I hate being late with this, especially in congragulating a man who has been good to his players and school from day one. He was great to the media, too, including me. Except for one time.
OK, technically I wasn't in the media at the time. And it was his job not to be nice to me, or the 40 or so people with me, all dressed in black and gold who made a trip to Munster one night.
That was the night I played my first game as a varsity football player for Gary Roosevelt in 1973. That first game was against Munster and for the record, we lost to the Mustangs that night, but my mom, God bless her soul, kept the program from that night, a program I still have.
Munster's head coach at the time was first team all-class guy John Friend and one of his assistants was a guy named Leroy Marsh who would take over not only the coaching job a short time later, but also the all-class thing as well. So my first time dealing with Marsh was not very pleasant.
But boy would my dealings with Marsh get better as the years went on.
Marsh, a guy who's successful head coaching career shot down the theory that nice guys finish last, retired last week after 45 years of coaching, 10 conference championships, five sectional titles, a regional championship, induction into the Indiana football hall of fame, and countless numbers of people who would find out that football wasn't the only thing Marsh mastered.
He, along with his wife Jaime were the one-two punch in carrying the torch that Friend lit in continuing Munster's run as a first class football operation. And they did with class, winning football, and let us not forget, pizza and club sandwiches.
(if you never covered a Munster football game and experienced Jaime's game time food spread in the press box, then booooy did you miss out).
And now, that is over with Marsh retiring from coaching football but happily remaining as a teacher at the school. Two things you can take from this: one, Munster football will never be the same. And two: whoever becomes the new head coach will have a super tough act to follow.