SRU ORAL HISTORY
"SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY IN THE SIXTIES"
INTERVIEWEE:

MR. DOUGLAS CLINGER

INTERVIEWERS:

DR. JOSEPH RIGGS AND LEAH M. BROWN

23 JUNE 1992
B:

We are speaking to Doug

Cling er about his memories of life at

Slippery Rock as a coach. as a professor. and as an active
person on campus.
C:

Thank you.

In my experience with Slippery Rock Colleg e and

University g oes back to 1956 when I enrolled as a student.

I

had served in the Korean conflict in the United States Coast
Guard and was late entering colleg e. and I enrolled as a
physical education major at Slippery Rock in the fall of 1956.
My family and I. my wife and young child. moved to Slippery
Rock and lived at 526 South Main Street. rig ht across from
East Gym.

So I had a very short jaunt across campus.

At

that time the academic prog ram was g eared to a lot of
emphasis on campus at that time in the academic program
was the physical education prog ram and the majority of the
students were physical education majors along

with educaiton

majors in secondary education and elementary education. but
at that time the history of the state colleg e was that each
of the colleges had a specific emphasis. and at that time
the emphasis at Slippery Rock was physical education.

The

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program was geared to a lot of practical application of
information th at was learned in th e classroom.

I can

recall one semester wh ere I took 21 h ours of academic work
wh ich required 39 h ours of actually academic contact with
th e professor eith er in a laboratory situation or in the
classroom situation.

Th ere wasn't a lot of emph asis on

a one for one h our credit. and th ere was no faculty union
and th ere was a lot of differences on campus. on th is campus.
from wh at I recall as I returned at a later time.

I got

involved with th e football program under Bill Meise.

Bill was

th e h ead coach at th at time and I h ad h ad Bill for class. and
I really enjoyed h is class.

Being a little bit older I had

fractured my jaw in a ph ysical education class my fresh man year.
in soccer class.

I guess I felt th at maybe I was th at the

participation aspect of th at was maybe wh y h e passed me by
because I was older at th at time.

So I volunteered in th e fall

of 1957 to serve as th e trainer for th e football team. for
Bill Meise. and really enjoyed th at experience working with
Dr. Meise and th e football program and th e at
h letes.

I

continued th at th rough out th e year and I also worked with
Campbell Snowberger wh o was involved in th e track program.

Dr.
He

was our track coach at th at time and th e man responsible for
building Morrow Field
h ouse.
footwork back and forth

He was th e one wh o did a lot of th e

between Harrisburg with

blueprints

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and drawings, and getting different phases of that project
confirmed.

He was here and saw his work completed and I think

that building was completed in 1963.
track program also as a trainer.

But I did work with the

I did that again in the fall

of 1958 and continued th rough th e spring 1958 working with
th e ath letes as an ath letic trainer, and utilizing some of
th e materials I h ad learned in my undergraduate preparation
and my anatomy class, and kinesiology class, and later when
on to teach

th at at th e University as I came back and became

a faculty member.

Th en I was out of th e program from 1959

until 1966, and th ese were th e years of Dr. Chuck Godlasky
Dr. Godlasky was th e h ead football coach

in th e fall of 1959. He

brough t some people in and really wanted me to work with
h im, but I was doing student teach ing and I h ad an opportunity
to do some coach ing, and so I ch ose to do th at at th e high
sch ool th at I did my student teac
h ing.

So I did not work with

Dr. Godlasky• but I kept in contact with th e Slipper Rock
University football program as a scout for Lock Haven.
coach ing football in th e h igh

I was

sch ool situation in Grove City, but

Hubert Jack was th e football coach at Lock Haven and he
was originally a Grove City person.

Because I-80 was not

completed at th at time and travel was difficult between Slippery
Rock and Lock Haven, h e asked me if I would scout western
teams in th e Pennsylvania Ath letic Conference wh ich would be

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Edinb oro, Indiana, California, Slippery Rock, and Clarion.
It would b e easier for me to do that rather than for Coach
Jack to come through and do the scouting and it would be
almost impossib le for him to do that and coach the football
team at Lock Haven.

I never scouted Slippery Rock because

he never asked me to.

I always scouted their opponents,

and so I had an opportunity to see Slippery Rock play during
those times, and at that time there was more emphasis being
placed on athletics at Slippery Rock than there were during
Dr. Meise's career.

I think the University saw some value

to it and I think Coach Godlasky and his staff did an
excellent job , and their work resulted in the championship
in 1963, I think they were state champions.

Dr. Godlasky

decided it was time for him to get into the academic program.
He had completed his doctoral work at Penn State, and received
his Ph.D., and he wanted to put an emphasis on the classroom,
so he asked to b e relieved from the footb all program and in the
fall of 1965, they b rought in Jack_Olcott

Jack coached in

1965 and 1966, and in the fall of 1966 is when I joined the
athletic program at Slippery Rock and also the faculty at
Slippery Rock College.

At that time, Dr. Carter was the

president and my perceptions of the athletic program were
that it was in somewhat of a disarray.

There was not much

emphasis b eing placed on it, and I'm not sure that the

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University val ued it at that time.

They did not see any

val ue in having a strong athl etic program. so it was just
again an exampl e of l etting the program take its own
course.

As much as coaches want to win and as much as

pressure that they put on themsel ves to win. it's difficult
if you don't have the support of the administration of
the University.

I came on as a freshmen coach. and had with

me a graduate assistant by the name of Chuck Bame.

Chuck

had coached at John Harris High School in Harrisburg and came
back and was a graduate assistant in anatomy. and al so helped
with the footbal l program.

At that time. our academic loads

were quite a bit different than they are today.

We had no

rel ease time for coaching. and we had up to 18 hours of
academic work.

My first semester on campus I had four sections

of anatomy. a three hour course.

I had three sections of

personal health which was a two course at that time.

It

was 18 academic hours that I was teaching along with my
coaching. and there were times that it was some late nights
because I had to prepare for the next day's lecture and also
we had a six day week schedule.
Friday schedule.

We had no Monday. Wednesday.

We had both Monday. Wednesday. Friday. and

Tuesday. Thursday, Saturday schedule. So there might be days
you have to teach two or three hours in the morning and then
go right to the football field and coach in the afternoon.

It

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was a challeng e but it was a real g ood experience.
enjoyed that aspect.

I really

I enjoyed working with Jack Olcott

Jack was. I would say. a prolific writer.

At that time. he

had published two or three textbooks. football drill textbooks.
and he went on to finish a doctorate. and wrote some additional
books.

I enjoyed that experience even thoug h the football

prog ram was not real successful. and as I indicated the program
was a little bit of disarray and I think the University wanted
to make some chan
g es.

There was some dissention in the staff

and it was a g ood time to make some chang es. and so at that time
In the

the University had a search and hired Bob DiSpirito.
spring of 1967. Bob arrived on campus.

He came with Rob

Oberlin. and that year their spring practice was held on old
Thompson field because they were g oing to resod that field. so
they permitted us to use that for spring practice.

The

previous spring or that spring really would have been during
the winter months is when the whole football staff was
relieved of their responsibility of coachin
g .

Mark Shiring

was then the assistant to the president and he had the
priviledg e of delivering the letters to the coaches and
saying that they would not be considered to coach in the
future.

So he walked around the Fieldhouse and g ave all

of us our letters and he indicated that Dr. Carter had no
intention of assig ning

me to the football pro
g ram.

That

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!{as ln January or Pebruary of L967. I{hen Bob was hired

he asked Dr. Melse or Dr. Melse suggested that he nlght vrant

to intervley, ne wlth the posslblllty of me belng one of hls
asslstants. So Bob dld, and I said that I would be more than
pleased to work with hin. I enJoyed worklng with the klds
in that type of a sLtuatlon, and always enJoyed thr: contact
with the athletes. So he declded to hire r€, but he lndicated
that what he would llke me to do that spring because I had the
eontacts here, and was lnvolved with the programs, rather than
coach on the fleld for that sprlng, if I would handle the
recrulting, and so I agreed to do that. Thls Is when we started
to sone of our nass recrultlng brlnglng a lot of etudents to
the Unlverslty, bringing them on canpus, having them meet wlth
dlfferent, departnent chairpersons, and different nenbers of
the faculty, alL the coachlng staff and then lettlng them tour
the campus trying to spark a flre ln then to cone to Sllppery
Rock. f think we dld an awful lot of recruiting of students
for Sllppery Rock, and probably recrulted many nore student,s
than we did athletes, but in the process we got many good
athletes also, but it, was klnd of a shotgun approach to
recrulting. I handled all that for the spring setup, dlL the
meetlngs, brought all the ktds on canpus, nade the phone calls,
and then the st,aff would meet wlth then, and arrange for the
faculty nenbers to meet wlth them also. I thlnk that year we

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got a number of athletes that really contributed to the program
of the future, and started us on the road to some success.

We

had in the 1965 and 1966, we had probably a limited number of
athletes in our program.

We had a number of athletes, but as

far as athletes that could win, we had limited numbers in 1965
and 1966.

Then we began our recruiting efforts.

The first

year, as I indicated, I was responsible for recruiting.

Then

Bob began to organize the staff as staff should be organized,
and I think it's Bob's organizational skills that permitted us
to have some success.

He assigned each us to a different area

of western Pennsylvania to recruit.

My recruiting area was from

Slippery Rock north to Lake Erie and as far east as Bradford,
and as far west as the Ohio border.

Stan recruited down in the

Pittsburgh area, the Allegheny valley area.
responsible for the Beaver Valley.

Mike Pariseau was

Rod Oberlin took care of

the Pittsburgh city schools and south of Pittsburgh.

So we

all had a definite recruiting area and were responsible for
bringing people in from those areas, and we began to get some
pretty good athletes.

We knew that we probably were never

going to compete for the Division I athlete even though we would
have liked to have had a number of those people on campus,
and recruited the highly skilled athlete, we focused, I believe,
on the personality of the student.

We felt if we could have

a student for four years, during that four year time if we

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were doing our jobs as coaches, we could probably make them
into football players that we could win with.

So rather than

going out and recruiting a lot of highly skilled athletes,
we recruited kids with a personality that we felt wanted to
be successful.

They had a work ethic and the perserverance

to be successful.
Dennis Tilko

That's where we began to get athletes

like and Terry Factor • and Jeff Siemianowski
and I could just go on and on and on, and

and Pat Risha

I probably shouldn't menti on anymore because I'm going to leave
some people out of it.

Dan Toomey• Roy Ripley and Ed O'Reilly

Just great ki ds that wanted to wi n or that wanted to be
successful.

At the same time that they were successful in the

athleti c program, we were also looki ng at success in
the academic program.
Bob DiSpirito.

I think this was another tribute to

He felt a value in the academic program not

only for the students but also for the coaches.

He encouraged

his coaches to become actively involved in the University
community.

He wanted us to serve on committees.

us to be involved skillfully in our teaching.
to interact with the faculty.

He wanted

He wanted us

He wanted us at all the

faculty functions, and I think at that time the University
began to value athletics.

I think some of the credit should

also go to Al Watrel because Dr. Watrel had a strong feeling
and a strong value for athletics.

He had been an athlete at

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Syracuse, and partlcipated ln footbaLl, and had a l-ove for

the game, I thlnk, and wanted the football program to be
successful. So he did the things that permltted us to be
successful. Some of the thlngs that I felt that agaln it's
Bob DiSplrito's belng able to cultivat,e the presldent in
thlnklng the way he thlnks relatlve to the athletic program.
I don't want to ln anyway take anything a$ray from the
acadenlc program. I don't think we as a coachlng staff
brought any kids to campus that we didn't feel could be
successful ln t,he academlc program. lfe didn't brlng kids
here to use them for four years of athletic eliglbillty
and send them out wlth no credentlals of any klnd. I
know some schools did that, but agatn wlth Bob we felt
that lf yre're going to have the kids, and tf we set the
example that we value the acadenic program then the students
are going to value lt. I think one of my flrst experJ.ences
with thls was wlth one of our better athletes that I had in
acadenlc anatony course, and he did not do the work for me,
so I did not pass hlm. He couldn't belleve this. This
person was a transfer student from a major university and
sald that at the maJor unlversity we didn't have to go to
cl-ass. I sald, vlell, you do have to go class here, and thls
is why you didn't do the work and if you don't do the work
for me in the classroom, you're not golng to do the work for

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me on the f ootball f ield.

