Community

With the team from the beginning

On field and off, he was a constant presence and inspiration for the Pirates football team.

By Joey Knight, Times Staff Writer
Published February 14, 2008

Bill Starling, left, was on Pasco High's first football team in 1933. Two of his grandsons played for the team after him. Grandson Brad Starling, right, is now an assistant coach.
	[John Pendygraft | Times (1997)]

Fittingly, the nursing home where Bill Starling spent the last eight months of his life is nestled at the bottom of the hillside where Pasco High's football stadium stands.

"I would go over and see him before games, especially home games," said Brad Starling, one of Mr. Starling's two grandsons and a Pirates assistant coach. "He wanted to know who we were playing, and he'd always say, 'I'll listen for the cannon.'"

A blast from that cannon follows every Pirates touchdown, resonating throughout the neighboring east Pasco countryside.

Mr. Starling's influence in the Pasco High community resonated louder.

"He was Pasco's No. 1 fan, that's for sure," Brad Starling said.

A defensive end on the Pirates' first organized football team, which took the field in 1933, Mr. Starling passed away Friday, eight months shy of his 90th birthday. An Army veteran who served overseas during World War II, he was a born salesman, hawking everything from insurance to pecans to cemetery plots.

But he seemed to derive his greatest joy as a pitchman for Pirates sports.

Until a couple of eye surgeries forced him to relinquish his driver's license around three years ago, Mr. Starling was a fixture at his alma mater's sporting events. He frequently popped in on practices, and even poked his head in principal Pat Reedy's office from time to time during school days.

"He was like a grandfather to all of us," Pasco athletic director Jim Ward said.

Longtime Pirates baseball coach Ricky Giles said the spry octogenarian, who in 1994 received a Lifetime Athletic Pass to all school sporting events, was his top booster. During fundraisers, when Giles passed out roughly a dozen tickets to each of his players to sell, Mr. Starling would take a couple of hundred.

Then he'd come back for more.

"People can say no to a lot of people," Giles said, "but they didn't say no to Bill Starling."

"I think he was just a people person," Brad Starling said. "He loved people and people loved him. He started kind of going downhill when he lost his license and wasn't able to make his rounds and visit. That was just his life, just people."

By the late '90s, when driving at night became impractical for Mr. Starling, Giles and Ward would pick him up and transport him to away football games. Until very recently, Giles still was taking a golf cart from campus to the nursing home for weekly visits with Mr. Starling.

By this time, his health had rendered him essentially immobile. According to Brad Starling, his grandfather had broken both hips within the last 18 months, lost sight in one eye as a result of cornea replacement surgery, and started suffering noticeable memory lapses.

But when Giles entered the room and called him "Coach," Mr. Starling would raise his hand in apparent recognition.

"I'm telling you right now, the guy's going to be well, well, well missed," Giles said. "It's just unbelievable what Bill Starling did for this community."

A Lakeland native, Mr. Starling is survived by his wife of 70 years, Christine, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by two sons, both of whom played football at Pasco, and a daughter who died of meningitis six weeks after her birth.

A visitation will be Monday at 10 a.m. at Hodges Family Funeral Home in Dade City, with funeral services at 11. Burial will follow at Chapel Hill Gardens.

[Last modified February 13, 2008, 20:44:05]