Thanks For The Memories

After 40 years of involvement in GFS athletics I have a few stories to tell. My first exposure to GFS athletics came when I was still a student at Haverford College in 1970. A few of my classmates and I traveled to Academy of the New Church to watch the Tigers take on George School in the Penn-Jersey championship game. Although GFS lost, what I remember most was that GFS had cheerleaders. That was a new experience for me. There were no cheerleaders at my high school or at Haverford. After graduation I worked for two years at Haverford, partly in the athletic department (including overseeing Jeremy Ross’ all-American flag football career) and then spent three years at Storm King School in New York where I got my first taste of coaching and athletic directing. Most of my coaching time at GFS was spent on the soccer and fields, however I did have a few seasons of coaching and an undefeated career (one game) as Middle School ‘A’ basketball coach. In the spring of 1977 Harry Gratwick was the boys athletic director and he was in need of a varsity tennis coach. He had available two first year teachers, myself and Tom Scattergood (’66). As Harry remembers it, he had Tom and me play a match with the winner to be the coach. I have no memory of that match, but I did coach the varsity for that one year, before Tom took over for the next few years. I didn’t know much about tennis strategy, but Roger Mallery (’77) did. He was the team captain and played 1st singles. We made a deal that he would dole out the strategy and I would read inspirational material before matches. If I remember correctly I read from The Inner Game of Tennis and from John McPhee’s book about Bill Bradley, A Sense of Where You Are. Four memories come back from that season. We traveled to Moorestown early in the season, perhaps the first match, in typical March weather, cold and windy. The team had already clinched the win, but Scott Panzer (’77) was still on the court. Scott was the epitome of a “backboard” player. He would return everything hit at him and wait for his opponent to make a mistake. His matches often extended towards darkness. This match was no exception. His teammates were cold and hungry and pleaded with him to “tank” the match so we could get on our way back across the river, but Scott would have none of that, and if I remember correctly, won a three-set match much to the derision of his teammates. Another early-season away match took us to Solebury School. Now, even today, Solebury is in the countryside, but in 1977 it was really in the “boonies”. I had a set of mimeographed directions from Ed Thode in faded blue ink, written probably 20 years earlier. I didn’t have a clue where I was going, but fortunately not much had changed in Solebury Township between 1957 and 1977. Roger was sitting “shotgun” in the van in charge of the directions and he said: “Carl, will you tell me when we are 20 minutes from Solebury so I can eat my banana.” My response was that I would be lucky to know when we were actually at Solebury, never mind 20 minutes away. Roger was a creature of habit and a heck of a good tennis player.

