'Mr. New Brighton' Bill Edwards dies at 95
NEW BRIGHTON – Like so many others with ties to New Brighton, Cal and Don Sheffield appreciate what Bill Edwards meant to their community as an athlete, coach, educator, civic leader and friend.
They were saddened to hear that Edwards died Tuesday at the age of 95. But his passing brought back so many wonderful memories of a man who impacted the lives of so many New Brighton students and citizens, including their own.
For example, when Cal Sheffield was a high school junior in the fall of 1957, he entertained thoughts of playing on the Lions’ football team. So he signed up. But on the first day of practice, he was approached by Edwards, who at the time was a history teacher, head basketball coach and assistant football coach.
“Bill pulled me aside and said, ‘Are you sure you want to play football?’“ Sheffield said.
“Yeah, I think so,” Cal answered. “All my friends play football.”
“Then Bill said to me, ‘You may want to reconsider. You have a great future in basketball. You don’t want to get hurt playing football and jeopardize your future in basketball. Concentrate on basketball.’
“So I turned around and walked off the field and that was it. I didn’t try to go back. I did not play football because of his advice. It turned out to be excellent advice.”
Two years later after graduating from New Brighton, Cal Sheffield went to the University of Pittsburgh on a full basketball scholarship. By the time his Pitt career ended, he had led the team in scoring twice, averaged 15.3 points per game for his career and ranked fourth on the Panthers’ all-time scoring chart with 1,115 points.
Cal Sheffield went on to get his master’s degree and has been a funeral director for 52 years.
Don Sheffield, too, has fond memories of Edwards.
He remembers the time older brother Cal suffered an ankle injury during high school. One weekend, Edwards opened New Brighton’s famous Dawes Gymnasium so Cal could get whirlpool treatments. Edwards also invited Cal’s younger brothers to come to the gym, Don included.
While Cal soaked his injured ankle in the whirlpool, Edwards rolled out some basketballs so his brothers could shoot in the gym.
“Bill was gracious enough to let us come along and shoot in Dawes Gym,” Don Sheffield said. “You would have thought he’d given the world to us little kids. That’s the kind of guy Bill was.”
When Don Sheffield was a senior in the 1964-65 basketball season, New Brighton only lost two games. Both were to Midland’s legendary 28-0 team that won WPIAL and state titles.
Don Sheffield went on to play basketball at Geneva on a scholarship before embarking on a long career in education.
His first job?
Edwards hired him as a social studies teacher and assistant basketball coach in 1969.
“He was more than a coach,” Don Sheffield said. “He was a role model. He was that special. I can’t begin to tell you how much he meant to our family.”
Edwards may have been born in Rochester on July 21, 1927. But a year later, his family moved to New Brighton and Edwards lived there the rest of his life.
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While attending New Brighton High School, Edwards was a three-sport standout who played quarterback on the football team, forward on the basketball team and multiple positions on the baseball team.
He earned a scholarship to nearby Geneva College and again played three sports. In football, he was twice named first-team on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Small College Tri-State All-Star Team.
After earning a degree in education from Geneva and his master’s degree in educational administration from Pitt, Edwards embarked on a 35-year career in education, first as a teacher and then as an administrator at New Brighton. After 18 years in the classroom, he served as the high school principal for 17 years.
He was also involved in the Lions’ sports programs. After seven seasons as an assistant football and basketball coach, he became the head basketball coach. From 1958-69, his teams won 60 percent of their games. From 1960-69, he also coached the golf team.
And even after stepping away from coaching, he remained involved in sports, serving as New Brighton’s athletic director from 1958-69.
Edwards also sat on the WPIAL's Board of Control from 1974 through 1985 when he retired as New Brighton’s principal.
“Bill was a very good basketball coach,” said Joe Ursida, a former girls softball coach, head football coach and athletic director at New Brighton. “A fundamentalist. His teams were always well-prepared. His teams were always competitive.
“As a principal, he was a good guy to work for. He went by the book. He was old school. And he had a kind side. He cared about the kids. I respected him a lot.”
Greg Fazio, a retired New Brighton teacher and tennis coach, agrees.
“I knew Bill very well,” Fazio said. “I had him in U.S. history class when I was a junior in high school. When I started teaching in 1970, he was our principal.
“What was good about Bill was that you knew where he stood. It was like ‘this is the way we’re going to do things’ and that was it. He was well respected for that. He was well-liked and definitely well-respected. That’s the best way to put it.
“Bill was definitely a New Brighton guy, a New Brighton stalwart. Even after he retired, he was still dedicated to New Brighton. He was always down there at the municipal building.”
Right after retiring, Edwards in essence started his second career as a community volunteer. He had a small office in the New Brighton Borough Building and served as chairman for several civic and scholarship projects.
In 2016, when The Beaver County Times honored Edwards by featuring him as an Unsung Hero, he said with a laugh that “my wife calls me Mr. New Brighton.”
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Bill Edwards was indeed “Mr. New Brighton.”
Over the years, Edwards was inducted into the New Brighton Sports Hall of Fame, the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame and the Geneva College Sports Hall of Fame.
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This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Former students remember impact of New Brighton's Bill Edwards
