Life Changer

That’s all it took.

 

Are you interested in coaching football? Charlie McFall, Collegiate’s head football coach and athletic director, asked Trip Featherston one early fall day way back in 1989.

Sure, Featherston recalls saying, I’d love to help out.

 

Who could have imagined that that brief, out-of-the-blue exchange would begin a meaningful and impactful decades-long career as a teacher and coach and, better yet, be a life changer of the highest order, not just for him but for so many others?

 

“When I graduated from high school, I went to Randolph-Macon with no real plan after college,” said Featherston, a Collegiate lifer and 1987 alumnus. “My dad had a small civil engineering company. I’d always done field surveying with him. I figured that’s what I’d do.”

 

Featherston had been a three-sport athlete at Collegiate. 

 

He played quarterback and cornerback in football and shooting guard in basketball and earned first-team All-Prep League and honorable mention All-Metro honors in both his senior year. He also played defensive midfielder in lacrosse, which he considered his third sport.

 

Anyone who competed alongside or coached him quickly recognized his high sports IQ. He could see the court and field and understand intricacies and nuances in a way few others his age could. He was a true student of the games he played.

 

Teaching and coaching, though, were nowhere on his radar.

 

“When Coach McFall called, I thought, OK, I’ll try it out,” he said. “I did, and I loved it. That’s how I found my passion. I love working with kids. I had no idea it would turn into what it has.”

 

That first year, Featherston, who was 20 at the time, assisted Lewis “Bubba” Lawson with Cub football and also coached in the basketball and lacrosse programs. He’s coached three seasons a year ever since and is now in year 36 and counting.

 

“Trip is one of the greatest seers of the field that I’ve ever been around,” said Andrew Stanley, Collegiate’s Director of Athletics and former head varsity lacrosse coach. “He’s an absolutely brilliant analyzer and tactician. The game moves slowly for him. The roles he’s played in football, basketball, and lacrosse have been essential.”

 

Soon after he returned to his alma mater, Featherston enrolled at VCU full time and earned a BS in health and physical education. He now heads the Middle School PE department.

 

“I think I have the best job at Collegiate,” he said. “I get to meet every boy and every girl in 5th grade and start teaching them. Some of the boys I’ve taught 5th through 8th grade and possibly coached them in three different sports from 9th through 12th grade. I love teaching and coaching, but the whole thing together is what I love the most.”

 

Featherston has coached at the Cub, JV, and varsity level in each sport. He also coached his and his wife Kate’s daughters Ginnie, now a senior at Virginia Tech, and Ellie, a Collegiate senior, in Geronimo lacrosse and Cougar Paws basketball.

 

For years, Featherston has served as a varsity assistant in football (quarterbacks and defensive backs coach, at various times offensive and defensive coordinator, and now Coach Collin McConaghy’s eyes and ears from atop the press box on game day).

 

“There’s nobody more dedicated to the mission of Collegiate sports than Trip,” McConaghy said. “He’s a guy who’s willing to watch film, do the work in the off-season, and build these kids up. He’s one of these old-school coaches who’s committed to being around these kids three seasons. Trip realizes that to build a program, you have to have solid people in every position along the way. He’s one [whose attitude is] tell me what my job is, and I’m going to do my best for this school and these kids.”

 

Featherston long ago settled into his role as head JV basketball and lacrosse coach.

 

“Trip is a tremendous asset, not just to the basketball program but to the Collegiate community as an educator, coach, and mentor,” said Nick Leonardelli, head varsity hoops coach. “There’s nothing better than knowing that the next generation is being coached not only as basketball players but as young men. He instills a great culture in his team. He’s a tremendous X’s and O’s coach, and he sees the game very well defensively. Our JV program is in great hands.”

 

Has Featherston ever had the desire to head a varsity program?

 

Briefly, years ago, he says, but he’s quite content in his behind-the-scenes roles and has savored the relationships he’s developed with athletes and taken quiet pride in their progress as they’ve moved through the program and beyond.

 

“I’ve really enjoyed teaching, coaching, and being with the kids,” he said. “I’ve loved my time on the court and field with them. At the JV level, that’s what it’s all about. I just teach the sport and how to be a good person. You don’t have the administrative work. It’s just about the kids and the sport. That simplicity is really what I love. In football, I get that because I’m just with my position group or my offense or defense.”

 

The way Featherston sees it, he’s paying forward the gifts he received when he was a Collegiate athlete, a time in his life which he recalls fondly.

 

He played football in the days before playoffs, so the season ended with the traditional St. Christopher’s game.

 

“Best memory was certainly my senior year,” he said. “The night before the St. Christopher’s game, Carl Nease and I made our skull and crossbones towels that we taped around our thigh pad. It had been a tradition all the way back to the David Murphy days (late ’70s). It was all in fun, but winning that game (20-7) was probably my biggest football moment.”

 

In basketball, there were several that stand out.

 

Among them was the Prep League tournament semifinals his sophomore year when he scored 15 off the bench in a 70-62 victory over Norfolk Academy’s 31-4 “Dream Team” led by a 6-7 Rice University-bound phenom named Glenn Youngkin.

 

“Most of my points came because they had to press us, and I was the guy who released over the top and got a lot of layups,” he said. “Winning that game was definitely a highlight.”

 

Another memorable team achievement occurred his senior year when the Cougars upset highly touted Franklin High School led by 6-8 University of Tennessee commit Ronnie Reese in a tournament at Meadowbrook High School.

 

“There were no 3-pointers back then,” Featherston said. “Coach [Bill] Chambers put two guys on Ronnie: a player in front and a player behind. The other three played a triangle against their other four. They couldn’t shoot the ball very well from the outside. I think we held him under 10 points. No one gave us a chance, but we ended up winning (60-55).”

 

How long will Featherston continue to indulge his passion for teaching and coaching?

 

“I don’t know anything else,” he said. “I love doing what I’m doing. Someone once told me that being with 12-year-olds to 18-year-olds keeps you young. Hopefully that will remain to be the case. Because of Charlie’s phone call, I stumbled into what I was supposed to be doing. Could I have found something else where I would have made more money? Yeah. Would I want to go back and do anything else?  No way.”

~Weldon Bradshaw