Later in the season we traveled to Princeton to play the Hun School. (An aside here – repeated trips to Solebury and Princeton were one of the incentives to drop out of the Penn-Jersey League and form the Friends Schools League in 1981) The match at Hun had not been underway long when expletives and F-bombs, as well as racquets started flying. The Hun players seemed to think that each of them was John McEnroe incarnate. Much to the surprise and consternation of the Hun players and coach, I took the GFS team off the courts and headed home, telling them that we had not travelled this far to be subjected to this type of unsportsmanlike behavior. Hun was stunned and I think my players may have been as well. But, within a week we had received two letters of apology, one from the Head of School and another from the tennis co-captains. The final memory from that season was that I had the honor to coach, among others on that team, a future Nobel Prize winner – Saul Perlmutter (’77). He was a competent doubles player, but a much better astrophysicist, even in high school. Here is where memory becomes tricky and selective. I was certain that after that one memorable season I coached only baseball for the rest of my career. But no!! After Tom coached for 3 years and George Johnson for one year I came back and coached for three years from 1982-84. I had completely blocked that from my memory until I just recently did some research in the archives to create a list of all the varsity tennis coaches. Over those three years the team record was 17-14. As I looked at the rosters, the players were some of my favorite students from those years, but until now, I assumed that I was hitting fungoes and pitching BP in the spring as I did from 1985 onward. As I said, memory can be very selective. Well, so much for my tennis coaching career. Before I get into the meat of my coaching career in soccer and baseball, I should relate the situation which led to my undefeated status as a basketball coach. For many years during his tenure at GFS as an English teacher, Roy Farrar coached the boys Middle School basketball team. It was January or February of 1993 and GFS had a strong team, comprised of a mix of 7th and 8th graders, with the 7th graders particularly strong. Among the 7th graders on the team were future varsity players; Andrew Magaziner, Jake Lefco, Sam Slaughter and Sean Weinstein (all class of 1998). On this day the Tigers were scheduled to play The Philadelphia School in the Smith Gym, but Roy was sick and not in school. As boys athletic director I was responsible for finding a replacement. No obvious candidates were available, so I took up the reins. I had coached some basketball at Storm King and certainly was very familiar with the sport from my many hours running the clock at GFS varsity games and at intramural games at Haverford in my student days. We knew that TPS had two very good players, 8th graders Gabe Tames and Matt Prowler, both of whom were applying to come to GFS as 9th graders in the fall. What we didn’t know going into the game was that that was all they had. The other three starters could barely catch and dribble. But Gabe and Matt were really good and both would become starters on the GFS varsity and teammates to their Middle School opponents that day, with Gabe being named all-league first team as a senior. So, how to play them? It became clear early on that Gabe and Matt were the only ones we had to focus on. I called a timeout and suggested, much to the team’s amazement, that we shift to an unusual defense. We teamed both Matt (the ball handler) and Gabe (the inside scorer) and left our fifth man to guard the other three TPS players. I am certain that we could not have gotten away with this against any other team on the schedule that year (or any other year, for that matter). But it worked against TPS. Gabe and Matt got their points, but the Tigers prevailed since those two (and their three teammates) could not adequately guard the five GFS players. I never did come up with a good name for the defense (maybe, double-double and one), but it proved successful that day and fortunately Roy was back at the helm for the next game, allowing me to retire undefeated.

Matt Prowler (’97) with his wife, Reina Wilkes (’02)

My GFS soccer coaching career began in the fall of 1976 when Tom Scattergood and I co-coached the JV team. Al Clayton was the varsity coach at the time, but he was on a sabbatical for the year in Scotland. Tom’s classmate, Theo Coxe, filled in for Al that fall. I do remember that we celebrated Tom’s early November birthday with a win behind the walls at Girard College. Al had returned in the fall of 1977 and we were travelling to George School for a preseason jamboree when I first got to know the full breadth of Al Clayton. It was the time of boom boxes and blaring from the back of the bus was maybe something by Foreigner or some disco number from Saturday Night Fever. Al turned to me and said, “I wish we could hear a Brandenburg Concerto.” Over the years when sitting at the scorer’s table at basketball games and listening to pregame warmup “music” I often had the same thought – “how about a nice Brandenburg Concerto.” (double click the icon)

That year I took on the 9th grade soccer team (class of 1981), boys I had taught as 8th graders. They were a very talented group. I remember two particular things from that season. In a game at Westtown, we were well ahead and I began to move players into different positions. Seth Edenbaum (’81) was a fullback and I moved him to the front line, where he scored a goal. To this day I have never seen anyone happier about scoring. Later in the season we had a home game and although I don’t remember the opponent, I remember the incident as if it had happened yesterday. Daniel Cristol (’81) was our goalkeeper. He is the son of Nursery founder, Esther Cristol, and uncle of GFS soccer players Sam (’15) and Ray (’17) Hill-Cristol. Daniel was not big and strong, but he was fearless in goal. Late in the game Daniel made a save on a shot that was so hard that it broke his wrist. It sounded as if the ball had hit off the crossbar. The sound and the picture in my mind are indelible.

