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Dr.
Clarence Noe
1929 - 2009 |
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Dr. Clarence Noe, January 29, 1929 -
August 18, 2009, Clarence Noe, Ed.D. educator
for 42 years, with the last 39 years working for
the Broward School System. He served for 25
years as the County Director of Athletics from
1972-1996, the year he retired. Dr. Noe was born
on January 29, 1929 in Nabb, IN. He married
Beverly Ann Luckett from Louisville, KY on June
1, 1955. He is survived by his wife Beverly and
four children, Jerry Noe (Lakeland, FL), Terry
Noe Waites, (Tampa, FL), Brad Noe, (Lighthouse
Pt., FL), and Shari Noe, (Lakeland, FL). They
have seven grandchildren: Lindsey Waites, Andy
Waites, Nicholas Waites, Rebecca Noe,
Christopher Mikalsen, Michael Noe and Kristen
Noe. He graduated from New Washington High
School in 1947 in New Washington, IN. He
received his Bachelors' Degree in 1954 and the
Master Degree in 1957, both from Indiana
University, Bloomington, IN. He attended the
University of Louisville for two years prior to
transferring to Indiana University. He lettered
two years in varsity baseball at the University
of Louisville. He served in the U.S Air Force
from Feb. 1947 through Dec. 1949. His first
teaching/coaching position was at Lexington High
School, in Lexington, IN as the basketball,
cross-country, baseball coach and the athletic
director. The Noe Family moved to Ft. Lauderdale
in 1957, where Clarence was head of the physical
education department, track, and cross country
coach. He served as the Stranahan Dean of Boys
in 1966-67. He was appointed County Supervisor
of Driver Education and Physical Education in
1967. He was appointed County Director of
Athletics in 1972, while still |
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serving
in charge of Driver Education, Physical Education and
Health Education for several years. Dr. Noe also served
as an Adjunct Professor for Florida Atlantic University
and Nova Southeastern University for several years in
the curriculum areas of Driver Education, Physical
Education, Coaching and Athletic Administration. He
served as the Driver Education State Association
President in 1976, the first Past President of the
Florida Interscholastic Athletic Administrators'
Association in 1979 and the 4th President for the
National Interscholastic Athletic Administrator
Association in 1983, which had over 5000 schools as
members. He also was the first President for the Broward
County Track and Field Association in 1970-71. He was
active in the Florida Athletics Coaches Association
during his years as a coach at Stranahan High School. He
was a Charter Board Member of the Broward County Chapter
for the Brian Piccolo Football Hall of Fame. He served
on the Broward County Parks and Recreation Board from
1981-83 and 1985-1991. He also served as President of
the Sunset Community School Organization in 1969-70. He
was a lifetime member of Phi Epsilon Fraternity, a
National Physical Education Organization. Dr. Noe
received many awards and honors during his professional
career. He was chosen Broward County Track Coach of the
year by the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel Newspaper in
1965 and Broward County Track Coach of the year by the
Miami Herald Newspaper in 1966. He also served as the
Head Referee for the Florida High Schools Boys and Girls
State Track Meets for 30 years. He was inducted into the
Florida High School Track Coaches Association Hall of
Fame in 1990 and into the Florida High School Activities
Association Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2006 he was awarded
the Jimmy Carnes Lifetime Achievement Award for Track.
He has received
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numerous other Association Meritorious and
Distinguish Service Awards. He also served as a
Lecturer, Moderator, and Panelist for a great number of
State and National Athletic Conferences. He had three
articles published in three different professional
magazines; also he helped in writing two Athlectic
booklets for coaches and athletic directors. He wrote
the Constitution and By-Laws for the Broward County
Gulfstream Middle School Athletic Conference and served
as the Executive Director from 1975 to 1996. He also
wrote the Broward County Athletic Association
Constitution and By-Laws for the High Schools and served
as Commissioner of the Conference from 1978 to 1996,
when he retired. Dr. Noe truly enjoyed his lifetime
working with the schools, coaches, and students and was
always trying to make a safe and enjoyable place for
competition, but with everyone having an equal
opportunity for fair competition. There will be a
Celebration of his Life/Memorial at John Knox Village in
Pompano Beach on September 5, 2009 at 2pm. In lieu of
flowers, contributions in Dr. Noe's memory may be made
to: Florida Brain Tumor Association, P.O. Box 770182,
Coral Springs, FL 33077-0182.
Published in
Sun-Sentinel on August 21, 2009
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Coach Noe taught a lot more than just track and field
By John Bogert Staff Columnist
Posted: 09/03/2009
There was a nicely surreal moment during the surreal summer
of 1969, in the
terrifying seconds after a mounted police charge sent me
fully clothed into
the long reflecting pool that lay between the Washington
Monument and
Lincoln Memorial.
