And then Richard Bohner allowed McCallie School football players Waymon Tipton and Ed Smith to shave his head in front of the entire student body.
When you've been in business for 112 years, as McCallie has, there are a lot of memorable moments in your past: good, bad, happy, sad and otherwise.
But for those who were lucky enough to be inside the school's chapel on Nov. 25, 1974, there may never be a more unforgettable vision than that of Bohner - a Blue Tornado assistant football coach to Pete Potter in those days - having his hair shaved off by Smith and Tipton as payback for a bet following McCallie's stunning 29-7 playoff victory over archrival Baylor.
"As best I remember, Coach B committed to the 'cut' right after the playoff schedule had us playing Baylor," Tipton wrote in an email this week. "I think he just wanted to do whatever he could to motivate us. Most people thought he would back out, but once committed he was not about to back out."
Especially since the Blue Tornado had meekly fallen 33-15 to the Red Raiders during the regular season.
So come the Monday after that win, four days from Thanksgiving, Smith and Tipton stood on the chapel stage with their low-grade barber shears, Bohner seated in a chair facing more than 700 students who were somewhat well-behaved as they sat in the building's pews.
"I was on his right and Waymon was on his left," Smith recalled Friday. "Half and half. And to attempt this in front of the whole school was a little nerve-racking. We were definitely worried about drawing blood. In fact, I'm pretty sure we nicked him once or twice."
But Bohner never flinched. He took it like the man's man that the former Vanderbilt football player always was. Or as Smith said, "He wasn't one of us - he was our coach. But he was definitely a player's coach."
At 11 this morning, a lot of former McCallie students and Bohner family friends will gather at that same McCallie chapel to eulogize their beloved Coach B, who passed away at the age of 74 last weekend following complications from heart surgery.
"Like many extraordinary men who came before and after him, Coach Bohner accepted a very modest salary to not only teach and coach but also supervise high school boys in a dorm," Carl McPhail, a fellow member of Smith's and Tipton's in that 1975 class, wrote in an email.
"It was a real sacrifice to raise a large family in a small rundown apartment at the end of an on-campus dormitory. Those of us that were fortunate enough to live in his dorm, however, were treated like family. The group of us in his dorm that were from Charlotte, thus 360 miles from home, all feel like we just lost a family member."
The feeling was mutual for Bohner, who coached and taught at McCallie from 1971 to 1981.
Wrote Hugh Morrow, who graduated from the school in 1979: "(Bohner) was in the receiving line at our visitation (for Morrow's mother), walking with a walker. I thanked him for being an inspiration to me and that my parents always thought highly of him, and he looked right at me and said, 'Those were the happiest and best 10 years of my life.'"
Son Alex Bohner, his youngest child, echoed those sentiments, saying of his father's return to Chattanooga in 2005 after a 24-year stay in Texas: "Next to being closer to his blood family, seeing all his old (McCallie) boys made Dad the happiest. He loved retelling all the old stories about those guys."
And those players still love telling stories about him.
Wrote Chris Porter, class of 1976: "Coach Bohner just had that aura that inspired you to give it all you had as a person, a student and an athlete. He demanded your best and always rewarded you with that infectious smile for which he was known. I will always hear his voice calling out from the sideline, 'Good job, Chris Porter!'"
Smith recalled the time he'd misbehaved before a game. Bohner told him to meet him at the family's North Hutcheson Hall apartment at 6 a.m. the day after the game.
"All I remember him saying was, 'Follow me,' and out the door he went," Smith recalled. "We ran and ran and I eventually threw up. About two hours later, Coach Bohner was running backwards and I was throwing up at every street sign. The good ol' days, right? Coach Bonner was a fun and good man who cared about boys becoming good men."
The good times didn't last. Richard and Dottie divorced. Texas didn't produce the pot of gold he'd hoped for. His health deteriorated. He returned to the Scenic City to be closer to daughter Debbie, her husband Carter Young and their three sons Wes, Campbell and Jack; Alex, his wife Mandy and their daughters Louisa and Francis; and his ex-wife Dottie. Son Rick lives in Florida with his wife Connie and their children Aimee, David (Rachel), Rebekah and Hannah.
Wrote a close friend on the Wann Funeral Home website this week: "Like all of us, he wished he could go back and change some things. The sweetest last conversation I had with Richard he shared that he had become a Christian and knows he is forgiven."
And once back in town, despite his health struggles, he did all he could to reconnect with his children and grandchildren, especially his youngest grandchildren Louisa (12) and Frances (10).
"Pops missed out on a lot of Debbie's sons' time at McCallie, but he loved the fact that our daughters loved playing sports more than they loved dolls. He came back at a crucial time for my kids," Alex said.
And that's at least one reason why, come 11 this morning inside McCallie's chapel, a lot of boys who became good men will say one last time of Bohner, "Good job, Coach B!"
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.