Mariner Coach Dies At Age 62 -- Frank Goddard `Was Truly Great Friend Of Kids'

Frank Goddard, a man who made the people around him feel important, died yesterday.

The football coach and athletic director at Mariner High School for the past 12 years, Goddard had battled cancer since 1986 and had been on a leave of absence from his school duties since the end of the fall football season. He was 62.

"Frank was one of the truly great friends of kids," said Cliff Gillies, the executive secretary of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. Gillies, the first principal of Mariner High School, hired Goddard in 1979.

"He found the real values of participating in interscholastic sports without diminishing the goal of winning.

"He was known as a run-and-shoot coach, but he was a run-and-shoot guy when it came to kids. He made everyone feel good about themselves and he felt everyone had a contribution to make to the team. He built those intangibles that you just can't measure."

A memorial service is being planned for Monday or Tuesday at Mukilteo Presbyterian Church at 4:30 p.m.

Instead of sending flowers, his family asks that donations be made instead to the Frank W. Goddard Memorial Scholarship fund at Mariner High School or to the American Cancer Society.

Survivors are his wife of almost 22 years, Holly, and seven children: Sue Ondriezek of Mukilteo; Stacey Goddard of Federal Way; Michelle Watson of Cotatie, Calif.; Cyndi Goddard of San Francisco; Shary O'Connor of Sarasota, Fla.; Frank Goddard, Jr., of St. Petersburg, Fla; and Sandy Rogers of Seminole, Fla. Also, seven grandchildren and a brother, Bruce, of Tallahassee, Fla.

Goddard began his coaching career as an assistant football coach in his hometown of Bellaire, Ohio, in the early 1960s, and moved on to his first head coaching position at Dixie Hollins High School in St. Petersburg in 1962.

"Frank actually quit coaching for a year and worked as a stockbroker, but he decided that wasn't the kind of job for him," Holly Goddard said. "After that, he coached wrestling at Largo High School in the St. Pete area, and he coached football for nine years at Riverview High School, which is also near St. Petersburg."

Frank and Holly both earned master's degrees in athletic administration from Idaho State University, and both wanted to return to the Pacific Northwest.

"We'd both gone to school there and had been to the Oregon coast and the Washington coast and into Canada," she said. "We loved the area and decided that, if we could find jobs up there, we wanted to move up there."

Enter Gillies.

"I met Frank in Florida as a candidate, and when he moved to Mariner High School he immediately turned the program into one that played exciting football and one where the kids enjoyed playing the game and worked hard at it," Gillies said. "We became good friends. From the time I interviewed him, I felt he was a special guy that I felt would have positive influence on kids. He had one on me; he had one on the whole school.

"I just feel he loved working with kids. He loved the game of football. Even more, he loved what that sport could do for kids. Or what any sport could do for kids.

"I think you'd have to describe him as a guy who found a way to make playing by the rules a whole lot of fun, as well as a test of character. I never knew Frank to shade a rule, circumvent one or try to get around one. But he sure knew how to take advantage of some of them."

Goddard took his first football team to the playoffs in 1979. The Marauders had finished 1-8 the year before he arrived. He turned it around, to 8-1.

In his first season at Riverview High School he turned a 1-9 team into a 9-1 conference champion. In his nine seasons at that school, he compiled the best win-loss record of any coach on the western coast of Florida.

He coached three more playoff teams at Mariner, and enjoyed his best season in 1987, when he guided the Marauders to the state quarterfinals, where they lost to Curtis High School.

Under Goddard, the Marauders won 80 percent of their games and were always an exciting team to watch. His style of offense, a run-oriented version of the run-and-shoot offense, was well known for its ability to make the big play.

With his players, Goddard was low-key and extremely positive. He always preferred to give credit to his entire team and was usually reluctant to single out individual performances. His players, more often than not, took on those traits.

"I think his team carried his personality," Gillies said. "He was the type of guy you'd like to call a friend and you'd like to be associated with. He was a guy who put kids, and even the sport, above his own personal comfort and personal desires."

Jon Ondriezek played for Goddard in 1967, was an assistant coach under Goddard at Riverview and at Mariner for the past 10 seasons, and became his son-in-law. He said few people truly realized how much coaching football meant to Goddard.

"Besides being with his family, it was his greatest joy in life," he said. "He loved being on the field working with the kids. He was just excited about practice and he loved the game of football. That was his life. He dedicated his life to football and the kids and seeing them develop as individuals."

In recent years, the wear and tear of coaching high-school football would show on Goddard's face as the season progressed, yet he always dismissed queries about his health.