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Holmes always had a few good men

Posted: July 16, 2008 - 11:30pm  |  Updated: July 16, 2008 - 11:48pm

Another name from Savannah's past left us recently.

Arvel Holmes, 87, who coached football at Savannah High for more than a decade, died July 1 in Gadsen, Ala.

Holmes was a well-traveled coach, but in between stops in at various Georgia and Alabama high schools, he stayed at Savannah High long enough to compile a 76-36-8 record from 1962 to 1974.

He left life as he lived it.

When you say that about Holmes, you know there is more to tell.

I met Arvel Holmes in the early '70s. He was the football coach at Savannah High, the old High School, down on Washington Avenue before anyone ever referred to it as The High.

You have to understand something of High School to understand Arvel, or maybe it is the other way around.

SHS had the best basketball team and the worst gym in the city.

The site for the school was originally intended for a hotel. When they built the gym someone must have thought they said 84 feet, not 94, and the substandard floor was surrounded by walls with elevated that earned the name "The Pit."

Holmes' football teams fit right in with the SHS scene. The practice field was a dirt patch son the side of the school that would have been a parking lot if it had more ambition.

From one of the largest talent pools in the city, Holmes winnowed out a few select players and won a pile of football games.

He would start with 45 or so players and be down to a more manageable 25 before the first kick off. The school had one of the toughest teams, and frequently one of the best.

His former players remember Holmes as a coach who believed in hard-nosed football and harder-nosed football players. He once told me that Savannah High was like the Marines, they only needed a few good men. By the time fall practice ended, he usually only had one platoon, but they were, indeed, good.

"He was one of those guys who believed the weak shall fall and strong shall survive," said Earl Etheridge, who played football for Holmes at a small high school in Escambia, Alabama and was later reunited with him in Savannah.

Etheridge is one of the few who played for Holmes, coached for him and later coached against him. He remained a lifelong friend who visited Holmes just days before he died.

Holmes is the second local coach to pass away recently, and he and M.A.. Spellman were far apart in demeanor and attitudes.

But they had enough in common to understand why Holmes had such a profound effect on the many he coached - a few at a time.

"If you played for him, you understood him," Etheridge said. "You mumbled about him under your breath, but you knew you weren't going to give out - you had already done that. He had a tremendous loyalty to those who played for him and those around him."

Holmes believed in basic football. Run when possible (or not), exploit weaknesses, have more endurance and more will that the other guys.

His other hallmark was fairness. That's not the same as niceness, and inclusion as practiced in the modern world was incomprehensible to him.

He wanted the few, the best, and he made them the toughest.

And, at the end of the day and the end of this life, he was true to himself, which is more than most of us can say.

Told he had liver cancer, he declined treatment.

"He said he was 86 years and he figured it was his time," Etheridge said.

Holmes always wanted a few good men. He can count himself among them.

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