‘It’s fair to say he helped build this place’

When the Palmer High football team takes to the gridiron next fall, a familiar face will be absent from Machetanz Field for the first time in that program’s history.

Norm Rousey Sr. was 22 and fresh from his college football career at Bowling Green University when he accepted a teaching position in Alaska. When he arrived in Palmer in 1951, the principal told him his No. 1 task was to start a football program.

In 1952, 37 boys turned out for the fledging program. Many of them called Katie Rousey this week to offer their condolences and share their memories of her husband and how his influence had shaped their lives.

It was four years of drills, practices and 12 consecutive losses before the Moose savored their first delicious victory in October 1955, an 18-6 win against the Eagles, which is today known as West High School.

It was a victory and a team Rousey never forgot, his family said.

“He never forgot. He called them his boys,” Katie said. “I’ve gotten calls from a few of them saying how he shaped their lives and gave them direction.”

Norm Rousey Sr. died Jan. 17, 2014, in the family’s Palmer area home surrounded by his wife and children from complications following surgery. He was 85.

Generations of school children and employees of the Mat-Su Borough School District were directly and indirectly shaped by Rousey’s personal drive for excellence, and his caring, gentle manner.

A group of Palmer High athletes grew from boys to men under his wings. Even now after 61 years, they call to pay their respects to coach Rousey’s family, to share their memories of how he shaped their lives.

It’s remarkable, too, that the sons and grandsons of these men who notched the school’s first football win in October 1955 have gone on to win state and regional championships, almost always with Rousey cheering from the sidelines.

His loss was unexpected.

It’s funny the Frontiersman called, said Katie Rousey, his wife of 55 years. In life, he wasn’t the sort of man to seek accolades, she said. The master’s and the doctorate degrees he earned to prove to himself that he could. Last week, she found his diploma from the University of Southern California among a stack of other awards tucked inside a cupboard, forgotten.

Rousey is remembered as a humble man who was kind and smiling. He was a well-educated, gentle man who was an excellent athlete, musician, teacher and administrator in the Mat-Su Borough School District from 1951 to 1981. He retired as superintendent.

We are certain coach Rousey would also like it if we mentioned here that he fancied himself something of a pool shark and won the last tournament at the Elks Lodge a few days before he died. A celebration of life in his honor is at 2 p.m., Feb. 9 at the Palmer Depot. Everyone is welcome.

It would be difficult to overstate Rousey’s influence on the Valley in the past 62 years, but we think one of his former employees, Pat Chesbro, summed it up nicely.

“It’s fair to say he helped build this place,” she said.