Roy A. Pickens Jr., 80, of Woodbury, football coach

Roy A. Pickens Jr. was not just a football coach; he was a life coach.

"Nobody defined the word coach more than Pick did," said Mike Linder, an assistant coach to Mr. Pickens at Deptford Township High School in the 1960s. "He was honest, fair . . . treated the [athletes] as young men first, football players second."

Mr. Pickens, 80, of Woodbury, also a physical education teacher and driving instructor at Deptford and West Deptford High Schools, died of a heart attack Saturday, July 3, at his home.

He was the kind of man who cared more about his players' character development than winning games, said those who knew him. He mentored them on and off the field.

One of those athletes was Dave Rowe, a 12-year NFL veteran and member of the 1976 Oakland Raiders, who won the Super Bowl.

Mr. Pickens picked Rowe out of a hallway crowd his sophomore year. Rowe had never played football.

"He said, 'Good Lord, boy, how come you're not playing football?' " Rowe recalled with a laugh.

Rowe became a star. He graduated from Deptford in 1963 and, at 6-foot-7 and 270 pounds, went on to play for Joe Paterno at Pennsylvania State University.

Mr. Pickens "took a 15-year-old kid and said, 'You could be anything you want to be. . . . You need to go to college,' " said Rowe, adding that no one in his family had attended. "He taught me great values."

Just as Mr. Pickens had success stories from former players and students, he also had heartbreak.

In 1964, Mr. Pickens collapsed at the hospital when two Deptford football players died after their vehicle struck a tree.

"It was doom and gloom around here," said his son Lynn. "He was bawling his eyes out for several days."

Mr. Pickens was born and raised in Bellwood, Pa., and graduated from Bellwood-Antis High School in 1948 with a football scholarship to Catawba College in North Carolina.

He married his high school sweetheart, Hazel Saylor, in 1950. She died in 2001.

After graduating from Catawba in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in education, Mr. Pickens worked as a girls' basketball coach and assistant football coach at a North Carolina high school for three years.

In 1957, Deptford High School hired him to start a varsity football program. He coached football and taught physical education for 14 years before going to West Deptford High, where he coached for six years, until 1976. He remained at West Deptford as a physical education teacher and driving instructor until he retired in 1992. He also coached baseball for a few years.

In addition to his son, Mr. Pickens is survived by his wife of nine years, Theda; another son, Donald; a daughter, Elizabeth Dromgoole; and five grandchildren.

A viewing will be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday, July 8, and from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. Friday, July 9, at McGuinness Funeral Home, 34 Hunter St., Woodbury. A funeral will follow at 10 a.m. at Colonial Manor Methodist Church, 1212 Tatum St., West Deptford. Interment will be at Eglington Cemetery, Clarksboro.