FORT SMITH (KFSM) -- Some may know him as Lawrence Wood Jr., but those closest to him called him "Buzz."
"His dad was Buzz Sr., and kind of as a right of passage, he just assumed his dad's name," former Darby Junior High School coach Jerry Jennings said.
For 62 years, Buzz volunteered as a coach at the Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club and coached neighborhood children at nearly every sport at what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Park.
"He was a brother, he was a coach, he was a father figure, and it grew and grew," Jennings said. "We just thought of him as a permanent fixture."
From teaching Jennings about sunscreen to cutting the kids' hair, Buzz did it all.
"He was a placekicker for the Lincoln High School Pirates, and he taught us to keep our shoulders tilted and not to look up to where the football was going," Jennings said, "The crowd would tell us if it was good or not."
Buzz also made sure his players could practice at MLK Park when he wasn't around.
"We asked him to turn on of the lights from the pool down to the goals," Jennings said. "We would hone our skills late at night over there because we had that light so it would shine directly on that goal."
Jennings said Buzz had an incredible impact on his life.
"That Lawrence Wood, Jr. and Sr, I know he's big now, but he's always been big in our neighborhood," Jennings said. "He was just a great man."
The press box at MLK Park will be named after Buzz Jr. and Sr.
"What I would hope is that there's always a curator or somebody that's around that knows enough about Buzz to reasonably give him his just due," Jennings said.
Lawrence Wood, Jr. received many honors throughout his coaching career and was inducted into the Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club Hall of Fame in 1998.
He passed away on October 17, 2015.