Don Horton won a lot of games during his football career, but the wins pale in comparison to the impact he made on hundreds of players as a coach. In the months before he died on May 28 after a 10-year battle with Parkinson's Disease, Horton's family and friends began soliciting tributes from his former players, teammates and colleagues in the coaching community.
Those tributes have poured in like an avalanche, . It is clear that Horton did much more than coach football during his career - he embodied the Wittenberg motto, "Having Light, We Pass It On To Others."
His former players have not only rallied around Horton with tributes, they have established a GoFundMe page, , to raise money for the education of his daughters, Libby and Hadley. In addition, his wife, Maura, created a line of clothing for people with disabilities called MagnaReady.
It all adds up to quite a legacy for a Tiger who helped compile a four-year record of 37-6-1 between 1978-81, including four Ohio Athletic Conference championships and NCAA Division III runner-up finishes in 1978 and 1979. Horton went on to a coaching career that included lengthy stints as an assistant at Boston College and North Carolina State before Parkinson's forced him to retire.
Horton will be laid to rest on June 4 in his hometown of Cincinnati.
