FROM the accounts of former players who sweated under his rule on the athletic fields, coach Curtis "Dike" Rose was a tough taskmaster whose punishments for infractions varied from forced duckwalks to extra hours of grueling practice, even on hot summer days.

The disciplinary tactics of the former Houston Independent School District athletic director and San Jacinto High School coach were described in glowing terms — as praise, even — by the now gray-haired band of former athletes who attended Rose's 95th birthday celebration on Jan. 26.

About 35 men, ranging in age from their 60s to their 80s — a group Rose still calls "the boys"or "the kids" — gathered at his home at Bayou Manor, a senior retirement complex at 4141 S. Braeswood.

They presented him with a cake that sported football goal posts to remind him of the glory days.

Those days include Rose's 17 years of coaching at San Jacinto High School from 1946-63 — including the 1949 city football championship for the now-defunct high school that stood at 1300 Holman at San Jacinto Street, where Houston Community College System's Central Campus is today.

Other highlights included the unveiling of a clay scale model of Rose depicted during his championship season.

It will be used by Garland Weeks, a National Sculpture Society member based in Lubbock, as the basis of a life-sized bronze statue to be installed on the Austin Street grounds of the former high school.

"The kids have kept up with me for years and years," said Rose in his second-floor rooms, which are filled with photos and memorabilia of his days at San Jacinto and later as an HISD athletic director.

A second father

"He was the coach of athletes when we were on the field, and when we were off the field he was a second father to us — even in the days when we were lucky enough to have very good fathers of our own," said Alan Finger, 72, a member of San Jacinto High's class of 1954. "He saved a lot of kids who were going the wrong way; turned them into good people."

Rose was born in La Grange and grew up in Columbus. He received three college scholarships after his own high school days that included football and the Citizens Military Training Corps in San Antonio.

He lettered in football, track and baseball at Sam Houston State University. He played quarterback and was a team captain in each sport.

He began coaching sports at Richmond High School in 1936, and a year later went to work at Milby High School. World War II intervened, and Rose joined the Navy in 1942 aboard the USS Corregidor.

He went to Colorado after the war and received his master's degree. His late wife, Hazel, taught at Pershing Middle School.

Her photo from World War II days is prominently displayed in Rose's photo galleries, along with those of the track, baseball and basketball teams he coached that bear the signatures and good wishes of his athletes through the years.

"He was very much a disciplinarian. He was a hard taskmaster. He'd keep us out there, practicing, for hours or make us do duckwalks all around the track. But he also was very committed to his players and to the game," said Tom Lovell, a member of San Jacinto's class of 1953 and former newspaper editor in Corpus Christi.

Running plays

David Kelley, a member of San Jacinto's class of 1954 and a former leasing division manager for developer Gerald Hines, played for three years for Rose, a distinction he now calls "an honor."

"His attitude was — he liked to win. Sure, we had to run plays over and over and he was probably hard. But we did OK," Kelley added.

That many of Rose's players went on to highly successful careers "probably had a lot to do with that," he said.

Rose's nephew, John Cox, who escorted his uncle to the event, said Rose "always talks about his teams — and how they keep up with him."

Among more than three dozen former athletes and other friends at the celebration were players from the late 1940s through the late 1950s and six former HISD coaches.

In receiving the accolades, Rose, who still insists on walking a mile a day — though with assistance and not all at one time — was far from the widely reputed tough-as-nails coach of yesteryear.

Said Rose, with his voice wavering with emotion, "So many of my fine athletes came to honor me like this.

"I appreciate it."

betty.martin@chron.com