Stanley Booth, coach, teacher

Stanley M. Booth seems not to have thought that he could spread himself too thin.

At Gloucester City High School, he taught math from 1965 until he retired in 2000, while also teaching adults in the subject in night classes from 1970 to 1980.

"We had some neighbors" who were dropouts, his wife, Jacqueline, said, "and he talked them into going back to get their high school diplomas."

It was typical of a man who, she said, had known success early.

Mr. Booth had been a star basketball forward at what is now Rowan University, scoring more than 1,000 points, his wife said, and in his graduation year, the Sportsmen Athletic Club of Gloucester City named him its Sportsman of the Year for 1965.

On Friday, Oct. 30, Mr. Booth, 74, of Cocoa, Fla., who among his other teaching efforts was a defensive backs football coach at Gloucester City High for 12 years, died of liver disease at the home of his daughter, Karen Macpherson, in Stratford.

Born in Gloucester City, Mr. Booth lived in Barrington from 1968 to 2000, when he and his wife moved to Cocoa.

During the Little League season of 1954, he was a member of the Gloucester City All-Star team, which became, his wife said, "Eastern Regional champs."

As a high school student, he was a 6-foot-4 basketball forward and a high jumper on the track and field team.

As a high school teacher, he was head coach of the bowling team from the late 1970s into the early 1990s.

But the classroom, the football field, and the bowling lanes did not use up all his energy.

From 1980 to 2000, Mr. Booth was adviser to the senior classes, the math club, and the school's chapter of the National Honor Society.

And for a time, he was the sound and lighting technician for the high school's annual stage musical.

Joseph G. Rafferty, now in his fourth year as the Gloucester City superintendent of schools, taught high school social studies in the 1990s alongside Mr. Booth.

"He was someone who was always willing to help you out," Rafferty said.

Beyond the classroom, Rafferty said, "he made you feel so comfortable when you were in his presence. . . .

"He just had a sense of who he was as a person."

In Cocoa, Mr. Booth was president from 2000 to 2015 of the Courtyards Condominium Association.

Besides his wife and daughter, Mr. Booth is survived by two sisters and two grandchildren.

A visitation was set from 9 to 11 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, at St. Luke Church, 55 Warwick Rd., Stratford, before an 11 a.m. Funeral Mass there. Interment is to be in Calvary Cemetery, Cherry Hill.

Donations may be sent to Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 424 E. Browning Rd., Bellmawr, N.J. 08031.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mccannhealey.com.

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