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Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams







                 Column  June 3,2007

                 JACK MEEKS REMEMBERS COACH QUINN

                 The late Paul Quinn was the highly successful CHS head football coach from  1964-70.
                 His  teams  averaged  nearly  10  wins  per  year  and  his  1967  team  won  the  state
                 championship.  Coach Quinn was also a father figure to many of his players, including
                 Jack Meeks (1969).'

                 Jack  is  now  a  very  successful  man  himself.  He  is  now  the  senior  member  of  the
                 Jacksonville CPA firm Meeks, Ross, Paulk, and Associates.

                 Jack once told me what a profound influence Coach Quinn had had on his life, both as a
                 football  player  and  as  a  person.  So,  on  this  fortieth  anniversary  of  that  CHS  state
                 championship, I asked Jack to tell me his memories of Coach Quinn and this is what he
                 wrote, somewhat edited.

                 “When I first heard Coach Quinn had died, back in  1990, my mind drifted back to the
                 first time I had seen him.  I was in the eighth grade and he was the new CHS football
                 coach in Lake City.

                  Lake City is a football town but the CHS teams had not been very good in recent years.
                  But in Coach Quinn’s very first year, the Tigers played for a state championship. And I
                  knew we now had a real coach.

                  My first meeting with Coach Quinn came  when I was a ninth grader and went out for
                  the junior varsity team.  I was big for my age and had always played in the line.  But on
                  the  very  first  day  of  practice,  Coach  Quinn  told  me  he  was  going  to  make  me  his
                  quarterback.  The  quarterback!  In  my  world  of  1965,  I  wouldn’t  have  traded  those
                  magical words for all the money in the world.

                  From  that  day  in  1965  until  I  graduated  in  1969,  Coach  Quinn  and  I  developed  an
                  increasingly close relationship.  I knew I was one of Coach Quinn’s players, the ultimate
                  honor, and I knew he always had my best interests at heart.

                  We all worked so hard for Coach Quinn and we won an incredible number of games.  We
                  even won a state championship!

                   I  knew  it was important to win  games for the team and the school, and of course  we
                  enjoyed the recognition we got by playing and winning.  But, the bottom line was that I,
                  and all my teammates, wanted to win for Coach Quinn.

                  Thanks to Coach Quinn I got a football scholarship to FSU.


                  Coach Quinn later left Lake City and moved to Lakeland, then Bartow.  He had meant so
                  much to me so I tried to stay in touch with him wherever he went.






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