Robert Plummer dared his players to be great.

Over nearly four decades of coaching, mostly baseball and mostly at Woodlawn High School, he developed a reputation for being serious but also a bit of a character. He was known for his signature limp and his yell whenever something went awry — usually, in falsetto, “Doggonit!”

He was thrilled to share his favorite sport, especially with young, Black men in Baltimore, but he knew his job went beyond that. He was daring them to be great teammates and, more importantly, great people.

His years of mentorship have left generations of boys who credit Plummer with helping them become men. Now they carry on his mission.

“Coach Plummer is one of one,” said John Ferdinand Camonayan, who played for Plummer throughout high school and now coaches baseball at Woodlawn. “I am just taking bits and pieces of what he taught, and I try to also make it into my own.”

Plummer, who was a devout Muslim and devoted family man, died March 4 of heart failure. He was 73.

Plummer was born Nov. 10, 1951, in central New Jersey, the younger of two boys. Plummer loved sports from his youth. Family members believe it was his way of forming a connection with his father, who went off to war and stayed abroad. His mother, a nurse, raised him.

He played sports in high school, but he wasn’t a naturally gifted athlete, said Mikal Plummer, his son. An injury in his youth left Robert Plummer with pins in his knees and hips, so he walked with a limp.

But it was never the physicality of sports that drew him in. “He enjoyed the thinking man’s game,” Mikal Plummer said.

After graduating from high school, Robert Plummer enrolled at Rutgers University, where he met his eventual wife, Pamela. They quickly became a “dynamic duo,” their son said, both calm, reliable and composed.

Around this time, he found Islam, which “was everything in his life,” Mikal Plummer said. When he converted, he took on the name Abdur-Rahim, meaning “servant of the most merciful.”

The couple soon welcomed their only son. While Pamela finished college, Robert Plummer started working as a school janitor, where he spent his down time reading books about computers and technology.

He learned so much, so quickly, that he soon secured a job in Baltimore as a computer engineer, working in computer entry systems before joining two friends at a small, all-Black company that made radar systems for the government.

Mikal Plummer said he grew up in a very technological household, where his father could fix just about any bug. Robert Plummer was also among the first to invest in a cellphone, his son said.

Plummer started coaching his son’s sports teams from the time the boy was 5 years old. They forged a close bond through the years of traveling and playing together, and it was almost like they were friends more than anything else, Mikal Plummer said.

The best advice Robert Plummer gave his son was that “life wasn’t a hammer and nails. Sometimes it’s screws. Sometimes it’s nuts and bolts.”

“You think this is right, this is wrong, this should happen — but life isn’t always about what should happen,” Mikal Plummer said. “The right thing doesn’t always happen, so that was a lesson I learned from him — to be able to deal with any adversity, stay persistent.”

Robert Plummer joined Woodlawn High School in 1994, excited by the prospect of mentoring young men and teaching them the ins and outs of baseball. He also felt a calling to support Black men in a predominantly Black area, to help them grow and teach them never to apologize for their success.

“He wasn’t necessarily a coach in his mind,” Mikal Plummer said. “It was just the thought process of life that was everything — if you learn how to do things the correct way, you get good outcomes. So he just applied that to sports.”

Dimitrius Byrd, who played baseball at Woodlawn from 2008 to 2012, said Plummer told the team that baseball was a game you had to play from the neck up. Byrd has kept that advice with him through the years.

“You’ve got to be calm and you’ve got to be able to think,” Byrd said. “You can’t play baseball frantic. You can’t play baseball, or any sport, or just in life — you can’t be crazy. Can’t be all over the place. You can’t be unstable, can’t be emotional. ... You’ve got to know what’s happening and think ahead to know what you’ve got to do.”

In addition to his career coaching baseball, Plummer dabbled in basketball and football. Through the years, he coached at Catholic High School and Howard Community College, and he worked as an associate regional scout for the Philadelphia Phillies. At Woodlawn, he also served as the junior varsity football coach for more than two decades.

Plummer officially retired from Woodlawn in 2016, but he didn’t stay off the field long. He just kept showing up and helping out. It’s how so many came to know him not only as a coach but a mentor and father figure, Byrd said.

When a former baseball player tragically died in a motorcycle accident a few years ago, Plummer reached out to each member of the team to make sure they were doing OK, said Napaj Wood, who played during 2007-2012.

Then and now, Plummer’s support and positive worldview brought comfort to a grieving team.

“Death isn’t the end for Muslim men,” Wood said. “So I feel like even in his death, there’s reason for celebration, because I understand this isn’t the end for him.”

Outside of “coach,” Plummer’s favorite role was grandfather. He especially enjoyed the “softness” of his relationships with his granddaughters, who were free from the pressure of playing sports.

Parenthood helped Mikal Plummer develop an even deeper connection with his father. They didn’t always agree, but Robert Plummer would say what was on his mind even if he knew it would be unpopular. As it often goes, his son said, he came to understand his decisions years down the line.

For all of his wisdom and leadership, Robert Plummer never loved being in the spotlight. He didn’t boast about his achievements or his talents, which also included drawing. But he didn’t downplay them either, because that’s what he asked his players to do.

“My dad really, really, really wanted his people to understand that it was OK to be great,” his son said.

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