(Daniel Cristol, having recovered from his broken wrist, is now a biology professor)

A number of years later Geoff Albert-Bolinski (‘98) was on my team and we were doing a drill where I would send a ball down field and the players had to run it down, get past it and turn it 180 degrees back up the field. Geoff raced after the ball, made his cut, slipped and fell breaking both wrists at one time. It was awful, but did not make the same sound that Daniel’s made. I, too, had a soccer related broken bone, the only one in my life so far. Brett Turner and I were co-coaching the varsity. We met with the team just before the start of the game on the sideline of Smith Field to give them some last-minute instructions. As the team went onto the field, Brett and I scrambled up the hill to the bench area. He scrambled more successfully than I. I slipped and landed on my hand with a loud “thwack”. Brett immediately said “You’ve broken your hand.” “No,” I said, “I don’t think so.” But he was right and I still have a depressed third knuckle on my right hand. My most memorable soccer season was the fall of 1980 when I was coaching the 9th grade team (class of 1984). They were an incredibly talented group of players, both as individuals and as a beautifully blended team. I later moved up to coach them as varsity players as they played in two FSL championship games, losing a heartbreaker 1-0 to Friends’ Central as juniors and then bringing home the Tigers’ first FSL championship with a 5-0 thumping of Abington Friends as seniors. In the fall of 1980, though, they were all playing on the 9th grade team, even though some of them were really good enough to be playing varsity. That season the team went undefeated, 11-0 (as documented in Studies in Education, No. 41, Spring 1981). The team was 10-0 when our last scheduled game was canceled due to a scheduling mixup. I tried to get a rematch with PhilMont Christian’s JV, who had given us our stiffest test of the season, a 1-0 squeaker. It looked like it was set, but then they made their league playoffs and were dressing JV players for that game, so it fell through. We had already played the 9th grade teams from some of the suburban public schools whose varsities were among the top ranked teams in the area, so that gave me the idea to check out Archbishop Ryan’s 9th grade team. Ryan had a perennial Catholic League championship program and they were, as the saying goes, “home grown” so their 9th grade team was very good. We arranged the game for a Saturday morning late in October. It turned out to be a spectacular fall day. The Tigers were already on the varsity field practicing when Ryan, clad in black and red, emerged from the lower fields. They were imposing, to say the least, and my players were thinking wasn’t 10-0 good enough. Our awestruck team quickly went down 0-2 and trailed at the half by a 1-3 score. But the Tigers dug deep, stiffened their defense, and scored twice in the fourth quarter on a penalty kick and a goal with time running out by leading scorer Takyi Morgan (’84) to force overtime. A memorable goal by speedy wing Kenny Higgenbotham (’84) brought home the win and prompted a world-class celebration. Another highlight from the 1980 season was getting Takyi recognition in the Faces in the Crowd section of Sports Illustrated, for his achievement of scoring 18 goals during the season.

In the summer of 1983 Tom and I took these players (now on the varsity) and a few underclassmen to Scotland for a tournament. It was an amazing trip; the first time any GFS team had played internationally. We played some really good teams and learned a lot about how to be a cohesive unit. Aside from the great international experience and camaraderie, this trip helped the team to gel into a championship squad, as Abington found out at the end of the season (5-0). I would be remiss not to mention the circumstances of my one and only red card in 40 years of coaching. It was in the early 1990s and I was coaching varsity against Friends’ Central at their field. They were playing rough, and, I felt, dirty soccer. In fact, David Treat (’92) had been taken to nearby Lankenau Hospital with a broken leg, as a result of what I thought was a particularly dirty play. I was fuming, albeit quietly, on the sideline. In those days, the rule was that a goalkeeper had three steps before he had to release the ball (now it is 6 seconds). I perseverated on the fact that I thought their goalkeeper was exceeding the 3-step limit. So I was counting right in the referee’s ear every time the keeper got the ball. He warned me not to continue, but I was convinced that not only was he not enforcing the rule, but that he had been responsible for not controlling play, thus resulting in the broken leg. I counted in his ear one time too often and out came the red card. Everyone was shocked because no one but the ref had heard me and there was no ranting or raving on my part. But I had to watch the rest of the game from the hillside above their field and I joined the hallowed ranks of Dick Wilson, Harry Gratwick and David Felsen in being tossed from a game as a coach. Of the many great goals I saw over the years, one in particular stands out. It was Fun Day and we had a JV game scheduled, but the referees didn’t show up so I put on the striped shirt, grabbed a whistle and took on, not for the first or last time, the referee’s responsibility. I don’t remember who the opponent was, but I clearly remember a GFS player sending a ball into the box and Elijah McKinley, formerly Eli Lundby-Thomas (’00), meeting it with a full-out header and sending it forcefully into the far upper corner of the goal. Spectacular!

