By Malone Morchower

Bradshaw coaching Middle School football in 1974.

When thinking about the influence certain people have had on Collegiate, one can’t help but think of Weldon Bradshaw. As a coach, teacher, writer, and mentor, Bradshaw has undoubtedly influenced the school with his thoughtful remarks and wisdom.

Bradshaw grew up in Norfolk, Virginia and attended Norfolk Academy. Although he remembers traveling to Richmond to compete against Collegiate in sports, his interest in the school did not begin until midway through college. During his sophomore year at the University of Richmond, Bradshaw noticed college students wearing either Collegiate or St. Christopher’s jackets. These students worked at the schools in the afternoons. Almost immediately, Bradshaw wrote letters to each school, applying for a part-time job as a coach.

Two days later, Bradshaw met with Coach Petey Jacobs, the Athletic Director at the time, and he started coaching Middle School football, basketball, and baseball the following year. By pure fate, Collegiate beat St. Christopher’s in the hiring process, and Bradshaw’s life as a Cougar began in 1968. Little did he know this small coaching job would lead to half a century of dedicated work for the school.

Left to right: Bradshaw, Petey Jacobs’ wife Scotty, John Moreau, and Alex Smith (’65).

Bradshaw finished his degree while helping out where it was needed at Collegiate. After he graduated in 1970, he started working for the Richmond News Leader newspaper, which merged with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1992. Previously, he had worked as a summer intern for the Norfolk-Ledger Star, but a high school basketball game in January 1970 was the subject of his first article as a sports journalist for the News Leader.      

After two years of working for the paper, he decided to halt his plan of being a full-time sports writer to become a teacher. According to one of his 2020 Reflections columns on Collegiate’s website, Bradshaw says “the plan was to return to the paper full time once I’d gotten this save-the-world thing out of my system, but that was 1972, and the educator-by-day, sportswriter-by-night arrangement has worked out pretty well.” Before becoming a teacher, he made sure the newspaper was not too quick to hire anyone else to replace him, as he believed he would be back in journalism in a few years. Five decades later, Bradshaw has never returned to the paper full time, but he worked and continues to work as a freelance writer, covering a wide range of sports, including basketball, football, baseball, softball, track, cross country, wrestling, and gymnastics. This season is his 54th basketball season as a sports journalist, and he continues to attend games, pen and paper in hand.    

Bradshaw teaching his seventh grade English class in 1976.

While coaching basketball, baseball, and football, Bradshaw coached alongside Collegiate legend Petey Jacobs. He idolized Jacobs, who provided the basis of Bradshaw’s philosophies surrounding sports and coaching. “Coach Jacobs always preached keep it calm, stay the course, be sportsmanlike, but compete hard,” and Bradshaw has strived and succeeded at keeping these words part of the culture of Collegiate sports.

He specifically remembers coaching a girls basketball game in December 1995, the day after Jacobs passed away. The Cougars, hoping to defeat St. Catherine’s, were down three points at halftime and down 17 points with three minutes to go in the third quarter. Right when the game seemed over, the team started getting a few steals and quickly regaining momentum. Collegiate ended up winning in overtime, and Bradshaw describes this moment as “one of the most amazing things I had been a part of athletically. I felt like he was there that night helping us stay calm when things were tough.”

Bradshaw and the girls’ cross country team in 1999.

As an English teacher in the Middle School, Bradshaw cherished his time teaching Middle School boys how to write. He loved proving adolescent boys wrong about the concept of writing. His favorite moment was when “the boys who originally were reluctant to write started looking forward to devoted writing time.” 

In 1978, Bradshaw started as a boys cross country coach. Then, in 1988, he started the girls’ cross country team with just four young runners. Bradshaw has had every coaching position in track and cross country, and he holds a tremendous amount of wisdom in every aspect of the sport, from workouts in the rain, to properly passing someone, to handoffs, and to winning and losing with poise. Ann Carter Arendale (’23), a member of the winter and spring track team, believes “Coach Bradshaw is one of those coaches who makes you feel like you can do anything because of his wisdom, encouragement, and utmost confidence in you.” He teaches his athletes how to keep pushing when it gets difficult and run through the finish line, and later this philosophy was put to the ultimate test for Bradshaw. 

Bradshaw with the 1998 and 1999 cross country co-captains: Patrick Boswell (’00), left, and Neth Walker (’00), right.

In 2010, Bradshaw was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis. This disease was not caused by poor health decisions or anything he could control, and it wasn’t until two years later that the disease started to make a detrimental impact on his health. In November 2012, his doctor told him he wouldn’t make it longer than a week if he did not receive a liver transplant. Bradshaw always told his runners that “if somebody beats you across the finish line, make sure it’s because they’re faster, not tougher or better prepared.” Even in his worst state in the ICU at VCU’s Medical Center of Virginia, Bradshaw remembers saying to his nurse that “liver disease might beat me across the finish line, but no way will it ever beat me.” And on the sixth day, VCU received a call that someone had just passed away in North Carolina who had a donor liver that matched.

Bradshaw in 1978.

Bradshaw endured a difficult recovery that required much patience. In a December 2020 Match article about organ donations, Audrey Fleming (’22) explained that in the months after the surgery, Bradshaw “lost significant weight due to medications which affected his appetite.” Although he faced health complications after the transplant, Bradshaw waited for the day he could return to Collegiate “to show everyone that their support and prayers had meant something.” During the spring track season following his transplant, Bradshaw remembers walking into the locker room before practice for the first time in six months. The coaches were all laughing, and Bradshaw thought, “This is why I’m back, to be here and hang out with these guys.”

After the liver transplant, Bradshaw has applied a new philosophy to his life. He still continues to help with cross country and track, but he especially loves the relay handoff. Through his liver disease, Bradshaw found a parallel between the handoff and the transplant. He explained that “the relay is really what we should be doing in our lives. Taking the gold in our hearts and passing it on to the next person. All I’m doing is carrying the baton the liver donor handed me when she passed away.”

Just last spring, Bradshaw officially retired from Collegiate, but that does not mean you will not see him around campus. Bradshaw maintains the cross country course, helps out with spring track, continues to write his Reflections column for Collegiate, regularly volunteers at the VCU Medical Center, and still writes for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. For the past 54 years, Bradshaw has carried the golden baton for the Cougars, passing his intellect and steadfast hope to as many people as he can.  

All photos courtesy of the Julia Williams Study and Archives Center.