The death of Bill Freeman, who coached football and track at Lawrence High from 1974 to 1989, has saddened sports writers who covered the personable coach and his teams during his 16 years with the Lions.

“Great coach. Great man,” Tweeted Kevin Haskin of Topeka’s Capital-Journal.

“One of the best coaches and people I’ve written about. RIP,” Tweeted the Wichita Eagle’s Bob Lutz.

“What an amazing man. RIP. Best wishes to the family and Lawrence community,” Tweeted Pam Clark, formerly of the Topeka C-J, now at the Tulsa (Oklahoma) World.

“RIP to Bill Freeman, former Lawrence High ftball/track coach, who was an ego-free legend – great husband, dad, farmer, banker,coach,athlete. … Alzheimer’s claims another, but it can’t take away an amazing 84 years on earth, 82 w/out the awful disease,” read a rapid-fire double Tweet by Yours Truly.

Certainly many sports writers and photographers in the state of Kansas have stories to share about the great Bill Freeman.

I will share one.

Lawrence High football coach Bill Freeman before the 1988 season.

The best performance by a high school football team (in a high-stakes game) I’ve ever seen took place on Nov. 24, 1984, at Kansas University’s Memorial Stadium.

Freeman’s Lions torched Manhattan High, 29-3, in a Class 6A title game not-as-close as the score would indicate (Freeman had a way of never running up the score; one of the two times I ever saw him get mad was at Leavenworth one fall when the coach of a lousy Pioneer team mistakenly thought the Lions scored seven or so too many points).

LHS, on a beautiful sunny day, outgained MHS 330 yards to 23 and recorded 19 first downs to the Indians’ one — yes, one.

That one came via LHS penalty.

Not normally an outwardly emotional guy, Freeman shed a few tears on the sidelines after the Lion defense closed that season by not allowing a touchdown in 34 quarters.

The meat of my story — at last what’s most interesting to me — is what happened after the game.

Topeka scribe Kevin Haskin and I were on the sidelines as the horn sounded, realizing we were in a bind.

After shaking hands with the Manhattan players, Freeman’s Lions raced to the team bus to return to Lawrence High. Kevin and I needed a batch of postgame comments from Freeman and the Lions to write our stories on the state-title victory.

Our cars were not close by, and we knew we’d be facing a massive traffic jam once we indeed reached our vehicles — time being of the essence.

Sensing our anguish, Freeman escorted us onto the team bus, on which we hitched a ride to LHS with the players and coaches.

We got to listen to Freeman’s postgame talk to the team and joy-of-victory exchanges with his coaches.

Once we completed our interviews at the high school, Freeman asked us how we were going to get back to Memorial Stadium.

Good question, coach.

“Hop in my truck,” he said before delivering us to our cars — a cramped three in the front seat — a mere hour and a half after winning the crown, his second in his first 11 seasons at LHS.

“I had to move the chainsaws (to the bed of truck),” Haskin recalled of making room in the front.

On the drive to the stadium, Renaissance Man Freeman peppered us with questions … about non-football-related subjects, of course.

Kevin and I could only shake our heads and smile as he played the role of Uber driver for us. We were well aware we had a story for the ages regarding this generous coach willing to help out some then-young writers rather than kick us to the curb.

Thanks again for the ride, coach, and rest in peace.