Longtime football coach York is remembered for helping others
Tom York believed that winning wasn’t everything but playing to win was.
York, who coached football at Norfolk Academy and Hampton Roads Academy, adopted that approach and won 13 Tidewater Conference of Independent
Schools titles. He died last week after suffering a stroke a few months ago.
Many of his former athletes paid tribute to him, including former Norfolk Academy running back Guy Beverly.
The one thing that York taught him was to be humble in victory.
“You were a man who modeled true leadership,” Beverly wrote about York on the Norfolk Academy Instagram account. “I will always remember how you made me choose integrity over scoring. You always said that even if we could score, it wasn’t about
crushing the other guys. You were such a mentor and role model to all of your athletes, even after (Norfolk Academy).”
Beverly will never forget the game when York reminded him about integrity. Norfolk Academy had a big lead, and York called for a pitch to Beverly.
“He told me, ‘Just let the ball fly into the sideline,’ ” Beverly remembered. “I didn’t know what he meant. I caught the ball and ran into the end zone. He came back at me and got in my face and said, ‘Why did you go into the end zone?’ I told him, ‘I didn’t know what you meant.’ He said I was smiling so much in his face that he had to stop hollering at me.”
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Norfolk Academy. Two weeks ago, longtime track and cross country coach Ken Lampert died.
Like Lampert, Norfolk Academy athletic director Chad Byler had high praise for York.
“Whether it was teaching a middle school student algebra or a young man how to play football,” Byler said, “Tom York served with passion, like all great teacher-coaches and leaders.”
York, who also served as the Bulldogs’ athletic director for four years, left Norfolk Academy after 17 seasons. He took on another challenge when he became the head coach at HRA, a program that had gone 6-51 prior to his arrival.
“Our program was struggling a little bit to attract players because we had kids in school who weren’t playing, and Tom turned that around amazingly,” said HRA athletic director Max Gillespie. “Who wouldn’t want to play for Tom?”
Gillespie said York helped the Navigators become competitive and added that he left an impression with everyone he encountered.
“Tom really had a passion to help other people,” Gillespie said about York, who starred for the University of Massachusetts in 1968 and 1969 at linebacker and defensive end. “He did a great job with just helping students and would do anything in the world to help them in the classroom and in coaching. Anyone who gets involved in education, I think, hopefully wants to help others. No one did it better or more so than Tom York. He was amazing. He really was.”