Paul Bowyer's legacy as a builder can be found all over Blacksburg - from the sturdy picnic table behind the Blacksburg fire station to the dugouts on the Blacksburg High baseball field to the Blacksburg High School itself.

To see the legacy Bowyer left as a teacher - of vocational skills and of football - you would have to look a little closer. A Web site set up by friends Monday, three days after Bowyer was burned trying to rescue his granddaughter from a fire, makes that legacy easier to discern. The Web site, www.paulbowyer.info, serves two purposes: It gives friends who flooded the phone lines at the University of Virginia Medical Center a chance to reach out to the Bowyer family, and has kept updates on the conditions of Paul Bowyer and 12-year-old Katie Bowyer.

That's how several friends found out Bowyer died Thursday morning. He was 67.

"The way he died was kind of the way he lived - putting others ahead of him," said Jim Shockley, who coached with Bowyer for 29 years.

The fire that killed Bowyer started shortly after midnight Feb. 18 near the back of his house on Glade Road, just outside of Blacksburg. Bowyer ran out of the house. But when he realized Katie was still inside, he went back for her.

His sons, one of whom lives next door, saw him through a sliding-glass door in the back of the house. They pulled him and Katie from the fire, Blacksburg Fire Lt. Norman Croy said. Katie, who suffered burns on over 80 percent of her body, was in critical condition Thursday, according to the Web site.

Born and raised in the Blacksburg area, the son of a stone mason, Bowyer learned his craft from his father. By the time he graduated from Blacksburg High School in 1955, Bowyer was already skilled in masonry and carpentry. He was also a running back and defensive back on the Blacksburg football team. One day during practice, he took a knee to the head that knocked him out cold. Instead of stopping practice, his coach diagrammed the next play on his chest as he lay on the ground.

Despite learning the game under the old-school rules of 1950s football, Bowyer coached players not by fear, but by building them up. Wearing his straw hat, shorts and a T-shirt no matter how cold it was, "Coach B" would walk around the field at the beginning of practice and pick four-leaf clovers to give the players to encourage them to have a good practice. The other coaches would be standing around, scanning the ground for the lucky clovers, unable to find any. In the meantime Bowyer had collected five or six, said head coach Dave Crist.

"He'd laugh and say, 'Can't you see them?'"

Kevin Miller, a family friend who played for Blacksburg, credits Bowyer with an upset victory in the state playoffs over the undefeated Graham G-Men in 1984. Before the game, Miller and a few other players were standing around, their stomachs churning and their legs wobbly from a bad case of pregame jitters. Bowyer walked by, cracked a few jokes, and they felt better.

"He could always cut the tension," Miller said. "He was there for us. He wanted to make sure we experienced everything Blacksburg Indian football had to offer."

After high school, Bowyer worked as a builder for 16 years. Blacksburg High School Principal Alfred Smith watched him help build the new high school and then asked him if he'd like to stay there to teach masonry. Bowyer began his teaching career in 1973 and started coaching the next year.

Miller, who was also a student of Bowyer's, said he was a hands-on teacher.

"He didn't stand over in the corner and say, 'All right guys, do this and do that,'" he said. "He'd get right in there and get his hands dirty."

Over the years Miller, like many former students, would come back and ask for advice on projects and Bowyer would pull out the pencil from behind his ear and sketch a plan, sounding like their teacher again.

"Now look, this is how you do it," he'd say.

Bowyer retired after the 2003-04 school year, after helping build two championship football teams and numerous projects around the school. He worked with students to build two homes in Blacksburg as class projects, and his handiwork ran the gamut from a water trough for the football team to cabinets in the school.

The husband of a minister's daughter - he married his high-school sweetheart Gerry - Bowyer also helped maintain his church, Blacksburg First Wesleyan. He always led players and coaches in prayer before team dinners.

The Web site, which has received nearly 2,000 hits since Monday, asks that donations be sent to Blacksburg First Wesleyan. In addition to Katie, Bowyer is survived by his wife, Gerry; sons Eddie and Jeff; and grandson, Zach.

Several of his former players and coaches commented about how important his family was to him, but they also said that family extended to his players and students.

"I feel sorry for the guys who never got to have him as a teacher or a coach," Miller said.