Person:Walter Persons (1)

Published: Aug 27, 2005 Duke swim coach loyal to students, city, school

Persons By FLO JOHNSTON, Correspondent

A Duke University icon will be remembered not just for his 45 years of coaching swimming and lacrosse, but for teaching generations of Durham children to swim.

Walter Scott Persons Jr.., 95, known to hundreds of Duke athletes as "Coach" and to friends and family as "Jack" died Monday in the Olsen Center at The Forest at Duke.

During summer months the coach taught swimming and lifesaving to children from the city. The only drawback, said a Durham man who learned to swim under his tutelage, was the cold water in the Duke pool. It was kept at training temperature and was difficult for a skinny kid to handle.

During their years at Duke, the coach and his wife, Elizabeth Anderson Persons, who preceded him in death, lived on Swift Avenue not far from campus. She was the dean of admissions for the Women's College.

"They were quite a couple," said Nancy Anderson, whose husband, Banks Anderson, was the coach's wife's nephew. "Generations of players would come back to see them and they always served Brunswick stew and barbecue before the lacrosse games," she said.

Nancy Anderson describes the coach as "drop-dead handsome," but ironically, she said, the family never saw him in a bathing suit. They teased him about it. And he was not a swimmer in his older years.

"He had assistants in the water carrying out his instructions. He walked around the side of the pool [in his street clothes]. There was a little mystery about the man," Nancy Anderson said.

But Persons knew his stuff when it came to coaching. He was only 20 in 1931 when he was named head swimming coach and was the youngest head coach at a major university in the country, according to dukego.com, a Web site for Duke Sports Information. Persons led his teams to 207 victories in 378 meets.

In 1938, Persons added Duke's new lacrosse team to his coaching responsibilities. Sports Information notes that he led Duke to "one of the greatest upsets in collegiate lacrosse history in 1946 when the Blue Devils shocked national power Maryland, 12-4."

"He was a part of Duke history," said Holt Anderson, a nephew and a Duke graduate.

"He attended every home football game since 1929, the year Wallace Wade opened, except one," Holt Anderson said.

"I was with him the day he missed the game in 2003 because he had to go to the emergency room. He was upset about missing the game and wanted updates during the game. He kept saying, 'Maybe we can get out of here.' "

The coach had the same block of 14 football tickets since 1929, according to his nephew. With the tickets that he gave to family and friends, he also passed out seat cushions and programs and he made sure his guests were comfortable with a drink, peanuts in the shell and suntan lotion.

But if you were going to join the coach's crowd for the game, you were expected to stay until the final dust settled.

"You never left before the end of the game, whether Duke was ahead by 40 or behind by 40," Holt Anderson said. "He did not like it a bit for anybody to leave early."

Nancy Anderson, a nurse, said that aging is one of her ministries, and that she spent a lot of time with Persons during the past few years, especially since his wife died.

"For me it was a blessing," she said.

"He kept up with all of his players and was much more to them than a coach. He knew their children, he listened and he cared. And he was so compassionate.

"Two weeks ago I sent my watch to be fixed. He noticed and said, 'You gotta' have a watch.' Look in this drawer. He gave me a watch."

The coach did not have a dramatic illness at the end of his life, she said. Two months ago, he went into nursing care and continued to move around in an electric wheelchair, going to concerts and participating in events at The Forest.

"Then he broke his tooth and did not eat. He lost a lot of weight and revised his goal of wanting to live to 100," Nancy Anderson said. "During the last month, he told the doctor he was ready to die."

Persons retired from Duke coaching in 1975 and was inducted into the Duke Sports Hall of Fame in 1986. In his acceptance speech he said, "When I first came here ... I knew I was where I wanted to be and with whom I wanted to be. I never wanted to leave or be anywhere else."

His burial will be Thursday at 10 a.m. at Cross Roads Presbyterian Church on N.C. 119 in Mebane. A memorial service and celebration of his life will follow the same day at 2 p.m. at Durham's First Presbyterian Church, 305 E. Main St.

The coach's survivors include the Durham Andersons "who overtook him," Nancy Anderson said. Also, his son, Walter Scott Persons III and his wife, Susan, of Tuckasegee; a grandson, Walter Scott Persons IV of the home; nephews, nieces, grandnephews and grandnieces.