We lost this great man just a few weeks shy of his 101st birthday. Bet you don't know of him and why he was so renown.

This is the legendary Dr. Thomas Freeman who imprinted so many young and older minds with perhaps the most valuable tool of their lives... how to make a point.

Dr. Freeman joined the staff at Texas Southern University in 1949 and was still at work at age 100 teaching debate. He was hired as a philosophy professor but two years later found his truest talent and greatest joy as debate coach.

In just three months, his largely unrecognized team surprised Harvard and the University of Chicago debaters to win its first national championship, skyrocketing TSU to the forefront of the college debate world. His successes continued throughout his 70 year career as did his reputation and the admiration of his teams and those who knew him.

His most famous pupil was a young Martin Luther King Jr. He also taught Representatives Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland as well as Grammy winning singer Yolanda Adams. But perhaps no notables were more valued in his heart than the thousands of students he taught.

ABC newsman David Muir did a feature on Freeman's legacy and its most touching moment was to watch him greet and receive admiration from many of his graduated students as they returned at homecomings and special events for him.

So one 'kinda gets' the picture of a teacher that makes a life-changing difference in his student's lives, as David Muir showed in the short tribute of his life, a beloved man that changed many worlds for the better.

Personal aside: I had one of those, and maybe you did too. Mine was Dr. Paul Snider (left), my journalism professor and mentor over those college years. He taught news reporting, editing, etc. as one would expect, but he impressed in us the moral responsibilities of a journalist and how very important is is to get all the verification of the stories you tell because, to paraphrase, "in our field, nothing is more important than the integrity and respect earned by doing it accurately and fairly." 

In his classes, every fact error--Madison Theater instead of Madison Theartre as it was named--received a large red stamp (FACT ERROR) and an automatic F. That was my first... and last FE.

He told a story of how, in his opinion, he lost a Pulitzer Prize when he was a photojournalist for a network news company. He was covering a local story of an auto accident that took the life of a toddler on a tricycle, While other photographers were shooting the scene of a crumpled tricycle and a blanked covering of a small body, he chose to look elsewhere. In a walk around the child's house, he saw through an open back window, the grief-stricken father sitting at the kitchen table with his head buried in his arms not able to reconcile what just happened. "There was my Pulitzer, I thought. But as I raised my camera to get the picture, I realized that this was a photo that was not mine, or anyone's to take. I lowered my camera and walked away." 

In that teaching moment he told us that there are some things that are so personal and profound that the world should not steal. What a deep and lasting lesson. Sadly today, that precept does not seem to exist. 

And we would automatically fail his course if we would ever say "One picture is worth a thousand words." It isn't.

In 2007 Denzel Washington asked Dr. Freeman to coach his young actors for his film "The Great Debaters" a real life story of a 1930 team of unheralded black debaters who upend a highly favored white team to win the championship, a most revolutionary event of those days.

Dr. Freeman modestly saw himself as an "... instrument in the hands of God, working with people on their development. If they are successes, then I am successful.

His motto known by all who knew him and repeated in unison by four of his students for ABC news: "We do well. What we don't do well, we don't do at all."

In today's world there are many points to be made, but many speakers and notably political figures and high office holders believe telling only half the story or over dramatically accusing your opposite of lying or just plain masking the truth are alternative ways . Fake news is an oxymoron that really doesn't exist... however it has gained popular usage to make the dictionary. My, how far we have come... or better said, how low have we fallen.