So until you do the work f or me

in the classroom, then you're not going to be able to play on
the f ootball f ield, so he dif f icult time accepting that.
Stan was the same way, and we were teaching probably the
major academic classes at that time.

Not that all of them

weren't important, but we had the three hour courses some
of the other coaches were teaching the one hour courses,
the two hour skills courses.
skills f airly well.

Most of our kids could do the

But he couldn't believe that I would

f ail him in this anatomy course. I had the same gentleman a
year later in a kinesiology course af ter he had gone back
and made up and I had to f ail him again and he still couldn't
believe that, f inally he got his attention and he graduated
f ul.
and he is very, very success

He's out now.

He has his

principal's license f rom K-12 and he is a principal and had
done very, very well. He still today when he speaks to people
suggests that he f elt it was his f ootball program that got him
back on track.
Frankie

Another instance, and I might mention Dr.

Barnes.

Frank was one of our students out of inner

city of Pittsburgh, and again wasn't a great student but came
and had what we f elt was the personality to be successful.
Just a year or so ago I wrote him a congratulatory letter.
had received his Ph.D., and he was named the principal at
North Allegheny High School, and has since has moved to the

He

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superlntendent of Hopewell Hlgh School. Again he felt that it
rras the perserverance and the values that the coaching staff

placed on academics that permitted hlm to continue on in his
educat,ion and to be successful ln h1s educatlon. But I thlnk

that a lot of that is att,rlbuted to Bob because he valued
acadenics and he thought it was lnport,ant that staff be
lnvovled in the teaching in the whole academic community. And
I thtnk along with hls ablllty to connunlcate those thlngs
to Dr. Yfatrel, and have Dr. lfatrel value the program permltted
us to wLn the three state championships. Now we dld have some
as I lndlcated where I was going I guess was to say that we
never brought kids here that we didn't feel could be
successful. We dld have some kids t,hat had to go into the
sunmer, January program or the Act LOL program, but we felt
that, sre some good study skllls that the kids could be, the
athletes could be successful. The admlssions offlce helps
you too. To be successful in athletics takes a lot of
dlfferent people, and a lot of dlfferent people to place an
emphasls or a value on it also.

The admissions offlce us

Dr. Lowery was there, and contlnuted on through Ton
Nesbltt when Tom was there, but we always had a class rank
for the st,udent. tle always had hls quallty polnt average
ln the high school, and we always had his S.A.T. scores. Many
tlmes if the S.A.T. scores where down, but t,he class rank was

when

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decent, and the hlgh school quality point average vras decent,
then even though they had low S.A.T. scores the adnlsslons
offlces would at least go on our recommendations or accept some

of our ratlonale as to why we felt these students could be
successful, and they helped us aLong t,he way. To be successful
ln athletlcs, lt takes, as I lndicated, a lot of people
worklng together, and agaln lt's a trlbute to Bob DlSpirlto.
He $ras able to brlng all these dlfferent people together. I
think a lot of it was the fact that hie staff was lnterested
They wanted to
in the acadenlc progran, in t,he instltutlon.
see thelr program be successful, and they worked extra hard
to do thelr part ln naklng the progran successful. Bob's
probably the most conpassionate person that I've cone ln
contact wlth. He's wIlllng to go the extra nlle with any
student athlete. A young lad that I suggested to you
earller that $ras not golng to work for ne ln the classroon
lras not dolng the work for me on the fleld and I felt lt
was affectlng the play of the other athletes. So f vrent
to Bob and I suggested to Bob that, we probably ehould get
rld of thlE person. I think he's lnfectlng other people
on the team and lf posslble I thlnk I've done all I can
wlth hln, and I don't thlnk I can help hlm anynore. So
Bob says, let ne talk to him. So Bob talked to the young
man and cane back to me and said, would you be willlng to

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!'rork v,rith this student lf he's wilIlng to do everything you

ask hin to do? I sald, y€s. So at, that tlme the student

was

a good slze young man about six foot four, about 27O pounds,
but he $ras probably one of the quickest people on the squad,
but was awfully lazy, and was not dolng the work on the field.
I thlnk a lot of lt was because he was too heavy, and he Just
tras not ln very good physical shape. Bob sald, would you
work wlth hln tf he's wllllng to do anything that you vtant
hlm to do? I said, vrelI, if he's wiIllng to do anythLng,
then I'11 go on your reeommendatlon lf you want hin ln the
program. So he says, I'd llke to have you work wlth hlm.
He had again hls organizatlonal sklIls, he had a dlscipllnary
council on the squad. He had two senlors, a Junlor, a
sophomore and there may have been an lncomlng freshman, I
can't just remember the make up of that. But he says, I'm
golng to have hln neet wlth his people and tf they'll
recommend lt, and 1f they'll accept lf he'II do the things
that, you ask hln to do then vre'Il keep hln on the squad.
So he met wlth the dislplinary council, and I can st111, my
office yras outsLde, but I could hear the dlsclpllne council
speaking wlth him, and they were stern wlth him and falr
wlth him. They told hlm llke it was. So he agreed.
So I said, the first thlng I vrant you to do Is I want you
to lose 30 pounds, and so he says, do you have some kind of

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a diet that I can use? So I dld, and he lost 30 pounds, and
he felt better about hinself. He wouldn't go ln the weight
rooms. He wasn't very strong even though there's a good
correlatlon between slze and strength because of lean body
mass, he wouldn't go in the weight room. lfe had one little
tailback that was probably 165 pounds that could bench press
close to 3OO pounds and this btg gentlenan could only bench
press LlO pounds. So after we had hls welght down where we
felt he could be successful, he had the frame to realLy
put some lean body mass otr, so ]te put hlm on a welght program,
got him in the weight progran, and because he had good
slze, and a lot of lean body nass, hls strength developed
rather quickly, and ln three nonths time he went fron L1O
pound benchpress to about 35O pound benchpress. Before he
left college, he was benchpresslng over 40@ pounds. Two
years after he had graduated I happened to be lnvlted to his
house for a Eourth of JuIy celebratlon, and he asked me lf

I wouLd spot hin while he did his weight tralnlng, and at
that time he had 5@O pounds on his bench, so he developed
hls strenght and went on and was very successful, and had
a tryout with the pros. But until Bob got his attentlon,
the athletlc program got hls attentlon, he $rasn't wllllng to
pay the prlce to be successful, and the only way that we could
get his attentlon was to threathen hlm wlth taking away what

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he liked to do, and he's gone oD, and as I lndicated, has
been very successful, and I thlnk he's stlll

a tribute to

his success ls belng a part of Bob's football program, and
the pressures put on hlm by the academlc program. He feels
that he had sone of the best undergraduate training at
Sllppery Rock as he had ln any of hls graduate prograns.
A nunber of number of students have come back, and I stlll
neet occaslonalLy wlth Btudents, ln fact next Tuesday I'n
meeting wlth two of our graduate students that flnlshed thelr
degrees here and gone on to work on doctoral programs and
everything, and feel that they were much better prepared at
Sllppery Rock than some of the students that they had classes
wlth from other institutions, and a number of our students
express that each tLme that I have a chance to meet with them.
Bob, as I indicated, put the value on it, valued the academlc
program, got hls coaches lnvolved in the Unlverslty policy
maklng, and on Universlty commlttees, and I think that

was

one of the reasons that we had auecess. Addltlonal thlngs
Bob did, I think, the llttle

thlngs that Bob did also
contrlbuted to the success of the program. He nade a
speclal enphasis on lncluding the families. If at aII
posslble our wlves would be at the ball games, and we
entertalned a lot at that time. l{e tried to involve the
University conmunity, partlcularly after ganes. Each ot

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the coaches or ln later years as it got nore expensive maybe
one or tvro coaches would go together but we would always
have an after gane party where we would invite facult,y and
staff, people that helped the program. Bob $ras responstble
for that, and as I indicated, it was lncluding the fanilies.
I know that when we $rent down to Atlantlc City we had
included not only the wives but the children and we took two
buses down and partlcipated ln the game and our fanllles
where there. Tfe weren't avray f ron our famllles, and Bob had
put an emphasls on that, that he dldn't expect us to be out
on the road recruiting for days and days at a time, he wanted
us to spend tlme with our famllles ln the off season. But
we would go out and recrult, and we would be gone two or
three days at a tlme sometimes and usually we dld that when
school $rasn't in session, and again an emphasis on the
academlc program. I{e dldn't mlss our classes and cancel our
classes to go recruiting, we dld that when hlgh schools were
ln sesslon and colleges weren't ln sessl-on, and Bob dldn't
expect us to miss our classes. At that tirne, r{€ just dldn't
niss classes. l{e dldn't have any unlon or anything to
support us so we had to teach our classes and that's what we
were here for. We vrere hlred as teachers and then coaches
secondary. But the fanily aspect of lt even in some of the
promotional materlals for the football program, the annual

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brochure. he might have the wives pictures in there or he
might have husband and wives pictures in there.

That was

his emphasis on the family aspect of the athletic program.
A lot of the success is Bob DiSpirito's organizational
sk ills. his focus and his value on the academic program.
not only for the athletes but also for the coaches.

Then

he would be willing to go to whomever at that time to
see if we couldn't get promoted.

At that time there was ,

promotion was some k ind of an automatic board.

We had the

faculty committees and so forth and so if the recom­
mendation was there. if the dean wanted to recommend you
for promotion then you were usually promoted.

At that

time there was some merit pay and Bob would recommend people
for merit pay and the dean agreed or the chairperson of the
department agreed. would also recommend and many times you
got a merit increase.

So we also were rewarded for the work

that we did. but these are many of my memories of Bob
DiSpirito and the athletic program and the academic program.
I think

sometimes I look at the 1972-73-74 seasons and we

were very successful. and sometimes when you're successful
that way you as coaches sometimes become somewhat
complacent.

I think that happened to us a little bit.

know it happened to our athletes.

