{"id":2158,"date":"2020-04-01T07:55:05","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T11:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/?p=2158"},"modified":"2026-07-13T22:24:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T02:24:48","slug":"father-figure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/father-figure\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Father figure\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Paden at the 2018 stadium dedication in his honor.<\/strong>

<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201967 Maryland State alum Ralph Paden revered in Prince George\u2019s County<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday, April 1, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UMES alumnus Ralph C. Paden Sr<\/strong>. is a widely admired “father figure” by those whose lives he touched over a three-decade career as a Prince George’s County (Md.) educator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father, seeking reliable employment, moved the family from Greenville, S.C. when Paden was 2\u00bd to Port Henry in upstate New York, a predominantly white community on Lake Champlain. He played football, basketball and ran track for Moriah Central High School – inspired by his “much faster” older brother – and was the lone black in his graduating class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An African-American music teacher pointed Paden in the direction of Maryland State, where he majored in physical education with a minor in biology. As a freshman, he tried out for the track team coached by the legendary Clifton “Cappy” Anderson and made the roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both had no way of knowing it, but that coach-athlete connection set Paden on a path that resulted in parallel tributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UMES’ track and field venue is named for Anderson. The Fairmont Heights (Md.) High School football stadium, where Paden patrolled the sidelines as a coach for 30 years, was re-dedicated in his honor in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson “was a man with a big laugh,” he said. “There was a lot of laughter to him. He tried not to demean anybody. But he could put his foot down when he had to. He had everyone’s respect.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson also was results-driven; when Paden proved he could outrun an upperclassman about to graduate, the coach made sure Paden slid into a work-study slot that helped him defray college expenses in lieu of non-existent scholarships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Paden ran alongside fast company at Maryland State<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As a member of Maryland State’s class of 1967, Paden was among Maryland State students who played a role locally in the dramatic societal changes that defined the second half of the 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He witnessed a cross-burning on a field adjacent to the football field and remembers thinking that “It scared the hell out of me. How can they hate us this bad and we don’t even know them?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paden joined fellow students led by vocal athletes in protesting local business segregation policies, suffering a cut to his face by water from a high-pressure fire hose used to disperse the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also immersed himself in college life as a student-athlete who excelled in the classroom and flourished as a member of the track team, which he represented as captain in his senior year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduation, Paden went on to distinguish himself as a teacher and coach in Prince George’s County, initially at the now-defunct Mary McLeod Bethune Junior High school, then at Fairmont Heights high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 2018 video tribute produced by the Prince George’s public school system, former colleague George Wake described Paden as “a better person than a coach. (And) I thought he was very good coach.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We never thought about how many wins we’d have, how many losses,” Wake said. “We worried about ‘take care of our kids that day – that time.’ If a kid \u2026 our team had a problem, we had a problem.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paden’s teams won 177 games – many accomplished by rosters with fewer than 30 players, an achievement the Maryland High School Football Foundation says ranks among the state’s top coaching achievements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The kids I had all those years, they played hard,” Paden said. “I had guards who weighed 165 pounds.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winning 62 percent of his games earned him induction in the state football coaches association’s Hall of Fame in 2003 along with Doug Fleetwood of Cambridge-South Dorchester, and Morgan Wootten of DeMatha in Hyattsville. (Wootten was a successful football coach in the 1960s before focusing exclusively on basketball.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fairmont Heights decided a November 2018 home playoff game was an ideal time to salute “Coach Paden.” A rainy night did not deter former players from attending the stadium renaming ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He was a great coach, but he was (also) a father figure,” said Carlos Prillman, a1987 Fairmont Height alum who played four years. “When you’re 14, 15, 16 and 17, hey, you need a little guidance. We had some of the greatest guidance between Coach Paden and the rest of the coaches.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodney Williams played for Paden and now fills his shoes as Fairmont Heights’ head football coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams said seeing his mentor honored by the stadium naming “\u2026 means a lot to me. He’s a great coach and a great mentor. I’ve been able to come back and give these kids what was taught to me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paden said he was humbled by the school system’s gesture to honor him with the stadium naming, and by the turn out of former players to celebrate with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our players,” he said, “\u2026can have the satisfaction of coming back years from now and saying ‘Coach Paden coached me’.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paden said he found motivation by believing that “if you do something long enough, hopefully someone will notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the school system’s tribute video<\/strong><\/a>, Paden said, “You want to leave something there that’s tangible. If I can do it, you can do it. Don’t let \u2026 other things stop you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201967 Maryland State alum Ralph Paden revered in Prince George\u2019s County Wednesday, April 1, 2020 UMES alumnus Ralph C. Paden Sr. is a widely admired “father figure” by those whose lives he touched over a three-decade career as a Prince George’s County (Md.) educator. His father, seeking reliable employment, moved the family from Greenville, S.C. when…Read more \u2018Father figure\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-2158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2158"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=2158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}