(Virgil Peterson passed away two years ago today, on May 11, 2018. I wanted to remember my friend today.)
When my daughter Emily played violin in the orchestra at Bradley Middle School, one night they had an overnight party at a pizza/skee-ball/games place. While kids were eating, watching movies, and/or playing games, I ended up chatting with fellow parents, one of whom was Joe Zaas. As we talks, the subject of our own former teachers and their influence came up.
Joe described a man who’d been his coach at Highlands High School. While he was in college, Joe returned to Highlands a visit, he ran into his old coach, who told Joe he himself would be a coach one day.
Joe had never even considered the idea until then, but eventually went into coaching, and as we spoke was the head baseball coach at Jefferson. “I’d already graduated, and he was influencing me. Yeah, that Virgil Peterson is quite a man.”
Virgil Peterson?
You mean the man I’ve gone to church with for 30 years? The man who directed our church choir? The man I’d gone to Spurs games with?
Well, of course. It was clear then, and would only become more obvious over time, that there was only one Virgil Peterson.
Virgil was a powerful influence on everyone he got to know. Virgil was a teacher, coach, choir director, church council member, sports broadcaster, and pastor. Along the way, he served as a mentor in a variety of ways to many, many people, along with Joe and me. His work as a teacher and coach at Highlands High School (he was an assistant on the 1968 State Championship baseball team) afforded him the opportunity to touch thousands of lives. His energy and eagerness to be helpful placed him in many people’s lives, and his faith, love, strength, and integrity made him unforgettable.
As Bobby Stautzenberger, our executive producer at TSRN phrased it: Virgil knows everybody…. Everybody knows Virgil.
I met Virgil at MacArthur Park Lutheran Church. Virgil sang solos, sharing his rich, powerful baritone voice, and was also the Senior Choir director at MacArthur Park Lutheran Church. (We had several choirs at the time; the “Senior Choir” was the one for the grown-ups.) I had been participating in these choirs since I was about 6, but as of high school, I’d never worked with the Senior Choir although several of my friends were starting to.
Virgil selected a song for the choir to perform which had a guitar part, an unusual thing for their repertoire. He invited me to play for that song. Since the choir would practice several songs at a time, and that was the only one requiring guitar, I sat in and sang on the other songs they practice.
By the time we’d played the song with a guitar, I was in the habit of singing with them and effectively a member of the choir.
Yes, I fell for it. Naturally, being in the choir did create many great memories, but yes, at the start, I got roped.
I never was a student of Virgil’s, but seeing him lead the choir gave me an idea of how he worked. He was eternally patient. He guided people to continually improve while keeping his expectations reasonable. I don’t remember him losing his temper, but I do remember one time in particular where I saw how he could reprimand.
I don’t remember the details, but I think I wasn’t enunciating a word adequately, and he asked my section to sing a certain portion of the song again. I went teenager on him and over-enunciated the word.
He stopped us, looked at me, and said, without raising his voice in the least, “You know better than that.”
This was all he needed to do, and he knew it. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who experienced this.
Virgil had season tickets for the San Antonio Spurs, and he invited me to several games. Among our memories are David Robinson’s only three-pointer, Bob Bass’s first game as interim head coach after Larry Brown left in mid-season to coach the Clippers, one of Jerry Tarkanian’s nine wins as the Spurs’ head coach, a first half clinic by Patrick Ewing (overcome by a great second have from Robinson) and Sidney Green’s one great game for the Spurs.
Once I got into sports broadcasting, I realized that Virgil had everything it takes to be a terrific sports broadcaster. (This would be an example of my Amazing Grasp of the Obvious.) He had a very strong sports background, and had no fear of public speaking. He always prepared for each game, and always had plenty to say; if you needed Virgil to kill 5 minutes talking about a game that was 3-0 at halftime, he could do it.
Most of all, he had The Voice, the signature Golden Pipes of the one and only Virgil Peterson.
Don’t take my word for it. A couple of years ago, I was talking with Gabe Farias, friend, colleague, and longtime local sports broadcaster, about the upcoming high school football season. At one point, Gabe told me, “No disrespect to you, but our broadcaster with the best voice is Virgil.”
No disrespect taken. That’s the truth.
Gabe had more to say about Virgil’s gift though. “It’s like, `Virgil, could you read me a story? I’m having trouble sleeping; could I record you reading Green Eggs and Ham?'”
There’s more. In 2015, Virgil, Craig Estabrook, and I were broadcasting a game at Comalander Stadium when play was stopped by a lightning delay. While we were filling time waiting for play to resume, I let Virgil and Craig talk about the game statistics while I took a break. Jason Minnix of ESPN-San Antonio was also covering the game, so we chatted in the hallways about how to handle lightning delays. I suggested one trick in my saddlebag was to have Virgil read Grantland Rice’s poem “Football Alumnus,” which closes with this stanza:
“For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes – not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game.”
I suggested Virgil’s voice would be excellent for that.
Jason replied, “You could have Virgil read from the phone book!”
That’s a competitor saying that, mind you.
Even then, even as he was well in command in the broadcast booth, Virgil was on a decline. In the 1990’s, his van was T-boned as he was leaving a San Antonio Iguanas hockey game, and by the 2010’s, his knees were weakened to the point that he needed a walker to get around. The prospect of knee replacement surgery was dampened by his heart issues. I grew especially concerned after our last broadcast together, in September of 2017, a game at Heroes Stadium featuring Laredo United and Reagan High School, when Craig’s girl friend, Donna, offered to help him get to his car after the game. Normally, Virgil’s independent streak led him to politely decline. This time, he accepted.
Yet, none of his pain came through in his broadcast. Only those most familiar with him could hear a difference in his voice. Once we were on the air, the focus wasn’t about Virgil, it wasn’t about pain, it wasn’t about us. It was about the players and the game they were playing.
There’s more we could say about Virgil. There’s much more. As tireless as he was, as much as he did for so many for so long, one could spend a lifetime chronicling Virgil’s life and the lives he touched. I’m reminded of the last verse of the gospel of John:
“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they should be written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written.”
Virgil Peterson was a lot like that.
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