SHS mentor, coach Eddie Howell dies

It was a common sight to see the late Eddie Howell sitting in his golf cart in the middle of the Sarasota High School campus when the bell rang and students were walking to class. 

Longtime friend and SHS Baseball Head Coach Clyde Metcalf remembers how Howell would wear sunglasses and have a 32-ounce cup of black coffee in his left hand with his right leg resting on the dashboard of the cart. Howell knew most students by first name as they passed by on their way to class. 

Today in the same courtyard the Sarasota High School Sailors flag will fly at half-staff in memory of Howell, who died Wednesday morning, following a long battle with cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer that affects the digestive bile ducts. 

Howell was a fixture at Sarasota High School as an administrator and coach for generations of students for 39 years. 
 
“It meant so much to the kids that he knew so many of them by name. If a kid needed to talk his door was open,” said Metcalf, a longtime friend.

Metcalf last spoke with Howell on Tuesday. But, the two men have been in each other’s lives since 1968 when Metcalf played for Howell on the SHS baseball team. Over the years the relationship evolved from that of mentor and mentee to colleagues.

Howell served as the pitching coach alongside Metcalf up until last season. He came to rely on Howell’s advice that he first received as a student athlete and into his adulthood. 

“I talked every morning on the way to work,” Metcalf said. “He gave me tremendous advice about the direction I was taking in my career.”

The role of mentor came naturally to Howell as a coach and an administrator. Chip Cleland, son of former SHS football coach Charles Cleland, grew up with Howell in his life. Howell helped coach the football team alongside Charles Cleland during his tenure as head coach. 

“Any time he looked at me in the halls he would call me “Chipper!” he said.

Chip Cleland recalls attending school in the 1980s while Howell was an assistant principal. 

“I was never called into his office, but I did visit him frequently, daily,” Cleland said. “When you are a high school student you think every thing is serious and turmoil. He brought everything back to reality for you. You knew that the sun was going to come up tomorrow and everything was going to be fine.”

Even after Howell retired from the school’s administration he stayed active in the athletics department as pitching

coach for the Sailors baseball team. Current Principal Jeff Hradek remembers working alongside Howell before he retired. 

“It’s quite a legacy,” Hradek said. “He modeled really what a school administrator should be about. He was about children first, no matter what the situation was. He put in endless hours trying to help a kid regardless of background.”

Sarasota High School history is intertwined with the Howell family’s history. It’s the school where Howell’s wife Jonny taught, where their two children Eddie Jr. and Shannon attended as well as Howell’s grandchildren. To show support for Howell in his battle with his illness students, colleagues and members of the community hosted a rally in his honor in August.