Article reprinted with permission from The Lancaster News

Beloved AJ coach dies

Faulkenberry known for his compassion

Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 6:00 am (Updated: November 9, 6:01 am)

KERSHAW – Andrew Jackson High School is reeling from the loss of a beloved coach and teacher who died Monday evening. Chad Faulkenberry was a longtime coach of the school’s junior varsity Volunteers football team and assistant coach for the varsity team. Family and friends said Faulkenberry collapsed at his home in Kershaw about 11 p.m. Monday. The cause of death was unknown as of deadline Tuesday afternoon.

Survived by his wife, Bobbie, and sons Luke, 10, and Jake, 7, Faulkenberry was 42 years old. Faulkenberry was a graduate of AJHS’s Class of 1987 and later earned his bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from the University of South Carolina. He returned to AJHS as a coach and in-school suspension aide in 1997 and worked his way up through the ranks. After earning his teaching certification, he began teaching business computers and integrated business applications.

Though he also coached baseball and basketball over the years, Faulkenberry’s heart was in the school’s junior varsity football program, a program he coached to a 7-2 season this year and saw as a way to shape the school’s future varsity teams. AJHS’ head football coach David Moore said there were many good things that could be said of Faulkenberry, not the least of which was that he loved Andrew Jackson High School.
“Chad was AJ,” Moore said. “He put his heart and soul in Andrew Jackson. Chad was in charge of player development (junior varsity team) and did a good job with getting our players ready to take the next step to the varsity level.

“He was vested in our community and was a devoted father and husband. I hate this for his family,” he added.
Coming after a year and a half span in which the school has lost six students, as well as an auto accident Monday that seriously injured a student, AJHS Principal Mary Barry said losing Faulkenberry has been exceptionally tough for both students and staff. The school’s grief, though, has been made even worse by the fact that Faulkenberry was so beloved, Barry said. Barry described Faulkenberry as “simply a good man.” She said he was quiet, but passionate, and loved the school, his athletes and his students.

She read from a devotion called “What Time Is It?” that Faulkenberry read to his players before last Friday’s first round junior varsity playoffs in Saluda. The devotion, she said, exhorted students to forget the past and focus on the present because present actions influence the future. The second part of the speech, she said, was a quote from Philipians 3: 13-14. “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it,” Barry read. “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. “Little did we know that it would be prophetic; (his death) came as a surprise to all of us,” she said.

First cousin Kevin Sims said Faulkenberry got both sides of his personality – his love of sports from their great grandfather, Mac Faile, and his love of the Lord from his grandfather, Bully Faulkenberry, former pastor of East Side Baptist in Rock Hill. Sims said next to his family, there was nothing Faulkenberry loved more than helping kids through sports. “It’s in our blood, we’re just a sports family,” Sims said. “He was a quiet man but when he said something it meant something. He loved coaching kids and wanted to give back to the kids of this community some day, it’s just the way we were brought up.” As a part of that giving back, Sims said, Faulkenberry had worked over the past year to start a wrestling team at AJHS. With that in mind, the family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the school for the purchase of a wrestling mat and to start the program. “That was a passion of his he really wanted to see,” Sims said. “If any good could come out of this, that’s it, a wrestling program to get started in his memory.”

Faulkenberry’s funeral is 3 p.m. Thursday at Second Baptist Church in Kershaw. Visitation is from 6 to 8 p.m. today at Baker Funeral Home in Kershaw.
Memorials may be made to Andrew Jackson High School, Booster Club, P.O. Box 182, Kershaw, SC 29067; or Flint Ridge Baptist Church Family Life Center, 1850 Flint Ridge Road, Heath Springs, SC 29058.

Chad Faulkenberry

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Contact reporter Reece Murphy at (803) 283-1151