Photo Provided Terry and Cathy Depew will be lauded this week for their four decades of service to The Linsly School.

WHEELING — Terry Depew never got into coaching for the wins. He never got into it to earn any kind of notoriety or fame.

At his core, Depew is an educator. And, at their core, that’s what coaches do. They mentor, lead, inspire and teach.

Sure, coaches have to be tough sometimes. But when Depew did it — and it wasn’t often — he did it to prepare a player for life, not for a future on the gridiron.

“The overriding factor that I always took into every season was to make sure every kid had a positive experience,” he said. “They didn’t have to start and they didn’t have to be a star, but every kid needed to have a positive experience and get something out it and be happy they played football.”

For 26 years, Depew patrolled the sideline at Lockhart Alumni Field with the same fire and desire and he brought that same work ethic to Linsly’s business side.

As the school’s business manager, and later its assistant headmaster, Depew kept Linsly on top of its game as an institution, one that’s been around for more than a century.

But, like so many of the familiar faces that have come to define the Leatherwood campus the last quarter-century or so, it’s time for the Depews to relax. Terry and Cathy will be retiring at the end of the school year and the school couldn’t let them go without some type of lauding.

The Depews will be honored for their 40 years of service to the school Thursday at the school’s annual Faculty Enrichment Golf Event at Wheeling Country Club.

Depew is quite humbled by the recognition and believes it should be the other way around.

“I just think both of us have enjoyed the Wheeling area and working at Linsly and it’s hard to believe it’s been 40 and 39 years, respectively, for both us.

“It’s been a pure pleasure for the both of us to be around. And to think we had the opportunity to do that and now people want to say thank you for that. We should be saying thank you for the opportunity. It’s been great.”

The Depews arrived in Wheeling four decades ago from Eastern Pennsylvania with their young son, B.J., and a whole life ahead of them. Terry came at the urging of Reno DiOrio, who was his co-worker at Kiski School and the head football coach there.

Depew was an assistant on DiOrio’s staff and when he had an opportunity to become Linsly’s assistant headmaster and director of admissions he asked Depew to join him in The Friendly City.

“I said, ‘What for?,” Depew recalled asking laughing.

“We had a very good relationship,” Depew said of DiOrio, now a member of Lou Holtz Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame. “I think he had a lot of the same views and ideas about kids and what was good for kids.”

For many years, DiOrio was the face of Linsly, a school that had many familiar ones. From Gary Sprague to Mark Zavatsky and Mark Dodd to Dave Plumby, Linsly was a cradle of consistency when it came to the coaching and teaching ranks.

And that’s what Depew said made Linsly special.

“Every place is great because of its people,” he said. “And Linsly happened to be good because of its people. A lot of grew up together.”

With Linsly featuring a campus environment, many members of the staff live there. That cultivated relationships between staff and students, Depew believed.

“It wasn’t a job, it was a community,” Depew said. “It was a way of life. As for our football coaching staff, we were together 25 years.”

Depew also served as an assistant for Sprague, the Cadets longtime baseball coach.

“Spring was a very special time for me,” Depew remarked.

Sprague’s sons played football for Depew and B.J. Depew played baseball for Sprague. But football was at the heart of the younger Depew’s being.

“When B.J. was 8, 9 or 10 he knew all the names of the past linemen and past players better than I did,” Depew recalled. “He always had that mindset and was thinking about things like that even before he started playing.”

And when B.J. did start playing, there was no doubt he’d be a coach someday. And that fact he followed in his dad’s footsteps at Linsly was icing on the cake for the Depews.

“He has made Cathy and I extremely proud,” Terry said.

B.J. is much like his dad on the field, tough but not a win-at-all-costs coach. Depew said his philosophy was one that earned the respect of his players and made for a successful environment.

“We had a tremendous staff, role models the kids could look up to,” he remembered. “We were devoted to the kids and the program and it was easy for them to see.

“I think they respected the staff very much and respected what we said and what we were trying to do.

“We had great success because we had great kids with lots of talent.”

But not every player had the talent of an Eddie Drummond. And no matter the talent level, Depew instilled values that have carried with his former players into their post-playing lives in the form of successful careers and the like. That’s where he derives the most enjoyment.

“It is so rewarding to have a kid come back who played for you maybe 30 years ago and come back and say ‘Do you remember this?,” Depew said. “The player might say “I think about what you said and it made me better at what I do.’

“That kind of feedback is just priceless. It makes you feel really good about what you’ve done.”

If you know of someone in sports in the Ohio Valley whom I could feature as an Ohio Valley Unsung Hero, drop me a line at rthorp@timesleaderonline.com or via Twitter @RickThorp1