Leroy Everett DeBoard, one of East Hampton’s great athletes, an educator, and a two-term East Hampton Town councilman beginning in the mid-1980s, died on Sept. 21 at the age of 89.
A member of East Hampton High School’s inaugural Hall of Fame class in 2012, both as an individual honoree and as a member of the school’s 1952 football team — the sole undefeated, untied one in its history — Mr. DeBoard said during the induction ceremony that he’d been “blessed to grow up in East Hampton.” While his family, he said, “didn’t have much money, we were rich in many ways.”
The son of Samuel Isiah and Evelyn Julia Griggs DeBoard, Leroy DeBoard, the eldest of five siblings, was born in Southampton Hospital on May 16, 1933.
He was washing dishes at the Marmador restaurant on Newtown Lane, he recalled during the ceremony, when East Hampton’s athletic director at the time, Fran Kiernan, sought him out and told him to pack his clothes because Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., had just awarded him a full football scholarship. Ralph Davis, he said, gave him a wardrobe trunk into which those clothes could be packed.
“If it weren’t for Fran Kiernan,” Mr. DeBoard said, “I might have wound up a bitter young man. I’ve often wondered about that.”
At Benedict, he excelled in football, basketball, and track, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree. He was inducted into the college’s Hall of Fame in 1994.
After college, Mr. DeBoard enlisted in the United States Navy, serving from 1955 to 1959. Having received an honorable discharge from the Navy, he began a career in education, first as a social worker, later as a mathematics teacher and guidance counselor. He taught in the public school system on eastern Long Island, in the East Hampton, Riverhead, and Patchogue districts. In 1973, he received a Master of Science degree from Long Island University.
Mr. DeBoard and the former Jessie M. Jackson were married while he was serving in the Navy. The couple, who subsequently divorced, had three children, Keith, Lisa DeBoard Fox, and Nicole Y. DeBoard, who survive. An older daughter, Cathy DeBoard-Holmes, died before him.
In 1983, Mr. DeBoard married Edwina G. Foster, who survives him. After he retired in 1988, “no grass grew under their feet,” Nicole DeBoard said. “They were always on the go, traveling to all 50 states and abroad and enjoying cruises on the Queen Elizabeth II. They summered in East Patchogue and wintered in Fort Myers Beach, Florida. My dad enjoyed spending time with Edwina, playing golf, watching the Yankees, and he especially enjoyed family reunions, during which he’d spend time with his sister, Sandra, and his niece, Samone. Or should I say, he enjoyed their cooking? I don’t know a person who met him who didn’t love him. He would literally give you the shirt off his back. He was a quiet and humble man.”
Besides his wife and three children, Mr. DeBoard leaves his sister, Sandra Vorpahl, his only surviving sibling. His brothers, Samuel, William, and Danny, died before him. Numerous nieces and nephews, including Samone Johnson and Ernie Vorpahl, survive, as do eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton at noon on Saturday. Mr. DeBoard was cremated. His ashes are to be laid to rest in the church’s Memorial Garden.
Memorial donations, the family has suggested, may be made to East Hampton High School.
