When I was 15 years old, I didn’t think Don Peoples Jr. had a sense of humor at all.

I tried to make him laugh several times, but he would never bite. For instance, he just rolled his eyes at me when I explained that my strict weight-lifting regiment consisted solely of 12-ounce curls.

It never occurred to me that I was not as funny as I thought I was until I tried to make Coach Peoples laugh.

Every time I tried to be funny in Coach Peoples’ presence, I felt like I had to tap the microphone and ask, “Is this thing on?”

Coach Peoples was in his first year as the head coach of Butte Central’s football team when I was a freshman in 1989. He was also the freshman boys’ basketball coach that season, too.

Now, I like to think that I am pretty funny. The truth is, though, I was never the class clown. I was always the guy who got in trouble for laughing at the class clown.

Looking back, that is probably why I usually played less than a minute per game as a freshman on the basketball team. Coach Peoples would look down the bench for a sub, and he’d see me laughing at Derek Hendrickson or Scott Doherty.

Derek and Scott could make me laugh without laughing themselves, so they got into the games because they looked more serious than I was. 

At least that is what I like to tell myself.

One time, Coach Peoples told Derek to go to give Brodie Kelly a rest, but he said it in a way that would make any 15-year-old boy laugh. My reaction to Derek’s response probably kept me out of three games.

Coach Peoples always told us that he wanted us to have our game faces on. We had to have our game faces on in the hallway and classrooms the day of the games. He didn’t want to see us goofing around.

That was always too tough for me because I wasn’t sure what a game face was. I liked to laugh and smile too much. I liked to goof around. I still do.

I didn’t play football my sophomore year, and Coach Peoples cut me from the basketball team later that year. I transferred to Butte High — where I also got cut from the basketball team — and I assumed I would dislike Coach Peoples for the rest of my life.

I figured I would be just like my dad, who still doesn’t like his high school football and wrestling coaches.

Then, a funny thing happened. I got to know Coach Peoples.

It turns out that he has a sense of humor after all. He is actually really funny. No, he doesn’t make me laugh quite like Derek and Scott did at the end of the bench, but he has a smart sense of humor that makes him super fun to talk to.

Several years ago, Butte Central graduate Rob O’Neill became famous for shooting a certain bad guy — thrice. Coach Peoples joked that the BC student section should use that during sporting events.

“We got spirit, yes we do,” Coach Peoples suggested. “We got bin Laden, how ’bout you?”

Even in the hard times, Coach Peoples can make a good joke.

In 2014, his Maroons lost a heartbreaker in the Class A State Championship game to Dillon. Seconds after that pesky little Nate Simkins caught a 2-point conversion from J.D. Ferris for a one-point lead, the Maroons were about in field goal range for Danny Peoples, the head coach’s son who had a remarkable kicking and quarterbacking career at BC.

Simkins, though, punched the ball out of a BC receiver’s arms, and Jason Ferris recovered it.

That loss still hurts Central’s players, coaches and fans. It still hurts Coach Peoples.

A few years later, though, Coach Peoples joked that it was probably good for his son that the Maroons lost that fumble.

“It probably saved Danny from being the guy who missed the big kick,” the coach said.

(For the record, we all know Danny would have made it.)

Coach Peoples even jokes about the close calls he had as a quarterback for Butte Central.

He talks about the interception he threw in overtime against Butte High, and he gives all the credit for the Maroons advancing to the state championship game to running back Brian Morris.

Judge Morris, though, will tell you that Coach Peoples’ career was much more than a punch line.

Over the years covering the Maroons for the paper and Butte Sports, I grew to respect Coach Peoples so much. I grew to regret my decision to quit football my sophomore year because I have seen how Coach Peoples helped turn boys into men.

Had I stayed on the BC football team, it might have helped me mature much faster than I did. You see that happen with his players all the time.

You also see those players compete.

Year after year, Coach Peoples’ Maroons have played with and beat the very best of the Class A, even though the school is small enough for BC to play in the Class C. He led the Maroons to the state title game in 1992 and again in 2014.

His Maroons also advanced to the semifinals many times over the decades.

A couple of years ago, Coach Peoples picked up his 200th win as head coach of the Maroons. Only Butte High legend Harry “Swede” Dahlberg won more games as a football coach in Butte.

Coach Peoples should be a shoo-in for the Butte Sports Hall of Fame, and Coach Peoples has basically coached his entire adult life for free.

His brother Kevin, who is the defensive line coach at Missouri, made more money coaching football in the time you read this sentence than Don and Doug Peoples did — combined — over the last 35 years at BC.

Coach Peoples doesn’t coach for the money or the glory. He coaches because he cares about the players and he loves Butte Central.

Last week, we nearly lost coach Peoples. He traveled to Missouri to watch the Tigers take on the Tennessee Volunteers in a huge SEC showdown. 

The night before the game, Coach Peoples, who exercises at least an hour every day, wasn’t feeling well, so he went to the emergency room. That is when Coach Peoples collapsed with a major heart attack.

They say he had the dreaded “widow maker,” and very few people have ever survived that. If he was anywhere other than the hospital when he suffered the heart attack, Coach Peoples would have been a goner.

Instead, he had two stints put in, and he was released from the hospital after a couple of days.

The day after the heart attack, the Tigers beat the Vols 36-7, and head coach Eliah Drinkwitz gave the game ball to Kevin Peoples to give to his brother.

When Coach Peoples heard this, he pointed out that he played football in high school and college. He said he coached for 35 years.

Yet, it took a heart attack for him to finally get a game ball.

When word got out that Coach Peoples was joking about his heart attack, we all breathed a sigh of relief because we knew that was going to be OK.

He is definitely one lucky man. But really, we are all lucky that Coach Peoples is still here. The world is a better place with him in it. Losing him at the age of 59 would have been an unspeakable tragedy.

Still, I can’t help but wish I would have known that funny side of Coach Peoples when I was 15.

— Bill Foley, who still gets in trouble for laughing at the class clown, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.