My first job coming out of college was working at Blair Academy, near the Delaware Water Gap. I was to teach Analytic Geometry and Pre-Calculus. During my interview with the headmaster, he brought out the fact that I had received two A’s in Calculus. I told him not to be fooled, that I had just memorized all the formulas and sample programs in the book. I still got the job and I also became the XC Coach and Assistant Track Coach to Jim Pender, an icon at the Academy.
The year did not go well for me. I had to live in the dorms and eat with the students down in the dining room. I was paid $4500 for the year, plus room and board. Not a bad deal, but for a 22 year old, Blairstown and Blair Academy was not a very exciting place. I also struggled with the students, as they were “privileged” long before that word became part of our social commentary. I used tell friends they made more in allowance than I did being paid as their teacher.
In the spring I became the Head Track Coach, as Jim Pender, retired. I started with 52 athletes and by the time I was done with the season I was down to 22. I coached a shot-putter from 40 feet down to 25 feet and only one of my distance runners were competitive. Bob Fehr ran 4:20 for the mile, graduated and went to Michigan, never to run again. He became a doctor, so I didn’t mess up that career.
My college roommate and I kept in touch and during my disasterous year, John Novak would talk about coming down to Metuchen to join him. He was a history teacher there and also the track coach. At the end of the year, I came down for an interview and was hired as a fifth grade teacher in a self contained classroom in the basement of Franklin School. The Superintendent was right above my classroom and, I am certain, he could hear all that was going on downstairs.
I found my element in teaching 5th grade. I figured I was a bit smarter than my students, since I did graduate from college, so I was not intimidated by them. In fact, I had the best time of my life teaching them all but Art and Music. Our classes were exciting with new ways of teaching almost on a daily basis. When we covered the Civil War, I drew a map of the US on the floor of the room and had kids represent the Union and Confederate soldiers and leaders. Lee and Grant were live in our classroom.
I used one of the earliest video camers to videotape a play, “Robin Hood” we put on for the entire school. I had the kids (and their parents) make the costumes and we spent days putting up the scenery. The play was a hit with everyone. I am not sure what educational value this provided the class, but the teamwork and excitement of seeing themselves on TV as we practiced each scene and an auditorium filled to capacity was an unforgettable experience for all the students and for me.
After school, I would drive up to Metuchen High School, about 2 miles up the road, and coach the cross country team and then assist John with the indoor and outdoor track and field program. John and I would spend hours and hours figuring out our lineup as we became more and more dominant in Middlesex County. Indoors we ran out in front of the school, down the main drive, back around out to the local street, back up to the entrance. It was about 500 yards around, a good distance for doing workouts. During snowy weather we would initially run up and down the halls. One day, I did the same workout as my athletes, and I got so sore from running on the concrete and making sharp turns, I told them we would never run in the halls again. I would rather run in the snow and cold outside than risk getting injured running the halls.
The track team dominated our league, won the county meet, beating arch rival St. Joe’s Metuchen, and even won a state Group 2 title. John’s shuttle hurdle team set a National Indoor Record, while Gary Anderson won a state title in the Javelin, despite my initially having him throw off the wrong foot. Fortunately, I took him down to the Naval Academy to meet Al Cantello, former world record holder in the Javelin, who righted the ship and helped Gary. Gary went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he got a DDS degree and eventually an MD degree.
I was promoted to the sixth grade my second year in Metuchen where I taught Math and Science, as part of the team teaching concept that existed during that time. I was excited to be promoted along with my former class, but I did not really enjoy teaching just Math and Science. Our cross country and track teams continued to develop and contend for county and state titles, with the XC team finishing second in the Group 2 Sectionals.
My third and final year at Metuchen had me teaching English and History and I found that I was a liberal arts kind of person, rather than one of science. I loved teaching English, History and Reading where my creative abilities were on display. I came up with one project after another, some even making the local newspaper, as I converted our portable classrooms out on the field into a Middle Ages community, complete with all six classrooms converted to “markets” and all the students dressed in period costumes. We had a Middle Ages Day where the rest of the school was given play money to make purchases of Items our students made. At the end of the day we had a cook out, as I built a huge barbecue pit, cooked up 50 chickens in the Home Economics ovens and then brought them out and finished cooking them on our “grill”. Finally, I had the Good Humor truck come by and provide ice cream treats to all of our students. What a fun time that was.
At the end of my third year, John Novak was moving up to become Vice-Principal at the high school and I became very concerned that I might “go stale” if I stayed on as an elementary school teacher. I saw some of the older teachers at Franklin, stuck in their ways, teaching the same old lesson plans year after year and I did not want to go down that road. I was very much afraid I would loose my creativity, as many of the projects I came up with were “spur of the moment “ ideas that came about, oftentimes, the night before I taught the class.
I wanted to “test the waters” and see if I could move up and coach at the college level, first being offered a part time position with John Moon at Seton Hall and then a position opened up at Columbia University. I was also offered a position with my former Assistant Principal, who was taking over as Principal at a near by high school. I decided to join the staff at Columbia, as the Athletic Director was Ken Germann, who I knew quite well from our time together at Rutgers, where he was the Assistant Athletic Director during my four years there.
I took a pay cut, moved closer to New York City and took on a whole new challenge, ready to show the world that I was as good a coach as anyone else.
