It was an anonymous blog post that really brought home for Roderyck Bullock the impact he'd had on kids at Armstrong High School, where he was known as a beloved football coach and mentor to countless youth.
“The kids love Coach Bullock,” someone wrote in May 2008 on the Web site for Church Hill People's News, shortly after Bullock left the job. “I wish Coach Bullock [would] reconsider because we need positive role models like him. That live in the community.”
Bullock, a lifelong resident of Church Hill and a tireless community volunteer there since he was 12, doesn't look like the sort to get mushy. A mountain of a man with a pair of big, tinted glasses that are as much a feature of his face as his broad, toothy smile, he says the anonymous blogger took him down a peg even as it lifted his spirits.
“It made me feel like I was on cloud nine,” says Bullock, who's also endeared himself to his neighbors by playing Santa at community events — and even assisting the Easter Bunny by throwing an egg hunt for Fulton Hill community children.
After a lifetime devoted to volunteerism and to people, Bullock says he wouldn't dream of having it any other way.
“I can't see myself doing anything but this, helping the kids out,” he says. “It's seeing people that need it, that need help, that need things in their life. You'll see people, they're about to get kicked out of their house, the electricity is about to go out, just seeing them being saved by [Richmond Community Action Program] and thinking I'm a part of this, trying to help them get their lives back on.”
