Retiree was math teacher, football coach

6/18/2002

TEMPERANCE - Lynn Parachek, 60, a former head football coach at Bedford High School and teacher at Bedford and Sylvania high schools, died Sunday in Toledo Hospital from a cancer-related infection.

Born in Toledo, Mr. Parachek, played college football at Kent State University and first tried his hand at teaching after getting a graduate-assistantship at Kent.

He liked it enough to keep teaching for 34 years, first at Sylvania High School - now Northview - for four years, and later at Bedford Senior High School, where he stayed until he retired in 2000.

At Bedford, Mr. Parachek combined his love of sports as coach of the football team, a job he took in addition to his regular math classes. But Mr. Parachek differed from the classic stereotype of the yelling, bullying coach, pushing his kids to win, his wife, Becki, said. “He was just the most gentle man, very laid back,” she said. “He wasn't at all aggressive and never found fault with other people. Even in his coaching, he wasn't one of those coaches who need to belittle the kids; he was an encourager.”

This approach didn't always make for success in the traditional sense. “They didn't have winning seasons, but I think the players loved him dearly,” Mrs. Parachek said. For her husband, she said, one of the best parts of the season was seeing the players, each seeking his own success, learn to cooperate and turn into a team.

But when the time came to choose between football and family, Mrs. Parachek said, family came first. When their three sons began to play football, he quit his job as head coach so he could support his sons from the bleachers. All three sons played collage football.

He taught other sports as well over the years and after retiring worked at The Legacy golf course in Ottawa Lake. Mr. Parachek was a long-time member of Judson Baptist Church in Toledo.

Surviving are his wife, Becki; sons, Matthew, Brett, and Scott, and a granddaughter.

Services will be tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the Pawlak Funeral Home, Temperance, where the body will be after 4 p.m. today. The family requests tributes to Judson Baptist Church.