Doc

(Photo from Larry Long)

For many of us Sunday, June 1, 1997 is the day the music died. Bill Spellman - husband, father, grandfather, colleague and beloved professor to thousands of Coe alumni - died decades before his time.

The funeral, held the following Wednesday, had over 800 with many having flown in from around the country. It was held in Sinclair Auditorium on Coe campus and the stage was a wall of flowers from those whose life he'd touched. A colleague noted that if the funeral had been on a weekend during the school year they’d of had to rent out the Five Season’s Center.

Today I am certain his wife Donna was at the gravesite with flowers… in the same way she also always celebrates his birthday in the middle of winter with cake.

It is unbelievable to me that he has now been gone longer than I knew him. I'd like to write more but you have no idea how long it has taken me to write these brief paragraphs. Instead, I'll sign off with the eulogy. Twelve years later I’m still amazed I was able to get through this without breaking down - the minister had a copy just in case - because tonight I’m not that strong.

Dr. William Spellman

By: Steve Kranz

I first met Bill Spellman when I was a junior in high school. After visiting several colleges I found a man who cut through the bull and told it like it is. Immediately, I knew I wanted to come to Coe. For many of us the introduction to Spellman was interesting. Some remember falling asleep in Econ I and feeling the sting of a well aimed piece of chalk ricochet off your forehead. For others it was on the football field attempting to translate the next series of plays he had already envisioned in his mind. For many of us the first real encounter came after life handed us trouble and we seriously needed help. Help from Spellman was born of compassion, not sympathy. No matter how deep the problem he played his life role as mentor - guiding us to solutions. At times all we would need is a good listener to talk it through. But if need be, he could be very direct and tell us what we had to do. His intuitive sense of how to handle life’s problems was, perhaps, his greatest gift.

Bill’s sense of decency was instilled at early age. His mother was a union organizer who dedicated her life to helping those working in deplorable conditions. Meanwhile, his family was very poor. He said it gave him a good understanding of hard work and the “help the little guy” ethic. Thanks to a loving family he said he didn’t even comprehend how poor he was until he was well into adulthood.

Dr. William Spellman had many accomplishments. As an economist, his list of publications is impressive, to say the least. He was a labor arbitrator. Accepted younger than most in the profession, he was one of those impartial people a company and a union could turn to when they could not settle a dispute. As a respected academic he served on an accreditation team that reviewed the curriculum and faculty of other colleges. As Coach Leroy and Coach Thurness can verify, his expertise as a coach was unsurpassed. He used his passion for teaching and excellence as an instructor to make economics understandable, and, yes, sometimes even interesting.

For Spellman there was nothing more important than his role as a husband and a father. In our many personal talks, his face would light up whenever he spoke about the kids.

All of you know Spellman as a fighter. He passionately fought for what he believed in. But he was a fighter in other ways. Long before his heart attack Doc had many serious ailments with the most severe being systemic lupus which literally attacked the joints in his body. Even after numerous surgeries to correct bone spurs and even having a piece of bone removed from his arm and replaced with a rod, he commented to me in January that he considers himself lucky. “Lucky?” I said, “Doc, how can anyone who has had as many physical problems as you’ve had consider yourself lucky?” “No, really, I mean it,” he replied. “My lupus is attacking the bones… It could be a lot worse.” He carried that optimism with him following the heart attack. We spent a lot of time discussing how he could return to teaching and how he’d have to change his teaching style now that it was unrealistic for him to draw 48 graphs on the board in one class period. He also gave thought to his return to coaching.

As a man in constant physical pain for the majority of his life, we can take comfort in knowing he’s free from pain. On Sunday a friend commented that he’s probably already challenging Moses to a game of racquetball.

Bill Spellman was known to us by many names: Beezo, Billy, Bompers, for four in this room he was “Dad,” for most of us he was simply Spellman. For me, he’ll always be “Doc.”

I have always believed that the best thing that you can say about a man is that the world is a better place for his having been here. As I look around this room I can see how much better Coe and this world is because of Bill Spellman. Each of us has had time to think about the positive impact he has had in our lives. By helping us to be better people the spirit of William Spellman lives on.