Not fastball related, but for those in the Long Beach, California area, I wanted to pass along the information relating to the memorial service for Coach Robert Seymour, to be held on Saturday:
A memorial service will take place at California Heights United Methodist Church, 3759 Orange Avenue, Long Beach, on Saturday, June 26, 2010, at 11:00 am. A reception will follow the service in the Bob Seymour Gymnasium at Stanford Middle School, 5871 E. Los Arcos St., Long Beach.
Click here to read the obituary published in the Long Beach Press Telegram, noting Coach as one of the 100 top sports figures in Long Beach, CA. He was 77.
As the article notes:
A partial list of the athletes he taught and coached in those 31 years reads almost like a “Who’s who” of area sportsmen:
Major League Baseball players Jeff Burroughs, Dave Frost and Ed Crosby; current Cal men’s basketball coach Mike Montgomery; Michael Wiley, who led Poly to a 1976 CIF championship before playing basketball at LBSU and in the NBA; Poly football standouts Leonard Russell, who played in the NFL, and the late Kirk Jones; Three-time Olympic volleyball player Bob Ctvrtlik, who played the sport at Wilson High, LBCC and LBSU before transferring to Pepperdine, where he helped the Waves win a national title; Jim Ferguson, a basketball standout at Millikan, LBCC (where he played for future Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson) and Texas Christian, and longtime basketball coach at Wilson.
I was fortunate to have been a student of his, and played for the Stanford basketball team under Coach Seymour. For those who didn’t know him, the best description I can think of would be to say he could have been Coach John Wooden’s twin brother. Whether you were among the notables listed above, or any other student, you were treated the same. His firm kindness and knack for teaching life’s lessons will be remembered by all who had the good fortune to know Coach Seymour.