coach at Calvary Baptist. Guin cites Marston’s influence in his coaching career. He’s not alone.
“My first taste of dealing with Coach Marston, was when I was hired in 1994 after playing baseball at Northwestern, and I was told I’d coach football as well,” recalled Maynor. “I had no background at all in football.
“Coach Marston was the right man to take me under his wing. I got to where I just loved football,” he said. “He taught me a lot of about football, and about being a coach.
“It didn’t take me long to be Haughton-ized, to get into the fraternity. Haughton’s a special place because of people like coach Marston, people who get here and never leave. Neither of us was a Haughton guy; he was from Coushatta, I was from Airline. In the end we’ll be remembered as Buccaneers, and there’s not a truer Buccaneer than Will Marston.”
It wasn’t just what he did, noted Brotherton. It was what he said, and how he said it.
““He had so many Marston-isms, funny sayings he would come up with. It’s amazing how a man can say something that at the time seems insignificant and barely makes sense, but it sticks with you. And as time goes on, you see the wisdom.”
Added Maynor: “You remember stuff like him saying, if it was raining, ‘it’s Buccaneer weather.’ If it was too hot, or too cold, ‘it’s Buccaneer weather.’ Kids today are saying that and have no idea where it originated.
“He would tell a defensive lineman, over and over, ‘son, when your butt faces the sideline, you cease to become a football player.’ Or ‘not but two people touch your outside arm and leg – that’s your mama and your girlfriend.’ Those lines are funny, but if you think about them, it’s teaching football, so kids can understand.”
After Marston stepped down as head football coach, he didn’t step away. He stayed on as defensive coordinator for two years under Guin.
“It takes special relationships for that to happen,” said Maynor. “He helped Rodney get going, and those were a couple of our best teams when he was defensive coordinator.”
He helped Maynor coach freshman football in 2004. It wasn’t the first time Marston took a supporting role under a much younger coach. A year out of NSU, Maynor needed an assistant baseball coach, and guess who stepped up?
Last Friday Marston was in the waning stages of life, unable to make it to Haughton’s home game against Natchitoches Central. But Brotherton is convinced he influenced the Bucs’ dramatic victory.
“He was always here on Friday nights, but not this time. We knew it was going to be the last game of his life, and we won it on a goalline stand. I don’t know if we’ve done that in 10 years; first and goal at the 4 and we stopped them. It was incredible, unexpected. I have no doubt in my mind, the football gods let that happen for Coach Marston.
“He was a man who loved this school and this community. He loved the Bucs.”
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com