NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A few months ago, Tommy Reamon, Sr. was out of coaching at the high school level after 34 years. He was enjoying helping his son, Tommy, Jr. with his business at the City On My Chest Academy.
Baseball Hall Of Famer, the late Jackie Robinson put it best, "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives". That sums up Reamon in a nutshell.
Reamon wound up returning to coaching as he took over the reins at Denbigh High School. The Patriots needed work. They sported a dismal 2-55 record in their last 57 games that included a 19-game losing streak.
One of the Patriots' biggest alums Super Bowl-winning head coach Mike Tomlin of the Steelers was the one person who urged Reamon to take the job and he couldn't resist.
"I felt really nice about it", he said as his team began its first full week of practices. "He (Tomlin) was junior in high school when I had a camp."
The two had a conversation when Reamon traveled to Pittsburgh for the wake of the late Pro Football Hall Of Fame running back Franco Harris. Tomlin was very persuasive about him taking the job, because of how much Reamon meant to him growing up in Newport News.
"When I was a teenager, we went to his camps", Tomlin said at their meeting. "Like we didn't have money to go to anybody else's camp and Coach Reamon had the camp and for $5 dollars, he'd feed you lunch and give you a tee shirt."
Reamon said he was happy about coming back to coach in Newport News. "It was about what he asked me to do and that was powerful enough."