Except for my one game stint as Middle School hoops coach, I didn’t coach during the winter. However I spent many hours running the clock and scoreboard at boys’ basketball games. When I first came to GFS, Dick Wilson was in charge of the scorer’s table, but I think I took over in my second year. I got to see some great basketball players, both on GFS and on opposing teams. I saw 14 of the 17 members of the 1000-point club.

Michael Buckmire (’17) – the latest player to join the 1000-point club

There were too many wonderful teams and exciting moments to remember all of them, but these stick out in my mind. In my very first year, the girls’ varsity, coached by Helen (then known as Timmie) Marter went 11-0, unheard of in the annals of GFS women’s hoops. I remember the final game of the season against Westtown in the Smith Gym, with the fans going crazy at the end of the game, even though GFS was up by at least 30 points. People had to explain to the Westtown coach and players that the celebration was not as a result of beating them by such a large margin, but rather due to the first undefeated season. The boys’ team of 1978-79 was one of the all-time best at GFS, with a record of 22-2. They were Penn-Jersey champions and winners of their last 16 games in a row. The team included two members of the 1000-point club (Ed Wilmer ’79 and classmate Vincent Ross) and future boys varsity coach Alfred Johnson. Aside from winning the league title, the highlight of the season was a Saturday night Smith Gym win in February over perennial public league powerhouse, Bartram. During that game came one of my favorite GFS basketball memories. The Tigers were up handily when Ed Wilmer got a breakaway and raced down the court for an emphatic dunk, only to have the ball bounce hard off the back rim and out of bounds. Ed, who went on to play at Haverford College, knew Coach Felsen’s rules and without even hesitating went right to the bench and sat down. If you were going to dunk, you had better make it or you were out of the game. David was always thinking about basketball and how to make sure GFS came out on top. When the team played in the Smith Gym he often used a 1-3-1 zone that forced opponents to shoot from underneath the running track. With the construction of the Scattergood Gym in 1980 the Smith Gym home court advantage would no longer be in play. But he was excited (as were we all) for the new gym. However he had a concern. When the gym was still just a cement pad and steel beams and rafters, David said that we had to go check it out more closely because he was concerned that the rafters were too low to allow full-court passes. I said to him that the architects had used a gym in South Philly as their model, but he needed to see for himself. So, David sent me to one end of the pad and he stood at the other and tried to hit the rafters with a pass. Three or four passes did not hit the girders. Finally he lofted one high enough to hit, but he agreed that no one in a game would make such a pass. As we walked away I suggested that I wasn’t sure what could have been done at that stage of the construction if he had thought the roof was too low.

David Felsen speaking to the next generation of Basketball and Reading Clinic campers