I

The kids that we recruited

in 1971 would have been freshmen. and then they would have

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experi.enced a championshlp year ln L972, 1973, and L974, and

then they autonatl.cally felt that they vrere golng to be
champlons because everyone else was. They vrere trying to

the

do

thlngs that everyone or the teams before then dld,
and they were learning from those teams, but we weren't. In
fact, in 1975, I think, our reeord was 4-5, and I thlnk that
was not only complacency in the athletes, but I thlnk it
l{e had to refocus.
was complacency ln the coachlng staff.
I think we did refocus and we came back in L976 and vron the
yrester divislon chanpionshlp again, but sometlnes that
happens. Then ln L976 yras when we started to get lnvolved
ln the polltlcs of the instltutlon where vre had presldentlal
same

changes. I thlnk in L976 and L977 ls when Jln Roberts was
the interim president and Jlm was, I t,hlnk, also bel-leved
ln our progran and wanted to do the things that rrere
necessary to wln, but he had a lot of people looklng over
hls shoulder for the thlngs that they attrlbuted to AI
WaItreI and the house on the h111 and some of the abuses
that they alleged happened ln the football program. l{e
walved out-of-state tuitlon, and as far as we as coaches
felt lt was nothlng different than any other of the
instj.tutlons were dolng, but they were klnd of penallzing
AI WatreI for waivlng out-of-state tuition for out-ofstate students, and that helped us ln our recrulting, but

C:

l20l
that vras one of the reasons that A1 $ras asked to leave,
and of course Jim didn't wanted to do that,, and we lost

those out-of-state tultion waivers, and this is when the
program started to klnd of go downhill a llttle

bit. Not
that we didn't work hard has coaches. I{e dld baslcally
the same things that we'd always done, but we just dldn't
have the ath}etes that we were having. We couldn't ent,ice
then because yre lost the out-of-state tuition walvers.
And then Jim was in there one year, and then they brought
Dr. Park in fron Mansfleld. He vras here kind of on a
housekeeping kind of a chore so that he could have his
retlrenent and have ten years ln the system. I think he
had been at Mansfield for about elght years, and then
he came here for tvro years, I thlnk L977-78, and finished
up his career here. Then Herb Reinhardt came. t{hile
tarry Park was here, I don't thlnk that Larry valued
athletics very much. I had a lot of friends at Mansfield
at the t,lme, and thelr program vras not very successful
at that time, and they nade comments llke, vrell, Dr. Park
w111 have your program up wlth ours before long, but It
really wasn't up wlth theirs, lt was down wlth thelrs. I
just don't think he valued lt as much as I enJoyed the
relatlonship wlth Dr. Park I Just don't thlnk he valued
athlet,lcs. So I think that we struggled a litt1e bit and

(21)
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I think Bob was troubled at that time. And I think that maybe we, as coaches, were troubled
at that time and felt, you know, why are we doing this if there is no value to it? And we
began to question whether or not the institution really wanted to have a successful program.
And then Herb Reinhardt came in and Herb really wanted a successful program and thought
he knew what it would take to have a successful program. But really, as much as he wanted
the program, I don’t think he really wanted to make the commitment that was necessary,
as Al Watrel had made, to make the program successful. And along with that, Bob Oliver
came and Bob Raymond left as athletic director. I probably should reflect on Bob Raymond
a little bit because I think Bob had made some contributions to the program also that helped
us to be successful. He, as athletic director, I think the athletic director controls the total
athletic program and the football program also, so I’m sure that Dr. Raymond, his work in
the athletic program contributed to the success of the total athletic program, and
specifically the football program. Dr. Reinhardt immediately wanted some kind of
immediate success in the program and I think it added a lot to Bob’s stress, Bob DiSpirito,
and probably contributed to his health problem that he had at that time. As I reflect on
those years, we as

{221

coaches all had taste of a 1itt,Ie blt of ulcers, and we had

quite a blt of pressure on us to wln. We really didn't have
the student athletes at thlt time to wln. Then when Bob had
his problem of course they brought ln Ered Goldsmlth, and
Ered was here for about a Jix montn perlod and found that what
Dr. Relnhard had promised tllm to come here really wasn't here
when he got here. So Ered realized thls chose to go back to
the Air Eorce Academy where he eame fron. He's been successful
slnce that tlne.
I guess that's about all I [roufa llke to say aB far as...then
that's of course that's whep Fred left and Don AuIt was going
to be named aa the head fooltball coach. I asked to be relleved
from that. I told them that, I had other lnterests that I
wouLd Ltke to pursue, and iE posslble if I could be relleved
from my football responslbiIiaf"u because by thls tine the
union had been here and we Fere getting release tine for our
football program. W€, of .b,r."", couldn't use us ln the
football program that they yould have to plck us up ln the
academlc program so that we could have a full schedule. So
they did that, and I asked t,hat we be relleved from that
responsiblllty, and I think Dr. Griffiths, Dr. Melse, and
Dr. Ylalker were there at thd tlne, and they lndicated that
they would support that. I lndicated that I just didn't feel
that I wanted to go through another head coach, and to learn

(23

)

another whole systen. But there's a little

story there. Maybe
it's sensltive and maybe Lt's not, but I'11 share lt wlth you,
and maybe I'11 strlcken lt later on.
I did apply for the Job when Bob had hls heart attack, and
they intervlewed myseLf, and that was the year that Jean and I
had scheduled a trlp to Denmark and we were golng to be gone
when the Lnterviews where golng to take place. So the comnittee
agreed to lntervlew ne atreah of tlme. They intervlewed Don
Ault, and they intervlewed fred Goldsnlth. I had called some
friends of mlne at some dlfEerent colleges, and I had called
a friend down at the Unlve ity of Virginia that was the head
coach there that I had coac[ed with and had some experlence

with, and I asked him if

he

would mind vrrit,ing a letter of

reconnendatLon to Dr. Reinhard or to the search conmittee,

or calling Dr. Reinhard, and so he said, sure, I'd be glad
to. The next day he calls ne back and he says, why are you
applylng for thls job? I said , vrell, you know, I vrent to
school here, I graduated fr0m here, and I've been with the
progran for a nunber of yeafs. He says, we11, there's
some fellow from the Air Eoqce Academy that's already going
to get the Job. I says, rto, Lrro, this ls a legitlnate search.
I've been intervielred, and ]hey've lnterviewed t!'ro other
people, and I know that the seach conmitte Is a good search
eomnLttee, and it's a legltl-urate search. WeIl, I learned

(241
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later on and fred shared lt wlth me, I did work for Ered,
and he naned ne assoclate head coach. tle worked together
that year and dldn't have a lot of success, but he shared
with me that he bought a house when he cane for hls
interview. So Dr. Relnhard had promlsed hlm that Job, and
he was able to come, and Nancy Reinhard took Pam his wlfe
out and they $rere houEe hunting and they bought a house when
he came for hls lntervlew. So that's one of the sensltlve
thlngs that happened. Then when Ered left Dr. Aebersold
had been naned lnterln vlce-presldent or actlng vlce-presLdent,
and I had been very active in my professional association and
I yras at one of the conferences, and Bob Aebersold called ne
and wanted to know lf he could talk with ne. I sald, well,
I'm at the conference, I happened to be in Pittsburgh at t,hat
tlme, he says, weII, if I drive down can you spend a couple
of hours wlth ne? I sald, y€s. Bob drove down, and he
wanted to know if I $ras interested in the football coachlng
posltlon because Ered had turned hls resignatlon in. I sald,
sure lf the conditions are such that I feel that I could be
successful or the program can be successful I'd be more than
glad to contlnue the work that Bob had started. Because even
though fred, I thlnk Ered Goldsnith was a good football mind.
He had a Dlvislon I mentality where lt's a job for those
student athletes and they're expected to be at practice and a

(2s)

lot of meetlngs, and the academic program ls not much of an
emphasis sonetlnes in those Dtvision I prograns. I said that
I would like to continue the things that Bob DiSpirito did,
but I would llke to have some of the conditlons that vrere
avallab1e to Ered Goldsmlth that Dr. Reinhard made available
to hlm. Bob felt that that would be a legltlmate request,
and he indicated to me that I woul"d have his support and his
recommendatlon for the Job, and Dean I{alker, tlayne TfaIker,
at that tlme also would support me for that posltion, but he
dld lndicate to ne that I could not get the support of Bob
Bolivar who was the athletic director. I indlcated to Bob
t,hat I felt that to be successful you have to have the support
of t,he athletic director. I served as chalr of sone hirlng
commlttes that hlred sone coaches that I was concerned from
the faculty aspect also because at that time still even though
we !.rere hlrlng coaehes, we were hlring faculty menbers a1so.
He and I had sone difficult tlnes relatlve to sone hlrings that
took place without commlttee reconnendations and thlngs llke
that and so I did not have a good relationshlp with Bob Boliver
and I sald, to Bob Aebersold, that lf f cannot have the support
of the athletlc director since he does control schedulLng, he
controls the money that the program would g€t, and I dldn't
feel if I dldn't have hts support that I wouldn't be interested
in the program. So at that tlme I also indicated to hln

L:

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l26l
that if they named Don Ault as the head coach then I would
like to pursue some other Lnterests, and at that time I did
get out of the athletlc program.
I{e'11 Just start to back up what you started with. Your
lnterest ln athletics and sports started when you were ln
school, when you where ln high school? t|e started wlth

you

here at SLippery Rock.
C:

I guess that I rras active in athletics in high school as a
young Iad. You were expected to at that, tine. Coming from
where I dld, I had older brothers that partlclpated ln all
types of athletics, and I did partlcipate ln all dlfferent
types of athletlcs ln hlgh school, and probably at the
expense of my academics. I was probably a Jock in htgh
school, and partlclpated ln basketba}l, football, and
played Legion baseball, and track, and wrestled a little bit.
A little blt of everythlng. The football coach thought I
ought to wrestle, and do basketball, and coach. The basketball
coach thought I ought, to play basketball, and the vrrestlLng
coach says, weII, you're not blg enough to be successful ln
basketball, you should wrest,Ie because you could be successful
in wrestling. So I was put in between thlngs, but the lnterest
was back when I was young. I $ras very active.
I origlnally started elementary school ln Erle, and of course,
I was Just up over the hill fron Academy High School, and

(27

I

Jesse Owens had run on that t,rack as a student, and you'd

go down and run on that track and thlnk you yrere Jesse

Owens.

So I would run on that track and thlnk that I could run

on

that track and think that I could run as fast as he couJ.d,
and so I did have an interest there. Had the Slippery Rock
coach, John Kaufnan, who vras one of the greats of Sllppery
Rock in the late thirties, that champlonshlp tean of 1939,
John Kaufman played on that with

and those

successful people, and he was one of my high school coaches.
So the lnterest was there, but I did always have an lnterest

Rr

in athletlcs, but I always thought I'd probably coach if I
could. So I pursued that after my experience with the
I went through some times where I thought
Korean conflict.
I was golng to go lnto business, then not golng lnto busLness
I $rent to college. I vras expected to go. Our faurlly all went
on to college. t{e had seven ln the fanIIy, and all but one
graduated from correge. He was the most successful, moneywlse.
Where did you do your graduate work?
At Arizona state universlty ln Tempe, and then r did doctoral
work at t,he unlversity of Buffalo. r did may master's...r had
an undergraduate degree from sllppery Rock in health, physlcal

educatlon, and biologicar sclences, and r student taught at
Grove Clty Hlgh School, and I dld help with the football
program, ds I indlcated earller. They,d just hired a nev,

(28)

C:

biology teacher from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
was not experiencing much success in the classroom.

He

In fact,

he was having a very difficult time in the classroom.

I was

h aving a very good experience in teach ing h ealth , and physical
education, and Dr. Forker, h ad (Eugene) "Peanuts" Forker

for

a health critic, and h e was a Slippery Rock grad, played on
the ch ampionsh ip team in 1933 at Slippery Rock, and h e was my
h ealth critic, and I taugh t for h im and Dick Bestwick was the
ph ysical education teach er th at was my supervising teach er at
Grove City High

Sc
h ool.

Since th is gentleman was h aving no

success in th e classroom teach ing biology.

Dr. Hetrick was

th e superintendent at Grove City at th at time, and h e was a
Slippery Rock person.

His fath er was a dentist in Slippery

Rock for years and years on Center Street.

Dr. Hetrick was

th e superintendent and h e always tried to get h is staff
togeth er in January to see wh o was going to return and who
wasn't going to return, but h e would send a letter out in
th e early part of December for people to indicate whether
or not th ey were going to return next semester and next
year, and th is young gentleman th at was teach ing biology
indicated th at h e would like to be relieved of h is res­
ponsibilities at th e end of th e year.

Th e football coach,

since I'd been h elping h im, and we'd h ad a little bit of
success, h e went to Dr. Hetrick and indicated th at why

l2e
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I

doesn't he let this person go at the half a year, and then
hire me as the blology teacher, which Dr. Hetrlck dld, and
so I taught biology there through 1963. I left there ln
1963 and took a head coachlng job ln Northvrestern High School.

