Edgar Randall has coached basketball the past 36 winters. He’s coached on the collegiate level with Division II West Virginia State University’s men and women, at Williamsburg Christian Academy and Bruton High and, most recently, on the middle school boys and girls level.
Good health always was a friend to the former basketball star at York High and West Virginia State. Since breaking his wrist playing basketball as an eighth-grader, he hadn’t been hospitalized until a laboratory test in September showed that his hemoglobin count was dangerously low.
Further tests revealed that he had colon cancer, a surprise for someone who had his colon examined every two or three years and counseled middle aged men at his church, New Zion Baptist in Williamsburg, to do the same. So this winter, Randall, 60, is trading daily trips to the gym for three days of chemotherapy every other week.
“I’m missing basketball, but not a lot,” said Randall, a health and physical education teacher and girls basketball coach at Hornsby Middle School in James City County. “My health is my No. 1 priority right now, so the main thing is that I have to be patient and put myself before others.
“I look at this as a faith walk. I knew something was happening with my body, so this (diagnosis) is God’s way of answering my prayers and showing me what it was.”
Those who know Randall are not surprised by the calm and faith he’s exhibiting amid adversity. To them it is one more example of a man whose pastor, sons and former players have long considered him a role model.
His sons, Brandon and Bryan Randall, say that Randall provided a template for them on how to be a husband and father. Both are married — Brandon is the father of three, while Bryan has a 3-month-old daughter.
“He’s always been the perfect father and the perfect citizen in my eyes,” Bryan Randall said. “He’s been that example that, as I’ve grown older, I didn’t mind following in his footsteps.
“He’s been the perfect model of being a father, with his work ethic and the way he provided for us. He provided opportunities for us to succeed and always treated our mother (Belinda) with respect.”
Brandon Randall, said, “He was extremely involved and always available. Just the amount of time he fully committed, I don’t think you can really understand that until you become a parent.
“I can see that by comparison with other parents now, that they are so busy the kids get put on the back burner. My dad always had a lot of stuff going on, but he always had time for us and he always took the time to make everything a lesson and opportunity to learn and grow.
“I respect that and strive to do the same. I’m not on his level and probably never will be, but I strive to do exactly what he did with us.”
Edgar Randall’s boys turned out well after leading Bruton High to the 2000 Group AA basketball state championship. Brandon went on to play basketball for four years at Hampden-Sydney College, where he was valedictorian of his graduating class, and is now in management at Anheuser-Busch in Williamsburg.
Bryan, who begins a management job later this month at the Newport News shipyard, was a star quarterback at Virginia Tech and has played football professionally indoors for more than a decade.
Dontee Heard, a teammate of Brandon and Bryan on AAU and middle school teams more than two decades ago, said that Edgar Randall’s influence positively affects him to this day.
Heard said that when Belinda and Edgar Randall learned he did not have a ride home from practices they began providing them. Then they offered to give him a ride to and from church on Sundays as well. Heard wasn’t a church-goer, but agreed and says he is better for it.
Heard says Randall also gave special attention to help him add variety to his basketball game. He improved enough to help Heritage High reach the AAA basketball state tournament a few years later.
“He helped me understand what it is to be accountable, be a man, take responsibility and actually work hard for something,” said Heard, now an accounting supervisor for a jet engine manufacturer in North Carolina. “To receive that from someone who isn’t your parent, or related to you in any regard, that’s a type of a testimony on his part to invest that kind of energy and time with kids when he doesn’t have to.”
Randall might not know what to do with himself were he not teaching, coaching or working with kids. He coaches Warhill’s golf team in the fall, Hornsby Middle School girls basketball in the winter, then umpires youth baseball games in the spring and summer.
“I love athletics and love being around kids,” Randall said.
What he’s missed most is the golf course. His season coaching Warhill was cut short by cancer, but he is confident the chemotherapy will be successful and he’ll guide the Lions promising team next fall.
“It’s so peaceful on the golf course, almost like a second church prayer meeting,” Randall said.
Robert A. Whitehed Sr., pastor of New Zion Baptist, will tell you that much of Randall’s peace comes from prayer. Randall is a deacon at New Zion and leader of the men’s ministry group that has done missionary work in New Orleans and other places.
Brandon Randall says faith has always come first for his father — with family, education and then athletics following in that order — and is the reason he is handling the cancer diagnosis so calmly. Whitehead agrees.
“His faith plays a great part for him,” Whitehead said. “For what he’s gone through so far in terms of treatments, he’s doing extremely well.
“He’s an example for people that are going through different challenges right now, that you can make it and can’t let it defeat you. He has a good moral compass and a winning attitude. … And with his faith background, he knows he’s not going through it alone.”