A year or two later GFS was playing in the Hill School Invitational tournament, just before winter break. The Tigers and the Blues were matched up in the championship game and GFS went up by a point with a basket with just a couple of ticks left on the clock, or so it should have been. Hill took possession after a time out under their defensive basket with the full length of the court to travel. In end-of-game situations it is the responsibility of one of the referees to monitor the scoreboard to make sure that the clock is started appropriately. Neither of the refs chose to do this, and as Hill inbounded the ball, the clock did not start. I was sitting in the first row of the stands in front of which was a stone knee wall. Outraged, I literally tumbled over the wall (quite a scene according to those who were there) to make it known that the clock had not started. The play stopped at half court with the clock unmoved and the referees deciding, much to Coach Felsen’s dismay, that since they didn’t know how much time had elapsed, they couldn’t adjust the clock at all. Needless to say, Hill, which had gotten a free ride up to half court, used the remaining time to score the winning basket at the (belated) buzzer. Now, it turns out that the Hill School coach was also the assignor of officials for boys basketball in the Pottstown area and so these two refs were not of a mind to render a decision that might have negatively impacted their future game assignments. David was beside himself, feeling that the championship had been stolen from the Tigers. He was letting the refs know how he felt in no uncertain terms. They were not interested. As they made their way to the referee’s locker room, David continued to plead his case. Finally as they went into the showers I was able to persuade David that he had gone literally and figuratively far enough. Hard as it was to not get justice, he agreed that he should not follow them into the showers. We did not play Hill School for many years after that incident, although they had been a long-time opponent. When David retired as coach he handed the reins over to Alfred Johnson. Alfred had the pleasure and honor of coaching the best Tiger player ever, Jonathan Haynes (’90). Jon scored over 2000 points and was a highlight reel every time he played. He went on to play at Temple and Villanova, and then professionally in Europe. During his three years at GFS the Tigers and the Kangaroos from Abington competed in each of the championship games in the FSL, with AFS wining twice, each time by two points, and GFS winning the other game by 3 points in overtime. One of the most memorable games came in February of Jon’s senior year when GFS hosted St. Anthony’s prep from Jersey City, coached by the legendary Bob Hurley and led by his younger son Danny Hurley, who went on to play at Seton Hall and is currently head coach at the University of Connecticut. Although the Tigers lost, it was a very exciting and fiercely competitive game. What I remember most about the game, though, was that Bob’s wife, Christine, kept the book for the Friars and she was delightful. We had a most enjoyable conversation, even as things got somewhat heated and competitive on the court and on the sidelines. Speaking of people who have sat next to me at the scorer’s table, most of the GFS managers were outstanding and I absolutely enjoyed my time with them. Foremost among them were the Battis children (Seth (’94) and Missy (’97). They always kept me on my toes.

In recent years, Shawn Werdt has done an outstanding job getting his teams to play at their highest possible level, despite being smaller and less athletic than many of their high-powered opponents. The highlight came in 2015 when Werdt’s team beat Friends’ Central in the semifinal game at FCS, after having lost to them a week earlier by 19 points. FCS had two future D-1 players on that team. In the championship game against Westtown, whose shortest player was taller than the tallest Tiger, GFS gave the Moose all they could handle, before falling 52-44. That Westtown team had 5 future D-1 players. From that GFS team, Andrew Aldridge (’15), and Jalil and Jamil Pines-Elliott (’15) went on to play D-3 basketball and Ray Leon (’15) played D-2.

Jalil or Jamil? (if it weren’t for the jersey number, who would know?)

After all the years of pleading for a new clock and scoreboard for the Scattergood Gym, it has finally been installed, just one year too late for me to operate it. Oh well…

I watched some very good wrestlers over the years, and three excellent coaches (Dan Shechtman, Jeff Fetterman and Kazem Gholami) who motivated their teams in what has to be one of the toughest sports to persevere.

Dan Shechtman getting that pinning combination just right

Although I didn’t coach any girls’ teams at school, I did co-coach (with Matt Zipin) a girls travel soccer club team that was comprised mostly of GFS players (including one who is related to me.)

Heather in goal

I did coach some girls on the boys’ JV soccer team before GFS started a girls’ team. Lauren Pinkus (‘96) and Diana Rodgers (‘83) are two who come to mind. Diana was a striking blonde who turned out to be our best defensive weapon in one game against Valley Forge Military Academy because the cadets on the field could not take their eyes off of her and were thrown completely off their game. In addition, she was a very good soccer player. There are two things I am very proud of during my tenure as boys’ athletic director. During my first year, Bobbie Konover, the girls AD, and I negotiated equal practice time and facility use for the girls teams. Prior to that, the girls’ basketball team practiced and played in the Little Gym (then called the Girls Gym). The next year I initiated the meetings that led to the formation of the Friends Schools League, the first private school league in the area with competition for girls. I am still involved with the Friends Schools League and couldn’t be prouder of its commitment to gender equality.