It was a lot like that scene in "Forrest Gump" where Tom
Hanks wades across
that same shallow pool in almost the exact same spot. Only
the difference,
aside from Gump being smarter, was how I emerged on the
other side to hear
the voice of my high school track coach.
Billy Graham was up on the I-had-a-dream steps offering
reassurance, but all
I could hear was the only voice on this planet that could
have brought me up
short.
If you have ever worked with a good coach you'll understand
how the voice of
a coach can be far more chilling than the voice of a parent.
That's because
there is no arguing with coach, no pleading with coach and
absolutely no
remorse.
It's a lot like the Stockholm Syndrome.
And here's what coach said slowly and disapprovingly but
somehow approvingly
at the same instant, "Bogert! You knucklehead!"
It was my former high school track coach, Clarence Noe up
from Florida with
his family, standing in that crowd of maybe 200,000 in the
exact spot where
I emerged soaking from the slime water.
Worse, he was giving me the unamused straight face. And the
only effect that
had on me was the fast onset of shame and the certain
knowledge that I had
let coach down, even
though he hadn't been my coach for four years.
I'm overstating nothing when I say that few people influence
us more or are
as much honored in a nation that bestows few full-time
honorary titles
beyond doctor, reverend, rabbi and coach.
This is especially true of the coaches that influence our
extreme youth for
better or worse, coaches who forever remain coaches in our
minds solely
because they attempted to make us better at things that we
probably should
have avoided in favor of academics.
But once the madness and a slight talent for a particular
endeavor are
recognized, there must be a coach.
And this was my coach, Clarence Noe.
Sure, I had others later, in college, men who coached big
teams and famous
athletes. One coached the U.S. Olympic teams. But
world-class, in my
experience, doesn't necessarily mean someone with a heart.
And reputation
certainly doesn't mean he will be the kind of coach who can
take young men
who are something less than stars and improve them in a
better sense.
I'm not talking just about running here because running,
like all athletics,
is transitory at its peak levels and always headed for a sad
end. I'm
talking about the important things learned in training,
learned while
winning, losing, aching and by example.
It's nothing new. It happened to you if you were lucky, and
it will happen
to our children if they are lucky. And it happens, at its
best, without
bombast.
Take Coach Noe, a guy who never channeled the Gipper, which
is just as well
because I had a problem with authority.
With this coach it was a willingness to give us all a
chance. Noe was
already, back in the mid-1960s when I met him, the father of
four and maybe
that shone through as it does in some men, this
fatherliness, this knack
(though he was only then in his 30s) for discovering the
place where you are
neither burning kids out or making things too easy.
It was a matter of letting us know that we could do better,
that he expected
more. Don't ask me how he communicated this because he never
openly
criticized beyond calling us knuckleheads.
Yet he did gift an entire generation of boys with the
training and
inspiration that brought some big victories and, more
importantly, with a
self-knowledge that stays with many of us still. Not
surprisingly I heard
from some of those guys last week when Coach Noe died of
congestive heart
failure down in Florida, where he had a much bigger,
25-year, second act as
director of athletics for Broward County.
In 1996 the Indiana-born (now) Dr. Noe was inducted into the
Florida High
School Athletic Association Hall of Fame which is no small
feat in a
sports-mad state.
I spoke to him not long after that, after he retired to the
kind of
accolades that he dismissed with a "Yeah, yeah, yeah," with
a reaction
straight out of a now-vanished time when athletes didn't
thump their own
chests and coaches were there to made sure that they didn't.
I began that conversation with, "Coach, I don't know if you
remember me "
After a yawning chasm of years he cut me off with the names
of the four guys
on our sprint relay team, "Beasley, Bogert, Jennings and
Deveney. John, are
you staying out of water at least?"
That was the man, laughing at me, but not too much.
Then, and where he got this I don't know, "I heard that you
became a
reporter. Well, I'm just glad that you have a job."
And I was happy that I had somehow pleased with my adult
life a man that I
once talked to endlessly on long road trips to track meets
in distant
Southern places.
This, I tell you, was a man who could somehow corral a pack
of independent
contractors into something called a track team. And he
actually liked us as
boys and liked, I think, the men hidden within boys half out
of their minds
with nearly uncontrollable energy.
His obvious pleasure with the things I told him only renewed
and reinforced
the impression he made on me the day he encouraged me to
come out for his
team.
Maybe this isn't much as things go, but it meant the world
to me that day we
spoke and in subsequent conversations that he still cared,
that he still
remembered a neglected boy with a bad knee and a dream, a
kid looking for
glory and finding instead a father and an example of exactly
how a man ought
to act.
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If you have memories of Coach Noe you would
like to share, please contact the webmaster:
graham@stranahan67.com |
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