I had done graduate work at that tlme in blologlcal sclences
through the National Sclence Eoundation at Penn State. At
Northwestern Hlgh School I taught earth science to the
nlnth graders up there, and was the head football coach,
and continued to pursue graduate work through the National
Science Poundation, grants, and I attended Easter Michlgan
Unlversity on a National ScLence Eoundatlon grant. I dld
graduate work ln physlcs and nath. Then the followlng year
I wanted to get serlous about a master's degree because
one of the fellows I coached 1n high school says, you
better get your master's lf you want to coach ln college
and so I applied for an academlc year Natlonal Sclence
Eoundatlon grant, and recelved a grant to Ohlo State,
Michigan, State, and Arlzona State. l{eII the day I had
to make my decislon as to which of those Natlonal Science
Foundatlon academlc year grants I was golng to take, it was
around the tenth of Eebruary and I vras llving in Alblon
whlch ls ln t,he sno$, belt and we had about 44 lnches of
snow, and so I made my declsion that day when I was
shovellng that 75 foot driveway back of ny house I sald,

(30)
L:

I'm golng to Arlzona State to do ny graduate work. So
I went down there and I dld a naster's in natural sctence
put an emphasls in the blologlcal sciences and the physlcal
sciences, and that t,hen I nade the physlcs aspectg of tt lnto
the kinesiological aspect as I was teachlng klnesiology at,
that time. And the bionechanics, the mechanics of
physlcs as it, applied to sports skills and that's where my

lnterest cane there. Then my doctoral work at the Universlty
of Buffalo, I had LO1 hours of doctoral work, I guess 66 hours
beyond my...I had some work at Penn State, work at Eastern
Michigan. and then my work at Arizona State. All told I guess
I had L@6 hours of graduate work beyond my master's. But the
Unlversity of Buffalo and there agaln as an example I had
done everythlng. I had conpleted all my work for my
doctorate other than the disertatlon. Another exampre of
Bob's value, how he valued the academlcs, not only of
the students but of the staff, r really didn't coach in
1973, r had a sabbat,lcar leave that falr, now r wourd come
back on weekends and work with the footbarr team and in
preseason I worked wlth the footbalL tean, but I vras on
sabbatlcal leave and doing my residency requlrement. At
that tlne Buffaro requlred a year resldency for your
doctorar degree so r took 1973 and there again the university
lras good to me. r had the sabbatlcal first semester, and

(

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31)

then second Bemester Dr. Roberts gave ne student teachers

in Erle, and I had a Saturday norning blomechanics class, and
that was my teaching assignment for second semester, so I
vras able to do ny residency requirement at the Unlverslt,y of
Buffalo. It was the year of 1973. That was the year that
vre played at l{est Chester and I f lew fron Buffalo to
tlest Chester and met my family there. Bob had taken the
whole family to the champlonship game, and I met them there.
My wlfe picked ne up at the airport and I coached on
Saturday and cane back to Buffalo. They took ne to the
airport and I flew back and I did my weekly, weekend,
academic work at the Universlty of Buffalo. That's another
example, and ny fault, that was 1973 and I yras working on
a dlssertatlon toplc and was worklng wlth my advlser and
I would rather have been here. I rras doing all this academic
work and did well, but then we $ron the champlonship ln
L972. Ile vron lt agaln ln 1973, and I got wrapped up ln
coachlng, and I kind of Just let the dlssertation sllde, and
my adviser got mad at ne, tny statute ]ras coming t,o the end,
I'd got a new dean, they had a new deam. The new dean was
supportlng ne and I vras agaln havlng a problem with my
faculty adviser and got a new advlsor. Got a dissertatlon
topic accePted and then continued to coach. Then the
pressure got on us and we had that loslng year ln 1975, and

(32)

it got farther away from me, then we had another champlonship
ln L976, and then my llmitatlons expired, and I just never
did complete that degree, but I struggled through eight
hours of statitlcs and dld all the thlngs that, you had to
do, and took t,he maJor field examlnations, and passed those,
and due to ny ovrn negllgence I dld not complete the degree
as I probably should have. Thtngs feII lnt,o place and I got
promoted to full professor and then the degree becane less
of a need and less of a value and I dldn't need lt that much
anymore, and went onto other thlngs. That,'s why I never
finished that degree. But there again, Bob did pernit me to
Ieave, and take a year off to purse my graduate work.
R:

When you vrere

coaching while you were at Buffalo,

on

Saturday when you came for the game sltuation, what role

dld you play because you were out of the plcture as far
as the weekly practlces vrere concerned?
They were doing the same things that they had always done

to be successful, so I knew our defense. I yras defense
coordinator at that tlme through those champlonship years,
and Stan and myself and later on PauI Bruno worked on
the defensive side of the baII. And Bob and Rod and Mike
worked on the other side of the baII and so I
would know the game plan, and they were dolng the same
thing, so I would be able to be up on top and know Yrho's

(33)

breaking down and who's not dolng thelr job, why we're

R:

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not belng successful in what we're trying to do, and be
able to suggest changes as to what we had to do. Because
when you have success you tend to do the same thlngs that
were successful so we were doing basically the same defense
the same types of thlngs, and I usually worked wlth the
lmplementatlon and game p1an. See I'd work Sunday and break
down the fl}m on Sunday morning, and then we would have our
conputer printout on Sunday afternoon, and we would prepare
our game plan Sunday evening, and then I would leave at
four o'clock on Monday morning and drive to Buffalo for
ny classes up t,here and my work ln the llbrary. I had nost,Iy
late afternoon classes, but I did spend an awful lot of
tine in the library up there.
You knew the stories about Tlatrel and Bob's relatlonship.
Bob would come ln and President Watrel would be readlng
the maiL, and he'd mark the papers? Very funny stories.
Oh, very funny storles. In fact, Jim Roberts used to always
kid. I{atrel would get all the newspapers fron New Jersey
because he was from lfayne, New Jersey, and very early in
the morning or late afternoon whenever he left the office,
he would have these papers all rolled up under hls arn
leaving the office, and Jim Roberts would invariably say
to him, you got a fish wrapped up in there? Because A1

(34)

lrouldn't admlt that he had all these football players
circled ln the newspaper and he was carrying those down to
the football offlce. There's a lot of storles. It's good
to have people llke that on your side when you're trylng
to have a successfuL program.
If I mlght share sone Sllppery Rock lore, and sone Slippery
Rock stories with you. Over the years I've had a nunber
of opport,untles to...one of the best, I was on a NatLonal
Sci-ence Eoundation short course down at North Carolina
State, it nust have been the sunmer of L967, and lt was in
Human Englneering and my relationshlp wlth kineslology got
ne lnto human factors. So it was a hunan englneertng, human
factors type of a short course that t,he National Science
Eoundation was conductlng at the North Carollna State Universlty
at Raleigh. I was rooming with a gentleman from t{ort,h
Dakota State, but in our sulte was a gentleman from the
Unlverslty of Nebraska. About halfway through the course
he got a Letter fron hls daught,er, and he had lndlcated t,hat
his suite-mates yrere from North Dakota Stat,e and Sllppery
Rock, and hls daughter wrltes him a letter and said have
your friend fron Sllppery Rock elther confLrm or deny the
story that was on the Lincoln radlo statlon. In L923
CoIIege and at one of the
Slippery Rock was playlng
tlme outs a big bird came down and stole the football and

(3s)

they couldn't flnish the game because they only had one
football. I sald, weIl, you know, I can't confirm or
deny lt now but the coach Is still

aIlve, and when the
course is over and I get back to Slippery Rock I'1I meet
with the coach and elther conflrm or deny the story that
your daughter heard. So I got back and Coach Thompson
went to the same church that I dld, so I'd see
Thompson moat

Coach

every Sunday, and Coach Thompson was a

good church gotng person. So I caught hlm one Sunday

after church and I says, Coach, you gotta conflrm or
deny the story that the young lady heard on the Linco1n,
Nebraska radio statlon. That was that durlng one of your
games with

College that there !{as a time-out

and

a big bird came down and sto}e the football. Is t,hat true?
You had to know Coach Thonpson. He had kind of a dry sense
of hunor, and he sald, well, you know a lot of funny thlngs
have happened over the years, but I sure don't remember that.
So I went over to the Archlves and l-ooked through the
yearbooks, that was over ln Maltby at that time, and looked
through the yearbooks and I found the L923 schedule, and
they hadn't played

.

So I looked and thought maybe,

well, better look at L922, because lf they had been
graduatlng class of 1923, but lt still wasn't there. So
I wrote the young lady a litt1e note and told her that I

(35)

think that the dlsc Jockey, the radi-o announcer, was Just
addlng a llttle color to his program, and I sent her a
Slippery Rock sweatshirt, and told her I think that, I would
have to deny that story. That's one. Passlng through
custons ln Tljuana, Mexico comlng back into California, and
they aLways ask you where you're from, and I sald, SllPpery
Rock, and the custom's man never said a word just said, how is
the team going to be? I didn't ask what tean I assumed he
meant the football team. All over the country there's
Sllppery Rock storles and Sllppery Rock lore. I was driving
to a Notre Dame game, and I had one of the Indiana statlons
oD, and the fellow wanted to know if Sllppery Rock had
ever lost a football gane. Every time he had ever heard
it, he heard their scores, they had always won. I was tempted
to call ln and tell hin that we lose occasionally. I was
at the Notre Dane-North Carollna game at South Bend and one
of my student athletes $raa playing for ilorth Carollna, and
have to slt beslde the gentleman from Detrolt because he
obvlously from the south and he $ras cheering for North
Carollna, and he was wlth another frlend but, Just before
halftlne one punches the other and says, wonder how Slippery
Rock's dolng today? My friend was sittlng beslde him and
said, what do you know about Sllppery Rock? He said, oh,
it's a little school over here in eastern Ohio. My friend

(37
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says, no, lt's ln Pennsylvania. The guy said, tro, no. My
frlend sald, $rel1, this gentleman graduated from there. They
couldn't belleve lt. They met sonebody from Sllppery Rock.
Out the blue sky one said to the other one, wonder how Slippery

Rock's doing today? There's lots of storles about Sllppery
R:

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Rock. Most of them are true.
Then you run into people with thelr tee shirts on and sweatshtrts, and it's natural to lnquire. I'm that way about IfVU.
I'm a native lfest Vlrginian, and a graduate of WVU, and when
I see a l{est Virginia tee shlrt, I junp lnto a conversation.
Sane thing with Slippery Rock, Myrtle Beach, or San Diego.
Everybody always knows someone who graduated from there. I
have a frlend who graduated from there.
And everybody just loves the tee shlrts.
Ile were at a
in San Clemente, California, and had
breakfast aE part of this worshlp of the sun, and our chlldren
had Sltppery Rock shirts oD, and we sat acrosE the table fron
a lady and she sald, are you from Sllppery Rock? Yes. l{e}I,
I've got a friend at Grove City. Only a few mlLes away fron
there. She teaches there. It was Hilda Krlng. Do you know
Hllda?

R:

Very welI.

R:

that knew her.
You know Ered, I gather?
Somebody

(38)
C:

Yes.

R:
C:

Dld you read hls
No, I haven't.

R:

I'unny book.

book?

Is lt?
R:
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C:

Oh, yes.

