After graduating, ranked smack dab in the middle of our class of 475, I was off to West Chester State College with the intention of becoming a math teacher. After flunking both math courses in the first semester, I realized that I was not prepared to set that world afire. Second semester freshman year I switched to social sciences and geography, graduated in 1974, and embarked on my first career. I taught middle school social studies and physical education for eight years at Saint Patrick School in Norristown. Also at that same time, I sat at the knee of fellow teacher/‘70 BK grad/track star Jack Sabol learning how to coach Track & Field. I stayed at the age-group level for a couple years and then moved on from there over the next 40 years. In June, 1982, I knew my teaching career fun had come to an end and I applied to NASA where they were looking for historical archivists. Having attained an M.A. in history two years prior, I was qualified to apply for this position. While making my way through the lengthy application process, I accepted a temporary position with a fledgling human services agency called the Patrician Society of Central Norristown. Several academic certifications in Nonprofit Management and 40 years later, I’m still there - although now in a greatly reduced capacity. I officially retired as Executive Director in March 2018 (hated retirement), then was invited to re-up as a part time fundraiser and “Executive Assistant.” In August 1978 I married Peggy Walsh (BK ‘72) and this year (2022) we mark 44 years of wedded bliss. We have no children. We had traveled a lot pre-Covid and I’m sure we’ll get back to that at some point. Back in the track and field world, I was fortunate enough in 1996 to join Coach Bob Fraley at Fresno State and co-founded with him the North American Pole Vault Association. This organization is designed to assist post-collegiate Olympic level athletes with coaching, training, competition expenses, facilities, and all of those “assumed” factors that, in essence, are required to successfully push an athlete over the pole vault crossbar. That was so much fun that I took on an identical role in 1999 with a UPenn athlete/coach named John Taylor. We co-founded a club called Javelin USA to do much the same for javelin throwers and some other track and field athletes as well. In my various roles as a T&F administrator, official, coach, and author over the past 47 years, I have had the distinct pleasure of traveling the country (and the United Kingdom) and working with all levels of athletes from grade schoolers to Olympians and World Record Holders. This is all heady territory for a guy who was certifiably the world’s worst javelin thrower and pole vaulter in high school. But Kenrick, marriage, work, athletics, hanging out - it’s all been fun. And as Dudley Moore said in ARTHUR, “Isn’t fun the best thing to have?”
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