Butler football's Don Benbow must have been a saint. He follows me everywhere, even golf

GREENFIELD — I was eating a pulled pork sandwich with a bag of Lay's potato chips after a golf tournament when a guy washing down carts at Arrowhead Golf Course noticed my name on a scorecard.

Lou Hurrle walked inside where nearly 100 golfers sat eating, laughing, drinking beer and anxiously awaiting the 50-50 raffle draw and he motioned for me to come over. Hurrle had a question.

"Hey, I saw your name and just wanted to ask. Are you related to Don Benbow?"

I should have known. What else would Hurrle have wanted to ask? Having the name Dana Benbow, and having it as a byline in IndyStar's sports pages, has brought that same question too many times to count.

More than any other email I receive or phone call I get, more than any question about sports, are the ones about this guy named Benbow.

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Never mind a one-on-one sit-down with Andrew Luck after his rookie season. And another with Peyton Manning on his bourbon empire. Never mind being at the AFC Championship in New England when the infamous Deflategate went down. Never mind two days in Reno, Nevada, for a three-part series on Steve Alford.

Nobody cares about any of that as much as they care about Don Benbow.

I've had hundreds of people ask if I'm related to Benbow, a Butler football player who led the Bulldogs to an undefeated season in 1961, an offensive tackle turned high school football and wrestling coach at Shortridge. A man who returned to Butler for 36 years to be an assistant football coach, golf coach and associate athletic director.

But Hurrle, I decided, would be the last to ask. At least the last where I had to wonder who Benbow was, a man who years before his death in 2019 and, years after, continues to follow me.

A man, whom by all accounts, must have been some sort of saint.

'You should meet him'

I'm not a blood relation to Don Benbow. Benbow is my married name. My husband and his family's roots are in Marion, though his great-grandmother lived in Muncie, where Benbow grew up.

And as my husband says, "With a name like Benbow, we're all probably related somehow." It's not exactly an everyday name. But I had heard the name Benbow as a student at Butler in the 1990s, long before I ever wrote for IndyStar.

Don Benbow was at Butler when I was there. Then, I only knew of Benbow on the surface, as a coach I had never met. But when his last name became mine in 2010, I realized there must be more to this man, because people wouldn't stop asking about him.

I started digging into Benbow, talking to people who knew him, reading through all those emails where people told of their love of Benbow. And I realized...

The thing about people like Benbow, who other people remember with fondness and warmth? Most of them never did anything earth shattering or anything the world remembers. Most aren't Nobel Peace Prize winners or A-list celebrities or superstar pro athletes.

Most are just good people who cared about others. Who smiled and gave a firm handshake. Who tried to make the world a better place, little act by little act.

That's who Benbow was, how he had lived his life when he died at 78 on March 11, 2019, leaving his wife, children, grandchildren and a brother as survivors. And leaving behind so many others who adored him.

"You should meet him," Don Thompson, who was a freshman at Butler when Benbow was a senior, wrote to me a year before Benbow died. "He is generally at Butler in the athletic department. Good guy and one of Butler's greatest football players. Impressive coach."

I wish now I had listened to Thompson. I could have met Benbow, seen him in the flesh, talked to him. Instead I have to rely on the hundreds of news articles -- and others' memories of Benbow -- to tell me who he was.

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'One heck of a football player'

Benbow was born July 11, 1940, in Muncie to Carlton and Thelma (McClung) Benbow. He attended Muncie Central High School, graduating in 1958. He went on to Butler where he was a standout, 225-pound offensive tackle wearing No. 55 under football coach Tony Hinkle.

Benbow led Butler to a three-year 26-1 record, including two undefeated teams. He was Butler's third Little All-American, an All-Conference player and Indianapolis News' MVP. Benbow was later inducted into the Delaware County Hall of Fame and the Indiana Football Hall of Fame.

"Don was one heck of a football player," Thompson said. "I think he was given a shot with the Vikings."

Benbow was given a shot with the Minnesota Vikings. In February of 1962, months before he would graduate from Butler, the Vikings signed Benbow as a free agent. While his NFL career never took off, Benbow did play for the Indianapolis Warriors, a minor league football team in the city.

Playing for the Warriors in 1963, Benbow was hired by Shortridge High as a line coach for the football team. He went on to become head football and wrestling coach at the school, winning the 1967 state wrestling championship.

But Benbow's sporting accolades are not what Hurrle remembers most about him. As Hurrle coached alongside him at Shortridge, he saw that Benbow wasn't the typical coach.

There were letters, hundreds of them. Benbow liked to write letters to build people up. There were the letters he wrote to players, words of encouragement. There were the letters he wrote to colleges, fighting to get his players an education.

"He did so much for the kids," Hurrle said. "He would write letters for any kid and talk to them about going on to college. And not necessarily playing ball, but just making sure they went to college."

Many of those players were Black. David Norwood remembers Benbow's fight for racial equity at Shortridge in the 1960s. He was there as a student.

"Mr. Benbow was a great man," Norwood said. "He was very instrumental in being a conjunction during the Civil Rights movement."

Benbow wanted Black players to have the same opportunities as white players. He became a shoulder to lean on for many of them.

On the field, Benbow was serious and stern, but off the field, he had a welcoming, kind spirit, Hurrle said. Players knew they could come to Benbow with their problems, for advice about life.

"He cared. He got along really, really well with the players," Hurrle said. "He went above and beyond for them."

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'One of the greatest men I ever knew'

Until Hurrle, I had no idea about Benbow's Shortridge connection, not until that golf tournament last month. Most people who ask about Benbow refer to him as "the Butler football player" or "the Butler football coach," which makes sense. After Shortridge, Benbow spent 36 years at Butler, including 16 years as assistant football coach.

Butler and Benbow were synonymous, the university wrote after his death.

"Affectionately known as 'Coach' to decades of players and colleagues, he served Butler for the remainder of his life," Benbow's obituary in 2019 read.

Beyond football, Benbow was Butler's associate athletic director and head coach for the men's and women's golf teams. Benbow started the women's golf team at Butler, which his family said was one of his proudest achievements.

But Benbow's achievements came in other unseen, quiet ways. The emails I've received in the past 10 years are a testament to that. A testament to those people who aren't Nobel Peace Prize winners or superstar athletes, but people who make their mark, not expecting anything in return.

Don Benbow was one of the greatest men I ever knew. Not a kinder man around. He cared so much.

One time, he talked me off the ledge. He checked on me. He wanted me to be OK.

He was a wonderful man, outstanding coach, educator and a friend.

He always had that great smile on his face, had the best attitude. He was not full of himself.

If someone needed $20, he gave them $50. If someone was struggling, he gave them light.

Now, I know who Don Benbow was. And I'm grateful for that. When people ask about him, I can tell them: "No. I'm not related to Don Benbow. But I sure wish I were."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.