I'11 have to get that. I dldn't reallze he had tt out. We're
supposed to have a book on the market shortly. Dr. Wright and
Dr. Pechar, 'Coachlng To l{ln" about sports medtclne.
publlshlng company. Shortly.
tlhen you were scouting for tock Haven, was there some reason
why you didn't scout Sllppery Rock or wasn't lt on the schedule?
The coach Just never asked me to. He felt that at that time
there vras some loyalties. There's not many loyaltles anymore.
People aren't loyal too much out of the money, I guess, and
naterlal things. He Just would never do that. He thought
it wasn't et,hlcal for me to do that,. Belng fron and a graduate
of Slippery Rock, and there's still sone of that falls back
They don't like offlclalg to offlclate at
lnto officlatlng.
thelr own alma mater, or at games that lnvolve thelr orrn a}ma
nater. So I would scout Sllppery Rock and Indlana, but I would
be looking at Indiana, and I would scout Sllppery Rock and
Clarion, and I would look at Clarlon. At that tlme Coach Jack.
and this was Coach Powe1l's wrestllng coach, had been a

(3e)
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Iegend at Lock Haven, and as I indlcated lt was before I-8O

bullt, and so you had to go to Lock Haven, it was alnost
imposslble to get there fron here. One of those sltuations
where it was a llttle bit on 322. a llttle bit on 22O, and
then up on llttle back roads, and Coach Jack would coach in
the afternoon on Saturday, and then if his team played out
ln this area somewhere, he might catch a night game, sdy
tlaynesburg played a nlght gane, and I nay have scouted
Clarlon that afternoon, then he would stay on. He had a
brother ln Grove Clty, and he would spend Sunday wlth the
brother, and then bet$reen ten and ten-thirty, he would
stop at my place to plck up my scoutlng materlals and
naybe spend an hour, say from ten to eleven or ten-thirty
to eleven-thtrty, with me, and then he still had to drlve
to Lock Haven and teach the next day, and then coach the
next evening, but that was hls dedlcatlon. Really lnvolved
and what a great gentleman he was aleo. He nade wrestling
at Lock Haven, the wrestllng progran, very auccessful. Coach
Powell and that cre!,, where up there.
You mentloned the year lre didn't wln, where we felL down a
little blt ln 1975, and that there was a lot of pressure
building then and even later. Ylhat form does that take?
I mean, ls it self-lnflicted or is Just something that's
ln the atmosphere or is there sonething people ln positions
?ras

R:

(4@l
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of potrer Bdy, we can't have this. We gotta keep on winnlng.
I think a lot of tt, ls self-lnposed preasure. I thlnk as
a staff put a lot of pressure on ourselves. I thlnk we got
complacent as I indicated on 1975. I{e had been successfuL.
The kids that were ln the progran that were seniors that year
had never lost a chanplonshtp. So they expected lf they
would show up they rrere going to win. Well it didn't happen
that way. We worked and worked to overcome that conplacency
both as coaches and trylng to lnst1ll this into the students,
but vre weren't successfuLl that year. But we re-evaluated
during the off-season. We sat down and re-evaluated what our
prlortles where, and where the program was headed. At that,
tlme AI expected to win, AI lfatrel, but he was willlng to
provide what was necessary to wln. If lt was money, and vre
had a lot of work study noney, rf€ dldn't have any grant money,
but he dld pernit us to or he waleved sone out-of-state
tuitlons, but we had Ilmited numbers of out-of-state tuitlon
walvers, but at that time we did have...Bob was from up ln
the New England area. Mike _
was from up there, and
Mike's dad was a coach ln Rhode Island, and so $re had some
contact with some out-of-state klds. PIus, rr€ had friends
at a Junior college in Dover, D€laware, _
Junior
College it is now a four year college, but we had one of
our alums that vras a coach there that we got sone great

(41)
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athletes out of that junlor college program down there
that pernltted us to be succesEful. Jack Elsher, later
went out to Lock Haven, $ras the head coach and won the
championshlp up at Lock Haven, was a Slippery Rock coach
and gave us Roy
that was assistant coach at
Rlpley, BiII Riley, Andy Kress, and Dan Toomey, and all
those kids that helped us to be successful. So !'te were
able t,o provlde then wlth out-of-state tultlon walver,
and while Dr. Watrel did that...that I guess because we
knew he felt that w&y, and he valued it, I guess, tr€
put the pressure on ourselves to be successful.
Was the out-of-state tultlon walver, you said lt was a
common practice, but was lt iIlegal?
No.

R:
C:

B:

It, wae not lllegal?
Presldents were permitted to do that. Some of them dldn't
choose to, but to ny knowledge lt was not iIIegaI.
They used to do lt, and perhaps stlll do lt, for foreign
students. Ylaive their tuition. So lt wasn't only athletes.
l{ere there other memorable people in your Sllppery Rock
career that influenced you or that you adnired?
I think that the physlcal education faculty at that tlme was
really a dedicated faculty, I think. There was a very
successful program. It was a progran that was nationally

l42l
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R:

C:

known. B11I Hernan was probably the outstandlng elementary
physical educator. The most knowledgeable ln that area in
t,he country at that time. He did an excellant Job with
that. Instllltng that value lnto hls students. Dr. Melse,
Dr. Haverstick, tt was a very cohesive faculty before it
began to become fragnented it was health, physlcal educatlon,
and recreation, and lre were all ln the Eleld House together
Everybody valued thelr programs, and everybody $ranted everyone to be successful, and it was Just a good working
relatlonshlp at that tlme. I really enjoyed that. As I
went through the program I savr the knowledge of Dr.
and his understanding of human anatomy and
klneslology. Dr. Melse and hls value ln health and
the health related fields. Jim EgIl and t{ally Rose realIy
dedlcat,ed to their programs and interested in dolng
things Euccessful in thelr programs.
Bob talked about the set of cards that Dr. Carter had when
he got here. He said, here are the recrulting cards, and
he sald he didn't know what to do wlth them so he gave then
to you.
That's rlght. That's what I had indlcat,ed to you earller
that he said, Doug, don't coach on the field just take care
of t,hese. Tlhat had happened ls that before Jack
was relieved and the coaches yrere relleved of their coaching

(43)
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R:

L!

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responslbllltles, tr€ had recruiting cards. tle had all
contacted the local high schools and coaches that we knew,
and having spent a lot tlme in western Pennsylvanla, and
coached ln western Pennsylvanla high schoolsr gone to
clinics ln western Pennsylvania, you got to know a lot of
high school coaches. So what we dld ls we would ask for
thelr best athlet,es and send them these cards, and have
coaches flII these cards out. Then we would turn them
lnto Jack
, and when Jack was relieved of his
coaching responsibillties, he had aII the cards and he gave
them to Dr. Carter, and then Dr. Carter turned and gave
thenr to Bob. That's what Bob asked me follow up on those.
left on good terms because he was a scholar. So
he was not flred or anythlng.
Right. He ltras asked to reslgn, but he vras going to move
on anyway. At that tlme Jack had been at eight, colleges
ln nln years, and he had been at Sllppery Rock two yearsD
so you know that he vras at, the other ones only one year.
So he was a nover.
Overdue.

Yes.

Two years gras

been anywhere else.

a long tine.

Twlce as long as he had

to move on. He was
looklng to nove lnto Divlslon I coachlng. He tas successful.
He left here and went, to a successful Boston Unlverslty
He was ready

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progran.

Hls entry into the Dlvislon I football

was at

Boston College 1n an unsuccessful program

agalnst hls teams at Central Connecticut.
rras an asslstant coach at Central Connecticut after he
We competed

He

recelved hls doctor's degress and continued to write.
He and Dr. Carter, if nemory serves ne correct,, had been

together at Dennison Unlverslty and then Dr. Carter brought
him here. and then t,he progran was ln sonewhat of a disarray
and the assLstant coaches were unhappy and the dean

was

unhappy. The chairperson of the departnent was unhappy the
way the program was golng. And of course Dr. Carter got
lnvolved and there was pressure on hin. That's when the
Trustees were meetlng to relleve hlm of his job. A lot

R:

C:
R:

L:

of thlngs $rere happenlng at that tlne. Internal polltlcs
Everythlng.
of the institution.
Bob tells a story about the condltlon of the equipment
when it got here. There yrasn't much of 1t.
That's rlght.
And what there was !.rasn't...he had a lot of neede when he
got here.
He sure dld. The equlpnent yras not real good. It was
dlfflcult to fit the students. Elfty athletes. If my
nenory serves me rlght, they used some of these ln thelr...
sone of the equipment yras being used ln physlcal education

(4s)

It

L!

classes.

B:

football funds, but yet it would be used in the academic
program, and I think then it wasn't very well cared for.
People dtdn't treat lt like you would lf you were the head
coach, and you had to depend on your kids from week to
week to partlclpate, and they needed that to protect then.
In class you dldn't need to worry about that because lt
tas a one hour class and It was over ln nlne weeks, and
that's vrhen we had t8 week senesters. Do you renember
those, Leah?
I thlnk It was before ny tlme.

R:

18 weeks?

C:

Yes. 36 weeks ln a year.
f'n curlous about your recruitlng. Tlhen you went to the
high schools as a recrulter and you came back with many
non-athletes as well as athletes ao when you went lnto a
hlgh school to recrult, you addressed the entire senlor

R:

was

football

equipment. It !{as bought with

graduating class?
L:

No. l{e addressed people that vrere lnterested in physlcal
educatlon or secondary educatlon that wanted to be
teachers. UEuaIly nade arrangements ahead of tine. I
can recaIl Dean
, Dean of Natural Sciences, and he
llked the nodel of the football program, of our recruitlng.

(46)
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B:
C:

A lot of people didn't llke Mike. Do you know Mike _?
A 1lttle.
lllke's a little bit wlld with his tongue sometlmes and would
cuss and svrear and use words that vreren't appropriate at
tLnes, but I thtnk it was klnd of a shock treatment, but
was really interested ln sclence, in the science progran.
He tried to recrult some science naJors. You remember when

he got the one floor of Eounders HaIl, just science students,

I think.

He got bunper stlckers nade that somewhere he

brought Slippery Rock lnto sclence, and got bunper stickers

made. He llked the recrulting nodel that we had as our
football staff, and so he had Stan and I over to speak to his

faculty about recrultlng. So I volunteered that lf anyone
wanted to accompany me on my recruiting that I would be
wllllng to take them along and just go through the whole
program and try to seIl Slippery Rock. We tried to interest
them ln anythlng t,hey wanted to be lnterested ln. You know
we started to get a little bit of a program with engineering
wlth Penn State. I{e've gone through a lot of different
thlngs. If somebody was lnterested ln engineerlng, we dld
brlng some englneerlng Etudents here. One of then was very
successful and then three and he's gone to Penn state and
vre lose hln hls senlor year when he'd have been the best.
It, happens. tlhen we went recruiting vre would talk to anyone

147 I
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that was interested in listening to !ilhat !ile had to say.
But Mlke said, !'rould you take sonebody along? So I took
Bob _
wlth me one day, and Cyrll Sagan, recruiting.
I think we yrent to Earrell and Sharon High Schools and
they were each able to go lnto a blology class, I think
Bob Hart vrent lnto a biology class, I thlnk Cyril Sagan
vrent into a Chemlstry class, and speak to the class whlle
I was speaklng t,o some people that were lnterested into
coming to Slippery Rock in physlcal educatlon, and so we
had a real good experience, and that's another exanple.
Mike and I got to be fairly good friends, Mike
Since have vislted him a couple of tlnes, and still stay
ln touch with hin. But he valued hls program and he was
going to nake lt successful and I thlnk he had an impact,
on the academl.c program. Proving that.
I was asklng about swearlng because Bob talked about that
and he sald, when you hear the coaches s$rear, then the
players can swear. Tfhere there behavior problems? I
know, I played athletics for sometlme and language was a
problem.

C:

Never in Bob's program. I thtnk ln Jack

progran

there !'ras a 1lttle bit. I know I heard the coaches swear
on the fleld, and so the student's felt that lf the coaches
could swear, they could svrear. But I never in aII ny

(48)
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coachlng ever had any need to swear, and I thtnk and we all

fe1t, and Bob fe1t, that lf you had to swear to conmunicate,
then your comnuncation skilLs needlng lmprovenent. No, we
never had to. Once in a whlle you may ln a moment of anger
or frustration a student, might let out a swear word or
somethlng llke that, but lt was not an accepted behavlour,
and the student knew that. So it was never repeated and lt
vras not plcked up and never becane any sort of a problen
because we Just did not tolerate it, pernit lt, and dldn't
do it ourselves. That's another trlbute to Bob. That's
a value. An lmportant thing that he valued and that's
anot,her thlng that carried over lnto the at,hlete's lIfe.
R:

When you have

a bad season like

losses.