After my second stint as tennis coach, I settled in as JV baseball coach, where I stayed for the rest of my career with the exception of two sabbatical springs and two years filling in at the varsity level when Harry Gratwick was on sabbatical. JV baseball provides endless opportunities to witness events you could not have dreamed of nor made up. Where to begin? When I was in college I had a suitemate who played JV baseball. One inning he made the last out at bat and then went out to his second base position still wearing his batting helmet. We teased him a lot, but over the years I have had many JV players who, for their own safety, should have worn a helmet in the field. When hitting fly balls to the outfielders in practice, there were many times when I purposely hit the ball short, or turned it into a ground ball in order both not to embarrass a player and to make sure he got home safely for dinner with no intermediate trip to the hospital.

Coaching JV baseball (or any JV team) is a tricky business. You want the team to win. You want to give everyone a chance to play. And you need to make sure that the next generation of varsity players is ready to play at that level. Quite a tight rope to walk. When do you take a out because he just can’t throw strikes, or because his fielders have made too many errors, thus causing him, through no fault of his own, to throw more pitches than he should have? When is a lead safe enough (if ever) to put in the subs? There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a player whose best, and perhaps preferred, position is “left bench” come into a game and make a catch, get a hit, or just make a good baseball play. Regardless of ability, starter or bench warmer, we always ended the season with a celebratory ice cream trip to the Custard Stand in Roxborough. Nothing but the best for the JVs. Speaking of ice cream reminds me of a JV trip to Perkiomen (not one of our shorter jaunts). When we arrived we found their varsity playing another team on the field and no JV game on their schedule. We went back to the bus, stopped for ice cream in Pennsburg and headed home. The athletic director and assistant who were responsible shall remain nameless, but suffice it to say that it was a very long ways to go for a milkshake or a mint chocolate chip cone. Over the years I had players whose time on the JV was short, sometimes even less than one season, before they were snatched up to the varsity. I remember that Marc Schwartz (‘06) pitched a five-inning perfect game for the JV early in his freshman year at George School. He was on the varsity the next day, not as a pitcher, but as the starting shortstop, a position he maintained for four years. I remember, too, a George School JV player who hit the longest ball I ever saw on their field. He rocketed a line drive off the Science building wall in deep left field. My friend, John Gleeson, the long-time George School JV coach told me that the boy never played another JV game (and also never hit a ball that far again). I would be remiss not to mention that our pitcher that day was one of my better JV players over the years, Alden diSabato (’03). He turned so quickly to watch the flight of the ball that we thought we would need to put an ice pack on his neck. But I also had many boys who were “career” JV players. They were not on the fast track to the varsity, but they loved baseball and wanted to continue to play. Some of them had to make the difficult decision during their senior year as to whether they wanted to sit most of the time on the varsity bench (but likely be with more of their classmates) or stay on the JV and get playing time. For those who chose to be on the varsity it was usually a good “senior spring” experience, but I also had some of my very best JV team leaders come from the senior class. Khari Goosby (’13), even though he was injured for much of his senior year, was one such example. Others were James Bickford (‘97) and Griffin Brady (’13). A slightly different “career” player was Kim McGlynn (‘97) who was the only girl to play JV baseball during my tenure and who chose to stick with baseball even when GFS started a team. Another unusual senior situation came in the fall of 1995 when I was coaching 3rd team soccer (the successor to 9th grade soccer). Senior Eugene Kim (’96) came out of retirement to play goalkeeper on the same team with his 9th grade brother Andrew (’99). Eugene was a great leader, and Andrew had a ride home every day.

John Gleeson graduated two years ahead of me at Haverford and went directly back to his alma mater, George School to teach and coach (football and JV baseball). He also retired in the summer of 2016, so our careers were parallel.

Over the years he and I shared many memories of our JV games and of situations you could not make up in your wildest dreams. That’s why after game 4 of the 1993 World Series which was a wild back and forth affair eventually won by Toronto 15-14 over the Phillies, the first person I reached out to the next morning was John. I believe my message said: “John, we have seen this game before. We call it JV baseball”. Now compare the line score from that game: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E ------Toronto Blue Jays 3 0 4 0 0 2 0 6 0 15 18 0 4 2 0 1 5 1 1 0 0 14 14 0 with the line score from the GFS JV home game against Shipley on April 5, 2013:

I have this picture as the wallpaper on my computer with the title: add it up!

