Chaminade Julienne mourning death of longtime coach who ‘lifted everybody up’

“Everybody’s devastated by it because he was so well known throughout the basketball community and respected for what he did,” said longtime friend Darnell Hoskins, CJ’s all-time leading scorer who has coached at three area high schools. “For somebody to be that impactful that had never played the game himself, I think’s amazing.”

CJ coach Charlie Szabo said the Eagles are taking some time away from the court this week. They are undecided about playing Friday’s scheduled game at Carroll. A prayer service was held Tuesday morning for the players who came to school.

“A lot of our kids are dealing with it on their own terms,” he said. “His greatest skill was his personality and his ability to relate to kids, parents, everybody. He was vital for us. We’re really going to miss him.”

None more than CJ sophomore Jonathan Powell, who moved from Akron last year to be an Eagle and be with his “Uncle Rich.” Kidd has known Powell since he was born because of a close relationship with Powell’s father.

“Rich was one of the most important people to Jonathan, and I can’t emphasize enough how important that relationship was,” Szabo said.

Kidd graduated from Patterson High School and soon after began hanging around the CJ program in the late 80s. Former head coach Joe Staley’s first memory of Kidd was after a big home win in 1989. When Staley left the school building, he found Kidd in the parking lot with over 100 kids, including the basketball team, and music blaring from his Jeep.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this kid’s something else,’” Staley said.

From then on, Kidd was at every open gym, summer league game and regular season game. And within three or four years – no one remembers exactly when – Staley made Kidd an assistant coach.

“His gift was making kids happy and making them have fun,” Staley said. “He would go into a gym where nothing was going right, where kids were having a difficult practice, and two or three minutes later everybody’s laughing. He will certainly be missed by every kid that played at Chaminade. You can’t find a kid from the last 30 years that doesn’t have great memories of Richard Kidd. He made life a blast for a lot of people.”

Szabo moved up from assistant to head coach three years ago when Staley retired. Szabo recalls that Kidd was the assistant freshman coach when Szabo was a freshman in 1994 and has been around to see the impact Kidd had on players, fellow coaches and everyone else he met.

“He was nonstop laughs,” Szabo said. “Whatever room he came in, whether it was a gym, locker room, it didn’t matter, he just elevated the room. The mood of the room became better. He just lifted everybody up.”

Hoskins remained close with Kidd after high school through his days playing for the University of Dayton and coaching at Springfield, Thurgood Marshall and now in his first year at Northmont. The two often talked past midnight about kids in need of help for all kinds of reasons.

“I can’t think of another person that’s single-handedly been more responsible for helping with kids get through Chaminade financially, emotionally, spiritually, from a mentoring perspective than Richard provided,” Hoskins said.

But it didn’t stop with CJ. Kidd helped ballplayers across the city. He worked as a carpenter for Dayton Public Schools, so he was in and out of all the schools and would make it a point to talk to players who needed help and direction.

“Not only would he scold you, but he was really, really good at picking you back up and instilling that confidence that, ‘Hey man, I know you’re better than that,’” Hoskins said. “The way that kids responded to him was just amazing. He had that kind of it factor to get them to buy in to what he was selling. Just a real good human being.”

Kidd also owned several multi-unit rental properties in Dayton. He did all the renovation and repair work himself and employed basketball players who needed summer jobs so they could help their families or buy basketball shoes.

Kidd also owned Rich’s Distinguished Cuts, a barber shop on Catalpa Drive in the Fairview area. Hoskins said Kidd wanted to give young barbers a place to start and customers a safe place to talk, laugh and fellowship.

“From the time I met him,” Hoskins said, “the word that comes to mind is selfless.”