How

do you handle loslng when you expect to wln?

It's difficult.
I had difficulty as a young man growing
up, and as a young coach. Probably one of my most memorable
experiences is while I !ilas a high school coach. There vras a
friend that I had that coached ln a small mlnlng town over
in Barnsboro, Indlana County. They always played, those
areas stlll

value the flag, and this was tn when tlmes where
tough ln our country and they were burnlng flags and thlngs
like that. Thls area stlll valued that, the Amerlcan way.
So they always played a football game, high school football
game, oD Armlstice Day whlch ls no$, Veteran's Day. I went

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over and $re had already conpleted our season. l{e usually
finlshed up the flrst week in Novenber and Armistlce Day
was the eleventh. So I'd always go over and see this coach's
team play. I thlnk the first time I was over there they lost

this tradltlonal game with their tradltional opponent. I
sald sonethlng to effect that well I guess we probably ought
to go home and lick your wounds. No, he sald, I learned
that there are more lnportant things ln llfe than winnlng
and losing. He said, I feel bad when I lose, but then when
I look at the country I ltve ln and ny fanlly and my children
then lt becomes less lmportant. I always remember that. I
stIII feel bad for the klds when you lose. I nean because
they work hard to try to win. You try to prePare them so
and then you feel some of the responsJ.btltty
that they _,
1f their not successful, vrere they properly prepared. Because
I think we have to assune sone of the responslbllity of wlnnlng
and losing as coaches. Maybe vre didn't always adequately
prepare them, oE provide them wlth the skills that are
necessary to win with.

I guess I still feel bad when we lose,
then agaln I see that there are more lnportant things and I
think of what Fred Goldsnith always satd, vras that there's
probably a hundred mllllon Chinanen that could care less
whether Slippery Rock won today or not. That kind of put lt
ln perspective.

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R:

l{hen you were having those chanpj.onshlp years, did other teams

nake a big effort

C:

to get up for you to take

us

out to wln?

I think we had to prepare every week for the most difficult
game of our season. Everybody Just would, and athletes do,
athletes tend to get up for the people on the top, so it
vras llke every game $ras a bowl game. Tle had sone dlfflcult
tlmes. The flrst championship year I think was ln L972. Vle
beat Lock Haven for a few years in a row there. They vrere
kind of the doormats and we were very successful against
them. The years klnd of go together and I'm not always
accurate on what year. I can recall that we had beat them
pretty soundly up there the year, probably the season of
L97L, and we had played with a three man line, defenslve
llne, because they vrere klnd of dolng a run and shoot,
throwing the baII, so we took tlro of tackles out of the
baII gane and put t!'ro Dore defensive backs ln the gane,
kind of what the pro's are now saying is the nickle defense
or somethlng like that. So they were dolng the same thing
in L972, and so $re prepared all week long with what they
had been dolng, and so we started out the gane, and here
we are with three defenslve llne men and Lock Haven cones
out and gets ln a po$rer I rather than spreading people aII
over the fie1d, non they have then aII bunched up together.
So we really weren't prepared for t,hat, but we could go

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back and rre were flexlble enough that we could

make

adjustnents. So rre went back t,o our baslc defense and
played them. But it ended up to be a very cLose ball
gane that we won in the last 8@ seconds. But they were
just playlng a game that was golng to beat Sllppery Rock,
and they $rere getting up, and they did, and thelr
athletes did a good Job. lfe vrere able to eventually win
wlth Just because Tin Noone's and Ronny Layton srere pretty
good athletes that conpleted a late pass that took us down

to the four yard Ilne, and Barry Rose, WaIJ.y Rose's son,
scored the touchdown, and we won LA-LO., but Lock Haven was
ahead LO-l nost of the ballgame, and played us very well
even though they !,reren't a real good football team, they
played us very weLl t,hat day. And lt was always good when
IndLana was on top. I think one of Bob's biggest wlns was
when Indlana was ranked number two ln the country, it nust
have been the season of L97L maybe, that vre went down and
beat them 23-21 when they had the Smlth boy that went on and
played for the Steelers and some real great at,hletes. Tfe
went down LL-O very early in the ball gane. The first
quarter, I guess, that Smith was a real good receiver and
Ilally Lucas, who ls now the Dlstrict, LO coordinator for the
PIAA high school athletic _. The prlncipal up at the Girard
high school was the quarterback at Indlana at that tine. He

(s2)

threw a t,ouchdown pass to Smlthr and then he ran lt for

a

. l{e were down real qulckly and cane back
and won 23-21 by kicking a field goal in the last 20 seconds
or sonethlng like t,hat. That was one of Bob's big lvlns, I
thlnk. That's when Chuck _,
also a Sllppery Rock grad,
vtas the coach at Indlana, and Chuck was a very successful
high school and eollege coach, and lt was a real, real big
win, and he rras humble enough to accept that Sllppery Rock
had beaten him, and sent a nlce picture of he and Bob, Bob
congratulating hlm or he congratulatlng Bob after that
successful gane. It was a good relatlonshlp with the coachlng
staffs amoung the state colleges at that tlme. A1 Jack's
and his staff at Clarion had been together for a long tlne, and
Chuck was down and had a good staff at Indiana. The coaches
at Edinboro were aII frlends and all interacted well, got
along well together. It was kind of fun to be a part of aII
that at that time.
Takes a llt,tle of the pain out of losing, too, to know that,
you're playlng against good people, and they're not gloating.
touchdosrn himself

R:

C:

That's rlght. They know how we feel, and we know how they
feel. It was kind of Like a chess game wlth them. Bob brought
lnto Sllppery Rock the computer scouting which he brought the
lnltlal prototype of what program that he would IIke to have
lmplemented through. I think he got it from Oklahoma or

(s3)
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State. I guess Oklahoma. He brought it back, and
then we lmproved upon lt, and agaln it, was us $rorklng $rlth the
computer sclence people, and there had to be the lnteraction

Oklahoma

the faculty so that vre dldn't have computer skills, but
we knew what we would like to have, and we could go out and
sit down wlth the conputer people and soy, thls ls what we
would Ilke to have, and by the tlme we were finished Stan
Kendziorskl and I klnd of did that aspect of the progran, by
the tlne we flnlshed up vre $rere getting the plcture of the
thelr top offensive fornatlons and what plays they ran from
theose top offensive formattons and from that then we made
our defenslve game plan of what we wanted to do and the
different sltuations. t{lth tbe ald of the computer, it
saved ua hours upon hours of tine Bortlng out what a team
would do in dlfferent posltions on the field. I{hat they
would do when they lrere on dlfferent sldes of the fleld
from the hash marks. Wou1d they run to the field or to
the sidellne and what they did 1n the mlddle of the fleld,
did t,hey run to the right or did they run to the left. These
vrere aII thlngs that we would then make our gane plan fron, but
Bob vraa lnstrumental in bringing that computer progran to us.
Then we moved it on fron that polnt, and I'm not sure whether
they use today over here or not, but I still coach a llttle bit
at Grove Clty College, and we're trying to get into dolng some
amoung

(s4)
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B:

computer analysis.

There are non companles that, make prograna

in conputer anaylsls that they'lL do it on a P.C. tfe did it
on a malnframe before with the optical scan and punchcards
before optlcal scan, another exanple of the cooperatlon of the
instltutlon ls to bring someone ln at ten o'clock on Saturday
nornlng to operate a keypunch, to punch our cards for us, or
to bring soneone ln to run the optical scan to do our evaluation, our computer analysis. So that we could have that by
two o'clock ln the afternoon so lre could do our planning. It
takes an awful lot of people, and a lot of cooperation to be
successful in a program. You have to have those things if
you're golng to be a success, and lf your opponents are dolng
it, you've got to do lt lf you're golng to be successful.
Bob wae responsible for that also.
But I think he had wonderful backup people who lrere interested
In the progran, who vteren't watching thelr tine. What lt
needed you gave them.

C:

Never had a Job where you punched a clock.

I always worked
t111 I was done. Still today. I do t,he Unlted l{ay. I
didn't know lf you knew that or not. I'm the director of
the Unlted Way in Grove Clty. That's another job where there's
no tlne clock and durlng the campalgn tlme when the pressure's
oD, and lt's only a short period of time, and I'm only a
part time employee, but you work t111 you're done. The

(

same way

ss

)

in coaching. You Just vrork tl11 you comPlete

the task.
B:

So you're dolng that and coaching at Grove Clty College, and
vrhat else are you doing?

C:

WeLl, I flnlshed the book.

B:

TeIl us about t,he book.
It took me 2O months to do that. I told everybody I had a
seatbelt on my offlce chair so that I wouldn't get up and
walk a$ray from lt because I could flnd nore excuses not to
sit down and write a day and go do sonething eIse. But f
had this nodel for a long, long tlme, and lt's klnd of the
European model of coaching, and lt's again a cooperative
nodel where there's a lot of people lnvolved. It approches
coaching from the physlological, kineslological, psycological,
sociologlcal aspect. I've always argued that lf you
properly prepare an athlete to participate In a very specific
activity then the chances are llmited that the athlete ls
going to be lnjured, if he ls properly prepared and taught
the proper sklIIs. So that's t,he approach to properly
prepare. There's a feellng today and I thlnk it's a result
of the way society understands athletics and the hunan
body, there's a misunderstanding that you get physically in
shape by partlclpatlng ln an athletlc actlvlty.
I've always
contended that you get physicaLl-y ln shape to partlcipate

C:

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in an athletic actlvlty. I think of John Kennedy out playlng
touch football, and encouraglng people to go play touch
football on Sunday afternoon to get In physical shape. WeIl
you don't do tt that !ilay. You properly prepare them to do the
job. So that's the nodel is to flrst, and I have a litt1e bit
of what I call sports nedicine paradlgm. It's a ple chart and
it has all the dlfferent aspects that I feel are lnvolved in
thls cycllca1 type of preparatlon of an athlete to partlcipate
ln a program. The first thlng that you do ls you assess the
actlvlty. What physlcal factors does the student need to be
successful in an activity? What basic skl11s doee he need
to be Euccessful? And then what performance factore does he
need to be successful? So you've got the physical cardiovascular fltness, the healt,h related aspects of that and then
you have the performance factors of strength and explosive
strenght and flexlbl1lt,y and those klnds of things, and then
you have the basic skilss of walklng, running, Jumplng,

leaping, throwing, and catchlng and those aspects. So you
sit down and you look at an activlty, a coach can look at
an activlty and say, a person needs these baslc skIlls to be
successful. He needs these performance factors to be
successful, and he needs t,hese health related factors,
physical factors, to be successful. So now you know what it
takes ln the actlvity, how does the student natch up to

(s7)
C:

that.