JV baseball is a never-ending source of amazement. We had many very good JV teams which fed into our strong varsity program, but some years we were not so strong. One year we were struggling and Westtown was thumping us. As is the custom, when one team is overwhelming another, the Westtown coach shut down the running game: no more steals, no advancing on passed balls. We did the same thing often when in similar situations. On this day, though, one Westtown player did not heed his coach’s instructions. He was on first base, and the next thing we knew he had stolen second base. The coach, who was in the third base coach’s box, yelled out to his player: “Who told you to steal second?” The player sheepishly pointed to his teammate who was coaching first base; “He did.” “Well I told you not to steal, so I want you to steal back to first.”

What?!?

No one, not the runner on second, not me or my players, and not the umpires had ever heard anything like this before. But the coach was insistent. So, before the next pitch, the boy took a lead off second, but on the first base side of the base. And then on the pitch he ran back to first. He was safe. There was no play because everyone on both teams and the umpire were laughing so hard that it would have been impossible to make a play. The only way the player would have been out was if the umpire had called him out using rules 7.08(I),7.10(b): “The only time a runner is out for running in reverse, is when he is making a travesty of the game or tries to confuse the defense.” But the umpire chose not to invoke it and all of us were left with our hilarious memories.

One of my proudest moments as JV coach was when my son, Seth, crushed a homerun onto the outdoor basketball court in deep left field at Abington Friends (against a boy who had the nerve to transfer from GFS to AFS). But not everything goes smoothly when you coach your child. One game when Seth was pitching, he was struggling and it was time for a mound conference. However it was clear to me that I was not the best one to give him the message, so I sent out my assistant coach. The home plate umpire asked me, “Don’t you usually go out to talk to your pitcher?” “Not when it’s my son,” I replied. “’nuff said,” he answered as he smiled knowingly.

Seth on the mound against Wilmington Friends

Ask any one of the hundreds of boys who played JV baseball for me what my mantra was and they would all reply “Make no more than one error on any given play.” To which I would always add that it was not required to make an error on a play, but never should they compound one error with another. It was a good strategy … when players followed it. My goal was to help players to not exacerbate an already bad situation. Machismo, or just plain stupidity, are not unknown qualities in teenage boys and I did everything I could to subvert such tendencies. The last three numbers on the line score of a baseball game are: runs, hits and errors. It was always our goal to make sure that the first two of these numbers were greater than the third. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes not. So what was happening on April 1, 2014? Was it just because it was April Fools Day? Or were the planets aligned in some mysterious diamond shaped pattern? We played at George School and eked out a 4-3 win in extra innings. But most extraordinarily, we made no errors. In 9 innings! The players fielded every ground ball and fly ball flawlessly. They made no errant throws. 9 innings – no errors. Unheard of in JV baseball. Once again, John and I could only shake our heads and remind ourselves that on the JV ball field you need to expect the unexpected. I threw thousands of batting practice pitches, none of them very fast, but most of them quite accurate. Only three of them caused me harm. For many years the batting cage at field was right up against the tennis court fence at the shed end. One time in the mid ‘80s I was throwing to Greg Mandel (’87 and current parent) when he hit a line drive to my left and I put up my glove to catch it, but it was a little further left then I had expected and it ricocheted off a tennis court support pole and right into the corner of my eyeglasses. Lots of blood, but no serious damage, although I think Greg thought he had killed me. Now he is dean of the Temple Law School and he can be assured that there will be no litigation. After we moved the cages to their current location, those poles were no longer an issue. But just like in JV baseball you can never predict everything. I was using the pitching machine with Drew Magaziner (‘98) at bat. He hit a line drive right back up the middle (exactly what we wanted) which hit one of the wheels of the pitching machine and kicked around the protective screen hitting me in the mouth (3 cracked teeth). The third time was indoors on a Saturday in the winter and I just wasn’t careful as a line drive caught me flush on the left forearm which I hadn’t tucked behind the screen. An ice pack allowed me to operate the clock for the basketball game later that afternoon. Not too bad a safety record for 40 years.

