Interview: Blacksburg High School Football Coach, Dave Crist

Is this real? Those were the first thoughts that entered David Crist’s mind when his Blacksburg High School football team won the state championship in 1977. 



As the head coach of the Blacksburg Bruins for the last 35 years, Crist has coached three generations of young men, including his three sons who have each become football coaches. All while teaching five math classes a day.

He has an impressive number of wins over his career, but Crist still claims “they all hurt” when asked about losses in a conference room in Blacksburg High School.

At the dedication of the Bruins’ home football field (named in his honor), surrounded by his family including his wife of 42 years, Crist thanked the crowd with honest humility; something he is known for.

Crist recently sat down with Planet Blacksburg to discuss his life as a football coach and educator. The following questions have been pulled from that interview.

Q: What got you into coaching?

CRIST: When I was in my senior year of high school, I had a season ending injury, so I had a lot of time to think. I always thought I wanted to be an engineer. I had talked to my high school coach a little bit about coaching, and at the end of my sophomore year after having the basic courses I knew I didn’t want to be an engineer. I didn’t know what I wanted to go into. My coach asked if I would help him [coach] until I went back to school, which I did and I liked it. I went on into business administration and really liked that.

I was in ROTC and thought that the military was an option. When I went on active duty after graduation, my intent was to be in [the] military with the option of if it didn’t work out I would go into coaching and teaching. Then there was an incident, right at decision time to stay or to get out, that did not involve me directly, but it was one that I thought was extremely unfair and I didn’t feel like I wanted to be a part of that. So I made the decision to be discharged. I took a graduate math class and education classes at [James Madison University] and it just went on from there.

Q: When did you start coaching football?

CRIST: 1971, at Madison County [High School] in Virginia.

Q: Who taught you how to coach?

CRIST: It’s not any one person; you rely on everyone that you were ever around as a coach. My football coaches, basketball coaches, baseball coaches, they all had some influence. The biggest influence was Eddie Dean at Madison County [High School]. I think you learn by observing, you learn because you are put in situations that you have to find a solution for, pretty quickly. You just learn from everybody you are around. When I got [to Blacksburg, my influence] was Coach Brown, of the Bill Brown stadium. What I learned from him was not so much how to coach, but how to deal with people. He never wanted to be a head football coach, so it was easy to watch how he handled things. I’d bounce ideas off of him. You learn more than you are taught I think.

Q: How did your parents influence your career?

CRIST: Just encouragement. I asked my mom one day, ‘Did I ever give you any indication that teaching and coaching was what I wanted to do?’ and she said, ‘You loved any kind of ball, didn’t matter, basketball, baseball, football, whatever it was that you could pick up and throw.’ My dad, he taught me to love the games for what they were. Not win or lose situations, but for what they were. You play the games as best you can and go on. They encouraged me to do what I enjoyed so that a job wasn’t work. And that’s what I did.

Q: How does the support of the community affect you?

CRIST: I don’t know that you know how much support you have until a situation arises that you really need it. You probably hear more about the other side, the displeased people than the pleased folks. Although here I must say that it’s been quite easy to be a coach. It’s not all smooth, but many of the roads have been.

Q: What is it about Blacksburg that you like most?

CRIST: I’m not sure. Is it Blacksburg? Is it Montgomery County? Is it Blacksburg high school? Is it Virginia Tech? I think it is all in one. It was a great place to raise our children; it was a great place to live. My wife and I both came from a small town, and [Blacksburg] has small town atmosphere with things to do. The students don’t think they have things to do, but there are. You just have to look for them. And it always felt like home, by this time it has become home. There are places I think that you could live where there’s something that you really don’t like about it, but there’s nothing here that we’ve ever disliked. It made it easy to stay and love it. The town slogan is ‘Blacksburg: A special place’ and really it is, it really has been.

Q: What do you think of your three sons following in your footsteps and becoming coaches?

CRIST: It wasn’t something I encouraged because as a high school coach you’re not going to get rich; in public education you’re not going to get rich. They saw all the bad, as well as the good, so they didn’t get into it disillusioned. I’m proud that they are willing to work with younger people… and are really really good at what they do. I mean that part is them, that is not me. They each have their own personalities and they are all three different. They love the game, they love people, and they do it the right way. That’s a pleasing factor. They don’t do it the wrong way.

Q: What was it like coaching them? Was it different from other players?

CRIST: I never really tried to treat them any different. I always tried to treat them just as I would do any of the other guys. It was fun to coach [my sons] because they wanted to be coached. All three of them played a lot and they all three were starters and they earned that. It wasn’t a thing they got because of who I was. They earned what they got. I can probably answer this question better by saying the saddest day of my coaching life was when I walked out on the field on the first day of practice and I didn’t have one of them with me, because they had all gone their own way. It was like, this isn’t right (laughs). But we got along really well, and we would try to leave things on the field and not take them home.

Q: What do you aim to teach kids besides math and how to play football?

CRIST: I hope they will have learned the traits and the characteristics necessary to be successful; with non-athletic things [such as,] how to succeed at your job, what do you do when you get knocked down? Are you going to get back up? Or are you going to lie there and feel sorry for yourself? Because you don’t have much time to do that if you get knocked down on the field. I hope they learn that they’re the only ones that can destroy their own name, their integrity, their honesty, all of that. I hope they learn that there is a work ethic [needed] to achieve what it is you want to achieve. You can wish that you had it or you can work for it.

Those are the things I think all educators should focus on. What do you want? I’m not going to give you extra credit, because the only time you want extra credit is when things aren’t going well. You get what you earn. Establish work ethic now [in school], when it is not so costly because if you don’t it will be costly later.

Q: What have you learned from your students?

CRIST: Patience (chuckles). A lot of patience. A belief that eventually they will be good people, and that they will do the right things. I think you have to want to learn from them. I don’t think you can go into the classroom thinking it’s my way or the highway. You have to listen to them too.

Q: What loss has affected you the most?

CRIST: Any of the playoff losses are difficult because it’s the last game. Most other losses in the regular season you have next week, you have to get ready for next week so [the loss] goes away. Playoff losses don’t go away, particularly if you almost have it and you don’t get it. I never tried to rank them. They all hurt.

Q: What were your thoughts when you won your first state championship in 1977?

CRIST: Is this real? (laughs) Because the team that we [beat] was really really good and I knew that we had to play as well as we could play and they had to make mistakes. They did, and we did. We had a lot of contributors in different ways.