Former Bryan boys basketball coach Bobby Joe Perry tried to help as many local youth as possible follow the path that made him so successful.
Perry, who was a multi-star athlete at Kemp, coached at his alma mater for three years before coaching the Vikings from 1971-80. Perry won several district championships, tutoring future NFL stars Curtis Dickey and Gerald Carter at Bryan, but he took pride in helping so many players become the first in their family to attend college, his son Brian Perry said. Even after Bobby Joe Perry retired, he worked with youth in helping them further their education.
“We were the neighborhood carriers,” his wife Effie Perry said. “We brought everyone home.”
The 79-year-old Perry died Wednesday night in Houston. He suffered from cardiac disease which led to organ failure.
“What a great man he was,” former Bryan athletics director Merrill Green said. “He was more than just a great coach. He was not only a great asset to our program but to the Bryan school district. Effie, his wife, and himself were very active in our schools.”
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Perry is survived by his wife Effie, sons Bobby Joe Jr. and Brian and daughter Nicole. His service will be at 1 p.m. Monday at First Baptist Bryan with Jones and Washington Mortuary.
Perry started his coaching career at Neal Junior High, where he taught social studies and PE along with Rose Gregg, who has worked for the Bryan school district for more than five decades.
“He was a good family man,” Gregg said. “He was very honest, dependable, and he also was very helpful, not only to the kids but to the community over here. He was pretty close to [former Texas A&M men’s basketball coach] Shelby Metcalf. He was a good coach, good teacher.”
Gregg and Perry also worked together for the city of Bryan at Thomas Park with Perry in charge of the swimming pool and Gregg working the wading pools.
“He was just a good guy,” Gregg said. “Every time I needed help with something, I would go over to his house and he’d help with like my taxes, making suggestions on what I should do, getting into IRAs. He was one of the reasons I started saving up money for my old age.”
Perry also for a time handled the finances for Shiloh Baptist Church, Gregg said.
Perry graduated from Kemp in 1960 then graduated from Paul Quinn College in Waco where he played basketball. He returned to Kemp to coach for three seasons, then served as an assistant boys basketball coach at Bryan in 1971-72 under Carlos Jackson before being elevated to head coach.
“I remember Coach Perry as being a man who stood for principle, a tough, tough coach,” Carter said. “He demanded that you give good effort.”
And Perry decided what defined good when it came to effort.
“I remember a game where I thought I was a pretty good shooter, and I took a shot that he didn’t think was right,” Carter said. “He took me out, and I was as mad as I don’t know what, but he didn’t care. He sent a message to let me know I don’t run the show — he runs the show. And after that, I learned not to take any kind of shot but to take the shot that he thought was good and I thought was good. Man, I learned it the hard way, but I learned a lesson.”
Though tough as a coach, Perry always wore a smile and seemingly had an easy-going style when away from the court.
“That’s from the outside,” Carter said. “Yeah, he’s got that soft side, but you get in there and deal with him, he’s got that tough side, too, that his players saw.”
Perry’s coaching peers includes former A&M player Barry Davis, who transferred to the Aggies for his junior season in 1974-75 when he met Perry for the first time.
“He was a stand-up dude. He was a stand-up coach,” Davis said. “He had a fantastic run of some great athletes that played both football and basketball.”
Davis said it was unfortunate those Bryan teams didn’t play with a 3-point line.
“And the freedom he gave those guys to play with?” Davis said. “As a coach, man, he had to have been tremendous to play for.”
Davis was impressed with how Perry could win with a lineup full of all-staters and or with just two or three solid players.
“He always maxed out on what he had to work with and never complained,” Davis said. “He got the ultimate respect from his players as well as his peers, and I’m taking about the teachers in the building, the whole nine yards, because what you saw was consistency. You knew what to expect from Coach Perry.”
Davis coached at Bryan from 1988-94, getting to mentor Perry’s son, Brian Perry.
“He was a really smart, consistent, tough,” Davis said. “He was just a tremendous little player when he came along. I was glad he entrusted me with him.”