So you take and you evaluate the student and you sdy,

does he have exploslve strength, does he have flexlblllty,
does he have cardLovascular endurance, if those are important.
Then you kind of conpare where that athlete ls to what's

necessary to be successful. Then where the athlete is

deficiant, you develop a renedial program to lnprove where
that athlete is deflclant, and then from that aspect you
go into why do people perforn. What ls the lnstrlnslc need,
or ls it a physical need? What influences kids to be
successful? tfhat rewards do they respond to? Some respond
to a verbal reprimand, and some you can't do that to, some
you can klck ln the pants and glve them a ni-ckel, others
you've got to take a dine from them. They're all dlfferent.
l{hat psychologlcal reasons do students particlpate, and why
are some tovrns known as football tovrns, and some soccer
to$rns, and you've always heard t,hat Butler's a football town.
WelI, the people there aren't any different,, and I contend
Lt's what the communlty values. If a kld ls successful at
football and he goes downtown on Saturday morning after the
game, and everybody wants to know about the gane, and talks
to him, and give him some feedback of some sort, lt'g
strokes him a llttle bit, then he feels good, then there's
a feeling that these folks value that so I'd better be good
at it. So they work to be good at lt. So we Look at

(s8)
L:

B:

the psychologlcal factors as to why klds, and then you
Iook at the sociologlcal factors and all of these come
out. That's the basic flrst ten or eleven chapters.
Then I go into a lltt1e bit about the rehabllltatlon of
the athlete lf they are inJured. I contend they non't be
injured 1f you properly prepare them unless they're careless,
and accldente do happen when we get careless. So there's
a little blt ln there on rehabllltatlon of t,he athlete after
an lnjury, and then a llttle blt on the psychologlcal aspect
of lnJury, and that's probably as inportant as the physlcal
rehabllltatlon ls the psychologlcal rehabllitatlon. Does the
student feel that he can 8t111 be successful to partlclpate
in the athletlc acltlvlty, and then I flnlsh up wlth a
chapter on special conslderatlons when you're deallng wtth
yromen as far as athletlcs are concerned. So just because
of dlfferent anatomicaL differnces, and dlfferent _
body mass, rr€ can't expect they'd have the strength levels
and the explosive Etrength that they shouldn't be asked
to participate against the male in those actj-vities, but
in actlvltles where they aren't factors then coeducatlonal
actlvitles are valued and the sromen can have success as well
That's baslcally the whole
as the nen in those activltles.
gamut of this nodel. It's Just going through the model.
Good luck with lt.

(se)
C:

Thank you.

R:

What's the name of the book.

L!

Originally I t,itled lt "Strat,egles for Success in Coachlng".
The publlsher felt that we ought to use "Coachlng to Win with
Sports Medlcine".

B:

tfho's the publleher.
Ashley PublLshers. Dr. I{right had been klnd of the soundLng
board and the flnancial backer as far as my time and stuff
Ilke that was lnvo1ved. Gary Pechar was involved a little
bit wlth the physlological aspects. He brought hls expertise
into some of that.

B:

Are they co- authors?

C:

Yes.

R:

So instead of the dissertatlon no$, you wrlte a super
dl ssertatlon.

L:

Hopefully lt will be picked up. See I've always felt that
PennsylvanLa or elther our country has no certificatlon for

coaches. Anybody can coach. I've always felt that we do
a disservlce to our students of our community by not having
some certlflcation procedure for people that are molding
the mlnds of young men and women ln our country. At one
tlme, Pennsylvanla dld have a pllot progran that was falrly
successful, and Sllppery Rock was instrumental ln gettlng
that.

We

had developed aeven standards that we felt a coach

(60

)

ought to neet ln some lray. Elther by playing or havlng
pLayed, by coachlng, or having coached, oE by golng to

cllnics or taking classes, oE Just some way that they ought
to develop sone skllls in these seven baslc areas. Sllppery
Rock was lnstrumental In getting that through, and the
legislators felt lt was a good program. ft was successful,
I thlnk, from about L974 through 1978, and then pubIlc
school adnlnlstrators were havlng difflculty gettlng
certlfled coaches or getting coaches certlfied for thelr
dlstricts,

and so they $rent through lobbylng the Pennsylvania

School Boards Associatlon, and they got that resclnded.

After they resclnded t,hat then anyone could coach that was
a teacher, and they dld that for a while. Then they found
that teachers don't want to coach anymore. So t,hey resclnded
that and now anybody can coach. That's what I felt that
thls would provlde people wlth a baslc understandlng ln
what's lnvolved in athletics. It's not focused on football.
It's somethlng that any coach...ln fact, I think have Listed
25 different sports and Iisted what performance factors
are essentlal and what physical factors are essential and
what baslc skIIls are necessary to be successful in all those
25 dlfferent sport,s. So a coach of any sport could plck
lt up and use it. I thought that if the state of Pennsylvania
wanted to plck that up and say this could be a prlner for

(61)
L-:

coaches. Then If they would at least slt down and read that
and maybe take a test llke offlclals do. People that want
to offlclate read a book or take a test. At Least there
is some sort of certiflcation procedure there that they do
have an understanding of the rules of the game. TIelI, a
person can coach wlthout understanding the ruLes of the

they don't even have to take the certlflcatlon
test that the officlal takes, they just have to apply for
game because

a Job. So that's what really stinulated my wanting to do
thls proJect and wrlte thls book. It's not dlrected towards
A person that I think a person
any populatlon speclfically.
that ls coachlng Llttle League could benefit, from lt. I
t,hink someone coachlng hlgh school could benefit. I thlnk
So lt
someone coachlng the pros could benefit from lt.
does cover a wide range of populations that could be lnterested
ln it. But If I could Just get Pennsylvanla Department of
Educatlon to use tt as a basic text a perEon ought to read.
and then naybe take a test, and then they could be at least
have an understanding of why klds particlpate, what effects of

particlpate, what skllls they need, and
factors because kids go out and they are doomed to
fallure because they aren't properly prepared to do the
skilLs and actlvlties that they're being asked to perforn.
Basica1ly the nodel comes out of eastern Europe where they

when they

(62)
C:

would program these klds through muscle blopsy and things

Ilke that. Get them lnto events that they can be successful
ln. They wouldn't try to put someone who has Low explosive
strength lnto spread skllls or exploslve activltles, they
would steer then over into the endurance type factors. So
that's where the model comes fron. It llas fun dolng lt, but
I sald it was 2@ months and I tried to spend two or three
hours a day, and naybe some days four and flve hours lf
thlngs $rere going good. Some days I could slt there and
everything would Just klnd of flow out, and then other days
I couldn't get anything going, and I could look for excuses.
But Marian Talbert, who dld a Lot of thesls work for me, and
did a lot of typing for ne. I vrrote ln long hand and she
put Lt on disc for me, and then I could edlt It, and do what
I had to do with it. The projects done. Just waiting. It's
to go to the printer. I've seen the galleys and the
illustrations.
I Just had to send an illustratlon.
I
talked about nornal dlstrlbutlon and how the randon variable
how people at the high end of strength. There's a crossover
where a very strong, we're talklng about a strength varlable.
A very strong female naybe stronger than a very weak male, and
there's an area that overlaps there. I'n talklng about normal
distribution and 58 percent of the populatlon fall plus or
minus

standard devlation between the

I have all

(63)
L!

these percentagea ln there in detalls ls 1.38 or somethlng
like that percent of the people faII ln either one of the

or mlnus flve standard deviations. I had 1.38 well
Donna Bruno did the lllustratlons,
and the declnal point
was Left out so it came out to 138, and someone caught that
so I had to nake the change on that lllustrat,lon and I just
sent that back to them a week and a half ago.
pJ.us

R:

R:

\-!

I knew people would understand it that lt couldn't be that, but
there again they $rant lt to be accurate. But lt was fun.
tfere do you come down on the burnout theory where the ktds are
to overly organLzed in athletlcs from very, very, very early
ages. They get lnto mld-high school, or they mlght become
college athletes, but aII of a sudden they just up and qult
at Sllppery Rock Hlgh School.
the whole business. I
I can see where that happens. Thlngs have changed so
drastically in our society, I think, that there ls another
reason for burnout. The athletes are expected to do that
act,ivity all year long. fwelve nonths a year to play
basketball. I can recall as a coach at Grove City High
School vre thought it, was terrtble that John Swogger, who
was the coach at Mercer, requlred hls basketball players
to play basketball all summer long. tle encouraged our
people to get a variety of different actlvltles.
Go out.

(64)

R:

C:

I think the focus on a slngle actlvlty tends to lead towards
burnout. And maybe that's rrhy vre as coaches dldn't get
burnout. We focused not just on football. We focused on
our acadenlc requlrements, on our athletlc requlrenents,
on our community requlrements. Agaln because Bob wanted us
to get lnvolved ln our professlonal assoclations, and ln the
community, and he's a church person, and we all $rent to
church and believed ln that so when you get the varlety I
don't thlnk you get the burnout.
campuses for there to be a lot of grunchlng about
preferential treatment for athletes, scheduLing, and this
that and the other. I know every school I've ever been to
has that llttle rumble that's golng on. Has that ever been
much of a problem here, or for you?
I think Bob handled it very weII, and I think the presldents
have handled very well, or most of then have handled lt
very weLl. We were accused of preferentlal treatment when
I'n sure. Some of the coaches felt
that $re yrere treated differently than they were being
treated. I think that Bob communlcated to then very early
in his career here that lf $rant somethlng you've got to

we vrere having success,

of the coaches that was dolng a lot of
the complalning about the preferential treatment of the
football progran Just was not wlll.lng to ask for those
ask for lt.

One

(5s)

things ln hls program.

R:
C:

B:

got criticized for having a
steak pre-game meal when some of the athletes couldn't
have steak on their pre-game neal. And that's another
funny story I ought to teII about Bob DlSplrlto. The
other programs Bob said, did you ever aek for it? The
person sald, Do. So he $rent and asked Watret lf he
could have steak for hls pre-game neal and Watrel sald,
sure you can, you can have lt. Even though a lot of
the crlticlsm dld take place, a lot of it was unfounded.
It $ras Just the fact that people weren't wllllng to out
and speak for their olrn program. I thlnk Bob always
felt that lf you vrant sonething, you go ask for lt. And
the people can only say no. I think that's true of
anything. If you want somethlng, it doesn't hurt to ask.
It might be sometlmes unreallstlc to ask for somethlng
that's beyond the expectation or beyond the limlts of
the institutlon, but if Lt's somethlng that seems like
it's a legitlmate request, 90 make the request.
The secret of knowing what, to ask for and when to ask.
That's right.
Maybe that leads lnto a questlon I had about !,tonen's sports.
Te 11 us some of your experi.ences with that situation
be fore
We

TitIe IX and after Title IX.

(56)

As f look back at Sllppery Rock, I thlnk they've for
many years valued wonen's

many,

sports. In fact, I thtnk lf I
looked back at the hlstory a little blt ln the thlrties
there were more yronen's sports than there were men's sports
at that time. But they did value it. I don't think there
was ever a request for it unless it was made and I never
knew about lt.
When I first came here it seemed that
the WRA progran fllled the needs of the vromen athletes.
They had the tlomen's Recreation Assoclatlon, and lt was
very actlve. Carolyn Wll1ians ran that for a long perlod
of tine. I sat on the co-op board and when we made our
allocatlons, the co-op board, I trled to express the value
of the participation by the !'romen. lfe always tried to
fund then the same of we funded the male programs. I mean
there sraa never the emphasls on the intercollegiate
particlpation. But then wlth Tltle IX, because it was
dlfficult to get a schedule because you may have wanted
to have, tt€ always had fleld hockey, I think, and that was
a good woman's sport, but you nay have want,ed to have
lromen's swlmmlng, but you've no place to participate. I
thlnk of the women's lacrosse program, even today, for
then to partlclpate ln lacrosse the closest school other
than Lock Haven that had lacross vras lt,haca or East
Stroudsburg, and it was just, I think, you had to see

(

67

)