Greg Mandel – line drive hitter and dean of Temple Law

Speaking of indoor batting practice, it evolved over the years. We used to set up a net and a whiffle ball machine in the basement of the Alumni Building on top of the old alley. I think the air and the mold down there was probably more dangerous than any ball which might have hit me over the years.

The Alumni Building bowling alley minus the batting net

We also would set up the whiffle ball machine in the wrestling room when their season was over. When the new field house opened and the Little gym was decommissioned as a Middle School practice facility, we were able to set up a full indoor batting cage and I initiated twice weekly 7:30 am batting practice sessions from December until the start of preseason practice at the end of February. Attendance at these voluntary practices was remarkably consistent and I think they helped keep our program strong. Now we have two drop down cages in the Fieldhouse. Ah, progress!

For a while we had JV fan appreciation days, honoring our few loyal fans and shamelessly trolling for more. I remember three in particular. One time we honored Pat Reifsnyder by having her throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Another time both teams lined up along the foul lines before the game and Matt Vaughan (‘92) played the national anthem on his electric guitar…Jimi Hendrix style. The Westtown players were amused. I don’t remember the umpires’ reactions. The best, though, was when we held Dan Brown photo day. Dan was a decent ball player who played varsity for a year or two, but spent a lot of time in the weight room and he was “buff.” So, we had photos printed. Shirtless photos. This was before digital cameras, so the printing was not as easy as it is today. I think there were 6 or 8 prints made and handed out to his adoring fans. They were a highly prized item. I would love to see one today.

Dan Brown (’82) with his shirt on

In the same vein, Tim Gunn instituted a varsity/JV costume game.

In 2010 JV baseball often took a back seat to the Jesse Biddle show. With all the scouts and radar guns, sometimes the JV players got less attention than usual. But they were enthralled with all the hoopla and especially with Jesse’s pitching and hitting displays (particularly the homeruns over the right field fence and off the garage roof!) I had two freshmen left-handed on that team and Jesse selflessly mentored them amidst all the distractions leading up to his drafting by the Phillies. I only had Jesse on the JV for part of one game when he was in 8th grade and he pitched to his older brother Sam as catcher. Other than that he was on the varsity and I threw morning BP to him and his teammates. We were all thrilled with his success in “the show” with the Braves this past year after enduring way more than his fair share of injuries.

An illustrious trio of retired faculty (Gratwick, Reinke and Koons) watch Jesse pitch.

Early in my career as athletic director I was out at Fields, getting ready for baseball practice when word reached me that a student had been hit by a car while crossing Wissahickon Avenue heading to the old tennis courts. I ran over to check it out and fortunately he was not seriously hurt. I got back to the baseball field only to find that Tim Maxman (’82) had been hit in the head by a thrown ball in warmups. The next morning I went in to see Fred Calder and said that we absolutely had to have an athletic trainer. We have had many wonderfully skilled and dedicated trainers since then. I particularly remember Nancy Sigman’s absolute calm and professionalism in dealing with a George School basketball player who suffered a compound leg fracture going up for an uncontested layup. Another injury which fortunately was not as bad as it first appeared happened to our long-time field maintenance manager, Joe Peacock. It was just before a varsity baseball game and Joe was finishing up the lining of the batter’s boxes. Harry Gratwick was hitting infield/outfield to his players at the same time and Joe and Harry got a little too close to each other. Harry’s fungo bat clipped Joe across the brow and he started bleeding like a stuck pig. Joe thought he was a goner and started calling down every Irish saint he could think of. I was the likely candidate to take Joe to the hospital to get stitched up. We drove to Women’s Medical in East Falls where Dave Wagner, husband of math teacher Keay Wagner, was the head of emergency medicine. We got to the ER waiting room and were just checking in when all of a sudden some sort of domestic argument broke out and fists and chairs were flying. The nurse pulled us into David’s office where Joe got attended to while the police were dealing with the brouhaha outside. Joe and I reminisced about that incident for many years.

I’m sure I have forgotten more than I have written, but I wouldn’t trade the memories for anything. Athletics are an integral part of GFS and I am proud to have contributed over the past 40 years. It’s been a blast.