The every dad
Bill Rauss takes playing around pretty seriously
Ask anyone in the Greenleaf neighborhood who the coolest dad around is, and they’ll all say the same thing: Bill Rauss. The 52-year-old Rockingham school administrator spends every spare minute with his two kids, either throwing a football in the park, wrestling in the grass, or jumping on the backyard trampoline. He’ll spend hours talking sports, playing catch, and chasing after 10-year-old, jersey-wearing Will and 8-year-old Li, who’s often head to toe in pink but always keeps up with the boys.
His kids didn’t skip a beat when asked how they would describe their dad.
“Fun and funny,” Will said. “And he does what we want to do, even if he doesn’t want to.”
Rauss can’t imagine spending his time any other way.
“I’d rather be playing with these guys,” he said.
When Rauss and his wife Howell got married 13 years ago, they weren’t sure if kids were in the cards for them. But Howell got pregnant with Will at age 40, and they adopted Li from China three years later.
“We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to have kids,” he said. “And then boom—all of a sudden it was instant family.”
He and Howell got married later in life than some couples, and she said she never had any doubt that her husband was meant to have children. She recalls one afternoon shortly after they met when she dropped by his school for a visit after work, and found him sitting on the ground, surrounded by kids.
“He’s always been phenomenal with kids,” she said. “I knew he’d be a great dad.”
Will came along while Rauss was finishing up his doctorate, and Howell said he never let his own work get in the way of being a father.
“He’d get up at 4:30am to work on his doctorate so he wouldn’t miss any family time,” she said.
And the importance of family ties runs deep for Rauss, who grew up with four siblings and parents who stayed together until his mother’s death two years ago. He said he just wanted to give his own kids the same fun and stable upbringing he had.
Rauss said he was always a “typical boy.” He was active and adventurous with more interest in playing outside than just about anything else, and he sees that in both of his kids now.
Nearly every week, Rauss arranges, coaches, referees, and plays in a football game with Will, Li, and their friends. He’ll even go out of his way to pick up the kids who don’t have rides to the park, and the pickup games have become a neighborhood staple.
“If you ask anybody who the best dad is, Bill immediately comes to mind,” Howell said. “We all know we got lucky.”—Laura Ingles