Benefit in Memory of Joe Dadura on March 16

    Friends of Joe Dadura will hold a benefit for his wife, Bobbi, on March 16 from 7 - 11 p.m. at the Washington Square Ballroom, 131 Johnson Road, in Turnersville.

   I wrote about Joe's untimely passing on December 4 in this post.  You can read more about the benefit and how to but tickets or make a donation if you can't attend at this link.  There will be a lot of people there and a lot of fun.

   Joe was nearly killed by a drunk driver while at work in January 2003.  He was never able to work again and because of his injuries unable to obtain life insurance.  This is a chance to do a good deed for a truly deserving person.  I hope all my friends will be able to help.

   Thanks from Coach P!

I "Gess" It's The End Of An Era As Glenn Resigns At Haddonfield

Seems like just yesterday I was on a committee helping interview Glenn Gess and two other finalists to replace Charlie Keil as Haddonfield Memorial High School’s girls varsity soccer coach.  Nine years later I was on the committee to find Glenn’s successor.  (More on that in a future post.)

Coach Gess and Coach P

From a selfish point of view I wish Glenn would stay for another nine years, give or take.  Aside from being a part, however small, of a highly successful program, I enjoyed the time spent with Glenn, who at once is funny, entertaining, athletic, a good soccer guy, a good person and a good friend.  He even put me on the roster as a "special assistant," a title I am proud to hold, although I'm still not sure what it means.

Glenn e-mailed me back on November 7 and tipped me off that he was stepping down after nine years as head coach.  His daughter, Brianna, is an exceptionally talented runner who will be in 9^th grade next year and Glenn said he wanted to be at the cross country meets, and to spend more time with son Derek’s club team.  Both laudable intentions.  Because more than being a good friend and a great coach (in my opinion), Glenn is first and foremost an outstanding family man.  Meet his parents, his lovely wife, Pam, and his kids and you'll see that.

I knew Glenn back when he was the Haddon Township coach because I used to bug him for his roster starting two weeks before the Hawks were due in our stadium.  When we interviewed him for the Haddonfield job, a parent on the committee wondered if Glenn might be a little intense.  “I think Glenn’s intense when he butters his toast in the morning,” said then Athletic Director Phil Smart.  (Phil is now the A.D. at Eastern.)  But he said we were looking for someone to take the program to the next level.  We found that someone in Glenn.

During the Gess era, HMHS was 116-3-3 in Colonial Conference play, with eight championships.  Overall we were 189-18-7 with three State Cups and one runner-up.  Then there were two runners-up trophies in the South Jersey Coaches Tournament.

More important, from my observation, Glenn could push your daughter to be the best she could possibly be on and off the field.  Glenn would tell it like it was from day one each season.   Every girl knew exactly where she stood and the 15 or so best players played the most.  No excuses, no entitlements. 

Aside from being one of the best coaches in the area and an excellent athlete in his own right, I always thought Glenn was pretty funny.  One night several years into his tenure I sat next to him at a dinner at Bob and Sue Heindel’s house and he was talking about the interview process for the HMHS job.  He interviewed first with A.D. Smart and thought it went well and that he would get the job.  But then he got a call that he had to interview with the principal.  So he did, and he thought it went well and that he would get the job. But  then he got a call he had to come back to meet with committees of parents, players, alumni and Coach P.  Only in Haddonfield, he thought.  He said when he applied for the Haddon Township job, “They asked if I knew who Pele was, I said, ‘yes,’ and they said, ‘You’re hired.’”

My favorite Glenn Gess line was from one of our year end banquets a few years back when Glenn told the story of finding his wife Pam’s Cosmopolitan, leafing through it and “I felt like I was reading the other team’s playbook.”  For the record, Pam denied ever even subscribing to Cosmopolitan.

Coach Gess, outgoing Booster Club president,  Sigrid Kiep and husband, Bob.

I would like to say HMHS girls soccer won’t be the same without Glenn Gess.  In way it’s true but in a way things won’t change.  Our committee recommended an excellent candidate whom AD Lefty Banos has proposed to the principal and the superintendent.  HMHS girls soccer will remain in good hands (or feet), but it will be a little different next year.

As I said at the recent year-end banquet, we won before Glenn Gess came, we won a lot while he was in charge, and we will win after Glenn Gess, but I for one will miss having him on the sidelines.  But he promised to sit up in the press box during the stadium  games, so I am looking forward to being entertained once more.

Fashion Statements in The EPL

   Back when my son, Scott, was playing for the Medford Strikers, someone busted on parent Bill Gill, about the hiking boots he wore to a tournament game one wet day.  "I never intended to make a fashion statement at a soccer game," Bill replied, knowing he would have dry feet at the end of the game.

   I'm with Bill, but apparently fashion statements are expected by the managers of the English Premier League teams, as reported in today's New York Times.  In this country, baseball managers since Connie Mack's day have no such worries because they and their coaches in the dugout wear the team uniform.  (No one could ever say why that is.  Best explanation I have heard is that unlike the other sports, in baseball the manager and coaches are routinely on the field.)  In hockey and basketball the coaches dress as if they were modeling for GQ but in American football the staff is usually dressed in team shirts.

    The best quote in the article is: “The top clubs all have designers throwing beautiful clothes at them and the whole world watching them, and still so many of them manage to look cheap and nasty,” said Dan Rookwood, style director at Men’s Health U.K. “They look like middle-management insurance salesmen, not multimillionaire leaders of men.”

   I would be in big trouble if I coached in the EPL because when I was coaching I focused on comfortable.  If it was wet I wore waterproof boots.   If it was cold I dressed warmly.  And the most comfortable attire I could find was the warm-up suit.

Coach P with Bridget Claus August, 2007

   But according to Sarah Lyall, who wrote the Times article, "At the bottom of the heap are those whose no-nonsense track suits and warm-up clothes evoke the crabby phys ed teacher who taught soccer at your high school in the 1980s. These men seem to wish they were playing, not standing on the sideline. They are “the ones that style forgot,” said Jessica Punter, the style and grooming editor of British GQ."  And she goes on to mention Stoke City's Tony Pulis, who not only wears a track suit, but, (gasp) a baseball hat.  Well ,that was me.  As any parent whose kid I've coached, and any opposing coach whose team we played knows, my standard uniform was shorts and a Strikers coaching shirt, warm-up suit when it was colder, and always a baseball hat.  Like Bill Gill, I was never there to make a fashion statement.

You Thought You Had a Long Commute!

   I was exhausted just reading about Clint Dempsey's upcoming travel schedule:

  Monday:  fly from England to Miami, after having played two matches in five days for Tottenham.
                 fly with U.S. National Team to Honduras.
  Wednesday:  Play for U.S. in important World Cup qualifier.
                      Fly back to Florida.
   Thursday:   Fly to London.
    Friday:      Arrive London
    Saturday:   Play mid-day EPL game against Newcastle.

Whew!  I know he's a young, world class athlete, crossing time zones like that takes a toll on the body regardless.  It would be an exhausting schedule if he were spending his time on both sides of the ocean in a library.  Instead, he will have played five matches in 14 days: three league, one F.A. Cup and one international.

   Dempsey's take:  “It is what it is. “Everybody has to deal with these kind of situations, and all you can do is try to take care of yourself and make sure you’re doing what you can to stay as fit as possible for your next game.”

Read the entire story on Dempsey from  today's New York Times.