My time at Metuchen was exciting and an important part of my life. My friendship with John Novak continues to this day, as I learned a lot from him. We roomed together for a short period of time, played together on our local softball team and enjoyed each other’s company, until he met Donna, soon to be his wife. It was time for me to move on.
The year did not go well for me. I had to live in the dorms and eat with the students down in the dining room. I was paid $4500 for the year, plus room and board. Not a bad deal, but for a 22 year old, Blairstown and Blair Academy was not a very exciting place. I also struggled with the students, as they were “privileged” long before that word became part of our social commentary. I used tell friends they made more in allowance than I did being paid as their teacher.
In the spring I became the Head Track Coach, as Jim Pender, retired. I started with 52 athletes and by the time I was done with the season I was down to 22. I coached a shot-putter from 40 feet down to 25 feet and only one of my distance runners were competitive. Bob Fehr ran 4:20 for the mile, graduated and went to Michigan, never to run again. He became a doctor, so I didn’t mess up that career.
My college roommate and I kept in touch and during my disasterous year, John Novak would talk about coming down to Metuchen to join him. He was a history teacher there and also the track coach. At the end of the year, I came down for an interview and was hired as a fifth grade teacher in a self contained classroom in the basement of Franklin School. The Superintendent was right above my classroom and, I am certain, he could hear all that was going on downstairs.
I found my element in teaching 5th grade. I figured I was a bit smarter than my students, since I did graduate from college, so I was not intimidated by them. In fact, I had the best time of my life teaching them all but Art and Music. Our classes were exciting with new ways of teaching almost on a daily basis. When we covered the Civil War, I drew a map of the US on the floor of the room and had kids represent the Union and Confederate soldiers and leaders. Lee and Grant were live in our classroom.
I used one of the earliest video camers to videotape a play, “Robin Hood” we put on for the entire school. I had the kids (and their parents) make the costumes and we spent days putting up the scenery. The play was a hit with everyone. I am not sure what educational value this provided the class, but the teamwork and excitement of seeing themselves on TV as we practiced each scene and an auditorium filled to capacity was an unforgettable experience for all the students and for me.
After school, I would drive up to Metuchen High School, about 2 miles up the road, and coach the cross country team and then assist John with the indoor and outdoor track and field program. John and I would spend hours and hours figuring out our lineup as we became more and more dominant in Middlesex County. Indoors we ran out in front of the school, down the main drive, back around out to the local street, back up to the entrance. It was about 500 yards around, a good distance for doing workouts. During snowy weather we would initially run up and down the halls. One day, I did the same workout as my athletes, and I got so sore from running on the concrete and making sharp turns, I told them we would never run in the halls again. I would rather run in the snow and cold outside than risk getting injured running the halls.
The track team dominated our league, won the county meet, beating arch rival St. Joe’s Metuchen, and even won a state Group 2 title. John’s shuttle hurdle team set a National Indoor Record, while Gary Anderson won a state title in the Javelin, despite my initially having him throw off the wrong foot. Fortunately, I took him down to the Naval Academy to meet Al Cantello, former world record holder in the Javelin, who righted the ship and helped Gary. Gary went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he got a DDS degree and eventually an MD degree.
I was promoted to the sixth grade my second year in Metuchen where I taught Math and Science, as part of the team teaching concept that existed during that time. I was excited to be promoted along with my former class, but I did not really enjoy teaching just Math and Science. Our cross country and track teams continued to develop and contend for county and state titles, with the XC team finishing second in the Group 2 Sectionals.
My third and final year at Metuchen had me teaching English and History and I found that I was a liberal arts kind of person, rather than one of science. I loved teaching English, History and Reading where my creative abilities were on display. I came up with one project after another, some even making the local newspaper, as I converted our portable classrooms out on the field into a Middle Ages community, complete with all six classrooms converted to “markets” and all the students dressed in period costumes. We had a Middle Ages Day where the rest of the school was given play money to make purchases of Items our students made. At the end of the day we had a cook out, as I built a huge barbecue pit, cooked up 50 chickens in the Home Economics ovens and then brought them out and finished cooking them on our “grill”. Finally, I had the Good Humor truck come by and provide ice cream treats to all of our students. What a fun time that was.
At the end of my third year, John Novak was moving up to become Vice-Principal at the high school and I became very concerned that I might “go stale” if I stayed on as an elementary school teacher. I saw some of the older teachers at Franklin, stuck in their ways, teaching the same old lesson plans year after year and I did not want to go down that road. I was very much afraid I would loose my creativity, as many of the projects I came up with were “spur of the moment “ ideas that came about, oftentimes, the night before I taught the class.
I wanted to “test the waters” and see if I could move up and coach at the college level, first being offered a part time position with John Moon at Seton Hall and then a position opened up at Columbia University. I was also offered a position with my former Assistant Principal, who was taking over as Principal at a near by high school. I decided to join the staff at Columbia, as the Athletic Director was Ken Germann, who I knew quite well from our time together at Rutgers, where he was the Assistant Athletic Director during my four years there.
I took a pay cut, moved closer to New York City and took on a whole new challenge, ready to show the world that I was as good a coach as anyone else.
My time at Metuchen was exciting and an important part of my life. My friendship with John Novak continues to this day, as I learned a lot from him. We roomed together for a short period of time, played together on our local softball team and enjoyed each other’s company, until he met Donna, soon to be his wife. It was time for me to move on.
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