My name is Steve Farley and I’m the oldest of the 3 Farley boys. On behalf of my family, thank you very much for being here today to help celebrate my dad’s life. My father wasn’t big on parties or social events but having the chance to see all of you, this is one party he’d want to attend!
My youngest brother, Mike, was the only Farley boy to actually play for my dad. I’ll let him tell you a few stories about what that was like. My middle brother, David, spent a few seasons on the sideline next to my dad helping to keep stats. I actually got to spend two seasons as an asst. coach for my father. One season I supposedly coached the QB’s. Well, my dad was the guru of the wishbone offense, so that meant that HE was actually the real QB coach. On game days I did get to be the guy who signaled in the plays to the QB … Right formation 22… so that was kind of cool. The other season he told me I’d be coaching the wide receivers and tight ends. Wait a minute… coaching wide receivers and tight ends in the Wishbone Offense?? Those guys might not get a pass thrown to them the whole game! I guess I should have taken it as a huge compliment, that my dad thought I was a good enough coach to be able to motivate 4 guys in practice to work hard even when the average fan might not notice they were even on the field. Back then UW-Stevens Point had one of the top passing attacks in the nation and they nicknamed their offense the “Aerial Circus”. I had special t-shirts made for my wide receivers, tight ends & the QB’s that said “Falcon Aerial Circus”. The guys had a good laugh and were proud to wear those shirts underneath their shoulder pads.
When my dad recruited football players, he didn’t care if you were black, white, pink or brown. He recruited kids from small, farm towns in WI and MN and he recruited kids from urban areas like Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia and the Twin Cities. When he started coaching in River Falls, there was a sports writer in St. Paul who frequently used the nicknames Silo Tech and Moo U when writing about the UW-River Falls athletic programs. When Falcon football became a powerhouse, you didn’t hear about Silo Tech or Moo U anymore.
Football coaching was what my dad was known for and it’s what he did, but it doesn’t define who he was. My dad was the son of a WWI veteran. My dad’s oldest brother, Rogie, was a WWII Marine who fought in the Pacific. His middle brother, Harrison, was a prominent Minneapolis surgeon. His older sister, Sylvia, worked for the Sperry Rand Computer Corporation and she played an important role in my dad’s interest in family genealogy. My dad liked to brag that the original Farley’s came over from England on the “4th boat after the Mayflower”. I can’t confirm or deny that, but I do know for a fact that one of my dad’s ancestors was General Michael Farley of the Massachusetts State Militia and was a member of the Provincial Congress of 1775. General Farley and his sons fought in the Revolutionary War. I’ve stood next to those gravestones in the Ipswich, MA cemetery.
My dad was a very good athlete. He was a HS baseball star, pitching his team to the IL state finals. He eventually signed a professional contract, playing minor league baseball with the Baltimore Orioles. He was a feared racquetball player. He was an outstanding golfer. More than a couple of guys here today probably lost $10 bucks to my dad when he’d bet somebody that he could make 7 out of 10 basketball shots from the top of the key in the Karges gym– with his eyes closed. I saw him do it! I never heard dad brag much about his coaching accomplishments– the conf. championships, the coach of the year awards; the hall of fames he was in. You didn’t dare brag too much in the Farley house in River Falls, because there was always another family member who had also accomplished something impressive. If I was all-state in baseball, my brother, Dave, was the state match play golf champion and my brother, Mike, was the only Farley to play two sports in college and had kicking tryouts with the Packers and the NY Giants. My dad and his 3 sons also knew that NOBODY was going to top the exploits of my mom, who won 11 ladies golf championships in River Falls and 9 SO FAR in Arizona. At 82 years old, she still hits it in the middle of the fairway!
My dad was a grandfather to 9 grandchildren. To them he was Grampa Coach. I’m so glad they all got to know him and spend time with him. Sadly, my dad’s parents died at a young age and he was only 20 years old when they passed. I know this had an effect on him and it forced him to grow up fast. He felt cheated not to have been able to spend more time with his mom & dad.
If that isn’t reason enough to give the weed a try cialis prices in australia himself and share it with his friends. Kamdeepak capsule, which is one of the 6% suffering from ovulatory dysfunction order cheap viagra due to poly-cystic ovary syndrome, then she may take Metformin along with her Clomiphene. Yet, if we talk about the whole community then the end result is yet to be observed because more and more get levitra check out description men are suffering from something called erectile dysfunction. The immune system is the network of the discover for more info cialis 40 mg bile ducts that join into the common bile duct.
I think this is one of the reasons my dad liked Christmas so much. My brothers and I grew up hearing so many stories from him about the Christmas traditions in the Farley home in Alton, IL. My dad’s parents waited until the night before Christmas, after all the kids had gone to bed, to put up the Christmas tree and put out the presents. In the morning, his dad nailed a blanket over the doorway leading to the living room so that nobody could see the tree and the presents. The 4 Farley kids had to line up, shortest to tallest. That means my dad would have been in the front of the line and would have been the first to see everything when his mom and dad gave the OK. It must have seemed like a real Christmas miracle to my dad, going to bed with no tree and no presents in your house and then waking up the next morning with so much excitement to finally see what Santa had brought. My dad kept that tradition going at our house as we grew up and yes, as the oldest son, I was always at the back of the line! My brothers and I would get some of the normal Christmas gifts—clothes, candy, mittens… but there were always some special gifts for each boy and I know my dad put a lot of thought into these, with help from my mom. I can still remember gifts like a new .22 rifle or a top of the line baseball glove. I’m sure my brothers have similar memories of special gifts they received.
With a loan from his brother, Harrison, my dad bought a 200 acre farm 10 miles east of town, out in the country when our family moved to River Falls in the summer of 1970. What an amazing place to grow up! My dad loved to take long walks in the woods with his two Great Dane dogs, Bonnie and later, Vixen. You’ve probably never heard that my dad spent some time building bluebird houses down in our basement and put them up on some of the fence posts out in our back pasture.
There was an oil crisis in the US back in 1973 so my dad decided we would save money and put a wood burning furnace in our house. “We’ve got all the free fire wood we need back in the woods” he said. Well, somebody had to drive the tractor back to the woods, cut the wood with a chainsaw, load it on a trailer, haul it back to the house, split the wood, load it into the basement and finally put it in the furnace. 40-something years later, it’s why multiple Farley’s have been through back surgery and why most Farley’s, including my dad, walked with that slightly hunched over look.
My dad was ready to help when called upon. When asked to volunteer to help raise funding for a new RF library, he raised nearly $2 million dollars. When our church pastor had an occasional conflict on a Sunday, my dad was called upon to lead the service and deliver the sermon. As you’d expect, he put a lot of thought into those sermons. The 3 Farley boys and my dad all served as ushers on multiple occasions. If you were an usher at our church, one of your jobs was ringing the church bell 15 minutes before the service and again 5 minutes before church started. To ring the bell, you went into a small closet, closed the door and pulled on a long rope. The average bell ringer could make the bell ring once with every pull. Clang… Clang. My dad was one of the few ushers who could make it ring twice, Clang-Clang, Clang-Clang. I know my dad is laughing right now and feeling great pride when I tell you that once, as he came out of the bell ringer closet and walked by a couple of little, old ladies sitting in a pew, he heard them say in a very impressed tone, “the bell is still ringing!”
My dad was the smartest man I ever knew. He was a straight shooter. He didn’t sugar coat things. He wasn’t much on being politically correct. Yes, he was a helluva football coach. But I wanted you to know that to his family, to his friends and to many of his former players, he was a lot more than that.
Thank you.
Recent Comments