Up & Coming Weekly

October 15, 2019

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM 24 UCW OCTOBER 16-22, 2019 HIGH SCHOOL HIGHLIGHTS EARL VAUGHAN JR., Sports Editor. COMMENTS? EarlUCWSports@gmail. com. 910-364-6638. Brian Edkins was principal at South View High School when he first got to know Davin Schmidt. Although initially he saw him from afar, he was quick- ly impressed. "I've never seen a coach as positive and optimistic as he was with kids,'' Edkins said. "He's the one you would want to coach your kid. You would hope he would pick your kid because you knew they were going to have a great experience. "He was going to treat all the kids well.'' Schmidt, who was an assistant soccer coach at South View and Hope Mills Middle Schools and coached many years in the Hope Mills recreation program, died earlier this month after lengthy battles with an assortment of ailments. He was 47. "He could get the worst news in the world and somehow find a silver lining,'' Edkins said. "It was just amazing. He would try to lead as normal a life as he could during this fight.'' In his final year at South View, Edkins recalled a time when Schmidt's oldest son, Davin II, was being recognized for making the A-B honor roll. Schmidt was in the hospital at Duke at the time, but got permission from his doctors to come to South View to see his child recognized. "Throughout his battle, he tried to give as much normalcy to his family as possible,'' Edkins said. The battle started early in his life as Schmidt dealt with colitis and Crohn's disease. In 2005 he was diag- nosed with early stages of colon cancer and his colon was removed. He contracted a disease that caused his bile ducts to shut down, which led to liver cancer. He fell into a protocol that made him eligible for a liver transplant, which took place in March of 2017. Six months after the successful transplant, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He went into remission from the leukemia for a year, and then it returned. Chemotherapy was unsuc- cessful, so he underwent a stem cell transplant, using stem cells from his own body. He wanted to try a promising experimental drug, but four appeals to his insurance company to use it were denied. His condition worsened. He developed bleeding on the brain, and the leukemia became more aggressive. Despite his poor health, he got permission for a day pass from Duke so he could return to Fayetteville a see his twins, Darin and Drake, play soccer shortly before his death. "Even until the end, he was not ready to go,'' said Kelly McLaurin Schmidt, Davin's wife. "He was still fighting. It was just too much.'' He died Oct. 3. "He's always coached the boys in everything,'' Kelly said. "Soccer, basketball, baseball.'' When he started his first recreation team in Hope Mills and named it Gators, friends assumed it was because of Schmidt's love for the University of Florida. Kelly said that wasn't the case. "It's actually from the time an alligator was found in Hope Mills Lake,'' she said. "Everybody loved him so much. He never thought he deserved the recognition, but he does.'' Davin Schmidt loved family, kids and coaching by EARL VAUGHAN JR. It took a few years, but family and friends of former Reid Ross High School football coach John Daskal were finally able to celebrate the installation of a permanent sign in his honor outside the football stadium bearing his name. It was around 2002 that the stadium, at what is now Reid Ross Classical High School, was named in honor of Daskal, the only coach the school ever knew before it closed as a tradition- al high school in 1984. When Daskal finally retired in 1991, he had 211 wins, at the time the most of any high school football coach in Cumberland County history. He was inducted into the Fayetteville Sports Club Hall of Fame in 2006. High school football has returned to John Daskal Stadium this season as it has become the temporary home of Terry Sanford High School, which ironically was the last school where Daskal was a head coach before he retired from the profession. Daskal's daughters, Kim Daskal Lee and Kristina Daskal Magyar, led the push to raise money to get a permanent sign installed. They held a golf tournament at Gates Four Golf and Country Club in April and had numer- ous people reach out to make donations toward the project. A family friend, Dr. Wally Mohammed, took the lead in the construction of the sign. Mohammed operates a restaurant in Lillington, and he and Daskal became friends when Daskal and his wife Carol first visited the restaurant years ago. Lee praised the efforts of men who coached and/or played for her father. Among them were Fred McDaniel, Bill Yeager, Billy Starks and Reggie Pinkney. "Every planning meeting, they were there,'' she said. "We made so many contacts with peo- ple we would not have been able to reach out to. They have gone above and beyond.'' The ceremony for the sign was held at half- time of a recent Terry Sanford junior varsity football game at Reid Ross. Lee estimated about 50 alumni of Reid Ross, including some former football players of Daskal, came out for the ceremony. Pinkney, Yeager and Starks were among those attending. "He treated all the players like sons,'' said Pinkney, principal at Ramsey Street High School in Fayetteville. "We played so much harder for him, and that was why we were successful.'' Yeager, former head coach at Terry Sanford and Gray's Creek High Schools, works as an assistant coach at Terry Sanford. "He was just a fine man,'' Yeager said of Daskal. "He cared about his players while he coached them and after they got through and went on doing what they do in their lives. "He was the real deal, the whole package.'' Starks, principal at Pine Forest Middle School, said Daskal was bigger than life and the kind of coach you would run through a brick wall for. "He was just a good person,'' Starks said. "He loved us, cared about us and we would do any- thing for him. He was just a special human being.'' John Daskal Stadium finally adds sign by EARL VAUGHAN JR. Schmidt, an avid duck hunter posed for a picture with his dog, Jäger, after a successful day of hunting. Retired Reid Ross High school football coach John Daskal is joined by men who played and/or coached with him during his career at the ceremony. Pictured from left to right: Current Terry Sanford coach Fred McDaniel, retired Cumberland County Schools student activities director Fred McDaniel, Daskal, cur- rent Ramsey Street High School principal Reggie Pinkney, current Terry Sanford assistant coach Bill Yeager and current Pine Forest Middle School principal Billy Starks.

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