Some people called Ed Abraham “Blackie” because of his jet-black, wavy hair. His players at Sacred Heart High knew him as “Coach.”
In the summertime he was “Mr. Potter” or “Mr. Abe” to the kids who played baseball under his supervision at Potter School.
Ed Abraham had a lot of names, because he did so many things for so many people.
“He was your coach one minute, your friend one minute, your dad one minute, your teacher … he was one of the most important men I’ve met in my life,” said Bob Centilli, who played three sports under Abraham in the early 1950s.
“He took care of everybody,” said Dave Benjamin, an All-State basketball player at Sacred Heart in 1952.
It’s estimated that Abraham touched the lives of 16,000 children. When he died in December 1995, dozens of them paid their respects.
From 1950 until the school closed in 1967, Abraham was the driving force in Sacred Heart athletics. He was the Cougars’ first full-time coach, and the only coach for years in football, basketball, baseball and golf.
His records weren’t all Hall of Fame-caliber – his football teams went 35-67-7 over 15 years – but the kids who played for him became winners. At the school’s final athletic banquet in May 1967, the parishioners of Sacred Heart created an impromptu hall of fame and named him the only member.
“He was much more than a coach to the kids at Sacred Heart,” said Jack Pratt, who coached at St. Matthew at the time. “His value went far beyond wins and losses.”
Ed Abraham was an outstanding athlete himself, an All-State guard who helped Lansing Central beat Flint Northern in the 1935 Class A basketball championship game. He won 10 letters in three sports before a knee injury in football his senior year ended his playing days.
After graduating from Western Michigan University in 1941 and serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he began his teaching and coaching career at Owosso St. Paul from 1946-50.
When Sacred Heart became a 12-year school in 1950, he was hired to head the athletic program. It was a small school, with a peak enrollment of 275, but Abraham’s early teams were successful. His very first football team went 5-2 in 1950, and his 1952 basketball squad was 16-3.
Basketball was the one coaching job he never gave up, and he finished with a 17-year record of 172-139 and 10 winning seasons at Sacred Heart. “Basketball was his favorite sport,” said Dave Abraham, Ed’s oldest son who played basketball, football and baseball for his dad. “He liked football and really put everything into it he could, but if you don’t have a lot of talent there’s not much you can do. But in basketball, with five kids, you can do something.”
Benjamin added, “He knew basketball inside and out. I give him a lot of credit for making me a basketball player. At 6-foot-4 I was tall and clumsy, but he’d make me go up against a wall and tip the basketball over and over to get my timing right.”
Teaching the fundamentals was Abraham’s first law, and if he wasn’t very strong in a certain area, he found someone who was. He turned Centilli into the Parochial League’s best pitcher by sending him across the street to “Big Ed” Novak’s used car lot, where the former St. Mary’s star taught him how to pitch.
When he discovered that seventh-grade boys at Sacred Heart could barely dribble a basketball, Abraham founded the Jet League program for fifth- and sixth-graders.
When he needed a summer job, Abraham found a perfect fit with the Boys’ Baseball Program of Flint, opening a division at Potter School. “He’d walk around the outfields during practice and teach kids how to play,” said Tom Cole, the league commissioner. “He helped out all the teams, and if one team wasn’t doing too good, he had an extra practice.” Abraham’s 20 years in the program ended in 1978.
Abraham was honored at Tiger Stadium in 1975 as an Outstanding Supervisor in youth baseball. The City of Flint named a baseball field after him in 1978. The Lansing Sports Hall of Fame enshrined him in 1980.
But maybe the best tribute to Ed Abraham came from his former players upon his death. “The guys who came to the funeral home all said he was the most fair person they’d been around,” said Dave Abraham.
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