When I first moved to San Antonio in 2015, I lived in a 30-foot Airstream for a year. I had to load up my laundry once a week and head to the laundromat.

One night when I was there, a gentleman in his late 50’s saw the San Antonio Independent School District Athletics logo on a shirt I was folding and asked me if I was a coach. I told him I was in Administration; he then began to tell me about his middle school days as a student/athlete when he attended school there some 45 years ago.

He explained to me how much he learned about life from his middle school coach and that his influence still resonated with him today.

He said, “I got off to a bad start in life, but thank God Coach was there to straighten me out. I still use what I learned from him when I make decisions today.”

His middle school coach is alive and well, 45 years later in a laundromat.

There is no doubt that I am a better person due to the positive influence of my high school baseball coach.

Although I absolutely hated Coach Maiorana’s, (pronounced Mary – ahhna) guts at times, he did teach me about life, commitment, sacrifice, and his influence still has significant merit on me decades later.

There was no room for sympathy with him. His wife Sandy was suffering from Cystic Fibrosis, and she had to endure daily therapy for years, administered by him, to even breathe. It took everything in her mind, body, and soul to attend games, but she always showed up. She was a fighter, and he never let us forget that.

He would look at us and say, “You all don’t know what it means to be a fighter until you wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe. Try fighting for your next breath and see how tough you really are.”

He was very aggressive and vocal, but he never laid a hand on a kid and was always consistent and fair. But he could also scare the living hell out of you. Although at times playing for him was not much fun, it was certainly worth it, and without a doubt it was exactly what I needed.

The power of a positive influence is eternal because it is right. I am certain many of you live a certain way or handle life’s challenges with a particular attitude because you were influenced by a positive coach, boss, colleague, friend, or parent. Your life is better due to that person, and you are passing many of those same positive attributes onto others today without even realizing it.

So, in reality, even though my high school baseball coach died years ago, he is still alive and well today because I have passed his positive influence onto others. As have thousands of other young men that were fortunate enough to have played for him. Generational influence.

Coach Maiorana was tough as hell on us, but he backed it up with a hell of a lot of love for us. Tough love no doubt, but without the love, the tough will not work.

I was able to tell him how much he meant to me over the phone one evening in 2010 as he lay in bed battling the final stages of stomach cancer. When I heard his voice, somewhat trembling and weak, I went silent for about 15 seconds, taken over with sudden grief.

I finally was able to get the lump out of my throat and say “Coach, I am where I am today because of you. Thank you, coach, I love you.”

I was not the only kid to play for Coach Maiorana, but he sure made me feel like I was.

I graduated in 1982, and to this day I still have my black and gold Spring Woods baseball hat. If you were ever seen wearing one, then you were immediately identified as someone special because you had paid a personal high price for it. It is by far one of my most prized possessions and its influence never dies.

We all have the opportunity to offer generational influence. You don’t have to be in a position of authority, just a human. The tricky part is that a bad influence can be passed down through generations just like good influence.

Fortunately for me, my parents passed down unconditional love, although I did inherit my dad’s bad back….and his worry gene.

You choose to be a positive influence not because you want people to be like you, but because you want people to be better than you.

I know that my kids will influence their kids based on the way a coach they never met influenced me.

That is generational influence.

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles will appear on Fridays.