Remembering ‘Coach Meat’: Connecticut Community Reflects On Rock Star Meat Loaf’s Time Coaching High School Softball

REDDING, Conn. (CBSNewYork) — Rock superstar and actor Meat Loaf died Thursday night at age 74.

Meat Loaf had an amazing career, selling 100 million records around the world and appearing in 50 movies and TV shows, but he somehow also made time to coach high school softball in suburban Connecticut.

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As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reports, Orchard Drive in Redding has zero show biz glitz, which is exactly why Meat Loaf and his first wife, Leslie, raised their daughters there in the ’90s during a lull in his career.

Watch: Rock Star Meat Loaf Dead At 74 —

Chris Lindwall became friends with Meat Loaf while coaching his daughter Pearl at Joel Barlow High School.

“He wanted to go somewhere where people didn’t really know him because he wanted to be Dad. That’s what it really comes down to, he wanted to be Dad,” Lindwall said.

When he saw Meat Loaf’s love for the game and the kids, he asked him to take over the junior varsity team in 1991.

“I said listen, there’s nobody else I want to do this than you, but I don’t know if you can do it with your schedule. It took him about 10 seconds for him to say, ‘I will make it work,’” Lindwall said.

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The incongruity of a rock star coaching softball brought the team lots of news coverage.

Jen Carlson, of Gothamist.com, was a player.

She tweeted that while “Coach Meat” drove, yes, “like a bat out of hell,” he was kind and generous. He even sang one of his biggest hits on the team bus months before it was released.

“The girls just absolutely loved him,” Lindwall said. “He was the energy. He brought it all. What we saw on the stage, with everything that he performed and how he performed ’cause he gave everything he had when he performed, the same thing happened when he was coaching.”

Lindwall says it was a special two years with Meat Loaf always kind to fans and opposing teams.

“He stayed there and signed every single autograph, and people did it everywhere he went,” he said. “He loved the game, and he loved the kids. They called him ‘Coach Meat.’”

Like his music, the memories live on.

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Meat Loaf coached for two years, from 1991-1992, but his coaching days were done after his album “Bat Out of Hell II” reignited his career.