!'rhere your schedule could be. And then wlth Tltle IX,

and sittlng on the board, rr€ trled to brlng the sex

R:
C:

equlty into athletics, and I thlnk lt went fairly
succesEful at Slippery Rock. There vras still those
runblings. There was always rumbllngs between the
spectator sports, or the team sport, and the lndlvldual
sports, and the revenue sports, and the non-revenue
sports. I think that wae kind of coming down fron IICAA
discusslons of the maJor dlvlslon colleges, but st111
vre dld have lndlvldual sports, and we had tean sports,
and we had revenue sports, and we had non-revenue sports.
Tle were looklng for that equlty. I trled to encourgae
the coeducatlonal experlences whenever possible, and that
still has not ever come up to being. I don't thlnk that
there's any sport that, has been successful with coeducational
participatlon. I thlnk of the Bobby Rlggs tennis match
with Billy Jean Klng. I thought Sllppery Rock handled tt
fairly well.
Those Rlggs' always talk too much.
Yes. That's rlght. I nas golng to relate that story of Bob.
tfe did eat steak at our pre-gane neal. I do know a little
about nutritlon.
I do have a chapter on nutrltion ln the
book, too. Sone argue that you better, the carbohydrate
theory, you better have your carbohydrates three days ahead

(68)

of time. AlL dlfferent klnds of theorles, and they still
don't know, and they stlll eat steak before the gane. But
lre do know that the stomach doesn't empty real rapidly
wlth the protein ln lt, and there's very lltt1e protein
digestlon In the stomach, and you've got to emulsify the
fats before you send them on down to smaII lnstestlne,
and aII thoee things have to happen, so it's probably not
real good to eat a blg steak before you go out and
participate, but we did. I finally convinced Bob that
naybe we ought to go to something e1se. So we had
pancakes, and those kind of thlngs. It was our opening
ballgame, and I had convlnced Bob ln the off season that
Iet's try sonething different. You want to have pasta,
spaghetti's good, pancakes, toast and tea with honey. So
he agreed to do that, and we opened up here with East
St,rousburg. East Strousburg crossed the 50 yard llne one
time and eeored, and beat us 7-O. We lrere down inside
the 20 yard llne five or slx tLmes and couldn't score, but
yre never ate pancakes after that. So it probably didn't
cause uB to lose the ballgame, but I'm sure belng
superstitlous as a coach, w€ all are a lltt1e blt
superstitlous, weIl, it was the pancakes and honey and
tea and toast that we had that morning for our pregame
neal rather than our steak. I{e dldn't have our st,eak that

(

5e

)

day and so I guess the athletes felt that the program wasn't

valued anynore because they $reren't going to feed them
steak, they lrere golng to feed then pancakes.
R:
C:

talk a little bit about Ruseell Wright?
Dr. lfrlght ls a L923 grad, and been very interested ln
Sllppery Rock. He's proud that he's a graduate. My
relatlonshlp started with Dr. t{right probably ln early
L97@'s, mlddle L97@'s, somewhere around there. He had
written a book on...the tltle of it was "Maki.ngs of an
Olynplc Champlon". I think there'g probably a copy of it
in the library. I was troubLed with the tltle number one
because the book dldn't reflect what I took the title to
mean. There probably shouldn't have been an
on the
nakings of lt, but he wanted me to see lf I could do
anythlng wlth it to nake It into an acceptable kinesiology
book becauee I was teachlng klneslology. Colncidentally,
Dr. Wrlght was a 1923 grad, and lt was a nornal school at
that time ao he'B a two year grad, and he lvas 16 when he
Can we

exited here because he went to high school here too.
He lras from Jackson Center. He had marrled a lady fron
Grove Clty, and hls slster lived in Grove City, and had
a student t,hat I had had his daughter ln high school. His
daughter had married a student that I had coached at Grove
Clty High School, and that student knew that I taught

170l

kineslology here so Dr. l{right came down and stopped one
Sunday afternoon wlth the book. He vranted ne to t,ake lt
and read lt and see lf it could be made into a kineslology

text. I read lt, and It was a very, very nice descrlptlon
of his experiences as an athlete, and as a doctor, and as a
tean doctor for Detrolt Tlgers, and Detroit Pistons, and aLI
the different sport teans. All the different Eports teams
he had been lnvolved with over the yeara. l{orklng as an
ost,eopath out of Detroit Osteopathlc Hospital, Sunday

afternoons he would be at the ball game, and treat anybody

that was at the ballgane, not only the athletes but he
would treat, the people ln the stands underneath wlth flrst
He vras very successf uI. So he
aid and glve th_.
stopped and had this book and wanted to know 1f there was
anyvray that could be nade into a klneslology book. So f
read it and vrent through lt and as I indlcated very nlce
klnd of a log of what he dld over the years and how he
tested. Sone good thoughts there and aome good ideas.
So I looked at It and looked at lt and I said, no, I didn't
think so that lt could be. He kind of dropped it there
and ln the epring of 1984 or 1983, along there somevrhere,
Gary Pechar and I, and Fran Brannon were instrumental in
convlnclng ln golng to the curriculun conmlttee and puttlng
forth the request that personal fltnese be requlred of all

(71)

incoming freshmen. Now that came out of sone reEearch that

we'd done, Gary and I did wlth freshmen orientatLon.

As

reflected on students enterlng SLippery Rock, w€ knew
everythlng about them. We knew what thelr S.A.T. scores
where. We knew what their quality point, waa. Vle knew what
thelr high school class rank $ras. An awful Iot about them.
Tlhat their lnterests $rere, but we dldn't know anything about
thelr physical fltness, how physically flt they $rere. It
served us trro purposes. It kind of gave us an indlcatlon of
what was happenlng ln hlgh schools wlth the physlcal educatlon
progran. It gave us another Look at what studente look llke
when they come to Sllppery Rock. So we got a small grant from
the University to test during orlentation. l{e randomJ-y
selected 3OO students, and we tested them aE they came
through orlentation. Vle sent then a letter ahead of time, and
told then to brlng athletlc clothes, told them to brlng a
tovrel so they could shower and to report to the 9ylr, and we
had a one hour time block durlng these orlentatlon sessions
like they have going on now. So we ran that and we got a
sanple size of over 3OO students that $rere wllllng to do that
as they came through. So we developed a llttIe blt of a
proflle of what students looked Ilke as they entered. So
then we based our physical fitness program on what the
incoming freshman looks llke. Where they need some renedlal
yre

172l

he1p. We did that ln 1978, L979, L98O, and 1981, I thlnk we
had three or four years of data that we put lnto a proflle,
and then developed a
chart, that we could take our kids
ln fitness classes. So we expanded it and thought,, boy,
they're not really ln very good shape, and lf we're golng to
anything wlth the nlnd, you've got to do somethlng wlth the
physicaL. So we noved lt through. Steve Gagliardo cast the
decldlng vote at, the currlculum connittee neetlng. It was
the aIl-college curriculum conmittee neeting there and Fran,
and Gary and I $rere back there, and lt had gone around the
tabLe and lt was about 4-4, whatever lt is, I don't know
how nany was on at that tlme. But we needed one vote and
it was golng to be Steve Gagliardo vras golng to make that
vote and he voted for it, and so vre lmplemented that program.
Now that we have, I don't know at that time between L,2OO
and t,6OO students comlng ln every year, then how are we ever
golng to servlce these people. Ilhere are lye golng to do lt?
How are we golng to do lt? I got to thinklng about Russell
l{rlght and Bob Aebersold at that tine was moved up to the
acting vlce-president, and he nay have been vlce-presldent
by that time because Herb was here. I think Herb
so he was the vice-presldent at that tine, and so I asked
him, I know Herb was sensitive about raislng money, and he
wanted to raise noney, and Herb had a va1ue, it was the doIlar.

(73)
L!

I said, would you mind if I...I

guess I had served on

a

student government committee when we went around and looked

at recreatlonal facllities on campuB, and paid ten thousand
dollars for a feasibility study for a couple of proJects.
They identifled an ice rink, a fitness center, and a ski
slope out here, and four or flve dlfferent itens, and then
they focused on a couple of them. They had the feasibility
study done to see what it would cost to implement these.
l{e had asked them to look at the basement of the East Gyu
to see tf it would serve as a fitness center of some sort.
. ALl thls ls documented in this material that I'11
hand you folks. I asked Bob if he would mlnd lf I asked
Dr. t{right for a grant of a glft. Because we had in the
He would share things with me
meantime had become
and I would share things with him when he would go through.
He would hunt up here in the faII, Dr. lfrlght would. He
would always stop and caIL, and stop and visit.
Maybe we
would go out to dlnner. So we developed a relatlonshlp,
and I asked Bob, and he said, weIl, I'd better clear lt wlth
Herb. What are you going to ask for? I sald, we}l, lnitially
I thought I'd ask for $5O,OOO. So he said, no, I passed it
by Herb. So I ca1led Dr. tlright, and I explalned to him what
our ideas were. That we'd Just passed this all college
requirenent and now vre don't, have a space to implenent the

(74)
C:

requirement and we're thlnking about a renovatlon project

for the basement of East Gyn. The school ls golng to go
ahead and do some of the lnlt,lal renovation, but we don't
have any money for egulpment, and we need about $5O,O@@
to equlp it so that we could service these L2OO to L6OO
inconlng freshmen every year, and then eventually expand
it lnto the faculty and then lnto the comnunity, and
possibly into some rehabilltation work wlth third party
.

So we developed long-range plans, mission

statenents and all that.

I explained that all over the
phone to Dr. tlrlght, and he said, we1l, I thlnk...when
I said $5O,OOO he never batted an €y€, and sald that,
I think I could be lnterested. I followed it up with a
letter, and I have a copy of the letter that lndlcates
pretty nuch the same thing t,hat ne talked about on the phone.
tfe'd lmplenented this. I lndlcated ln a paragraph In the
letter t,hat we might even nane lt the RusseII l{right
Eitness eenter. I sent a copy to Bob Aebersold, and he
shared it wlth Herb. Herb had a note at the top of it,
don't conmit to the name, teII them not t,o connlt to the
nane. I said, weII, you know, S5O,@OO. I had Donna Bruno
fron the sketch of the old East Gyn, I had her superimpose
on it Russell Tlright Eltness Center up at the top of it.
Nlce line drawing and I sent lt down to Dr. Vlrlght, and

so

(

C:

he $rent along $rlth lt.

7s

)

I had that drawtng framed and sent
it doern, but I dld nake some copies of tt and I have those
copLes in the hlstory too so I'II share those with you.
So Dr. Ifrlght gave us 2,OOO shareE of Natlonal Medlcal
Enterprises stock, I believe. At that tlne lt must have been
about at 25
It went from 2t to 25 to 28 and so the
University felt that they mlght trant to hold on to the stock and
Let lt appreclate a little bit. Dr. l{rlght, and I had shared
the hlstory of this stock and Bob Dawson was In the office
at that tlne and Bo I had shared the history of the etock
wlth him because he yras klnd of dolng some of those things
for Herb. It showed how lt had gone up and had for years
been successful, but always hovered rlght around that area,
22 to 28. One tlme lt dld go up to 35. But the Universlty
held tt for a while and they nent ahead and gave us a little
blt of money to work wlth the renovatLon proJect and so forth.
Then flnally they did seII lt and they sold that inltial for
sonethlng less than 25. Agaln the brokers fees and everythlng
were out of and I thlnk we ended up with S47,OOO ln that first
gtft. That pretty much bought us what we needed, but then we
needed Eome additlonal equipnent and we needed to expand a
Iltt1e blt, and so he offered another $25,OOO. He sent us
another t,OOO ehares of Natlonal Medical Enterprises. He
said, I know that the Universlty sold that and you never

(76)
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really got your S5O,@OO to start wlth so I'm going to give
you a llttle bit more. So he gave us that. Another \,OOO
shares of that and I thlnk agaln the Unlverslty sold it when
lt looked a llt,t}e bit shakey. The last glft that he gave us
Just a couple of years ago vraa L,@OO shares of Jacobson and
Sons Department stores. Agaln they had received a polson pen
Ietter from someone who was golng to do a hostlle takeover, and
Securltles and Exchange sald If you take then over you've got
to pay forty for the stock. So there was a protectlon there
lf there sras a hostlle takeover. So he gave us \,OOO shares
of Jacobson Stores, and lt ended up that they sold that at a
llttle blt below. They didn't hold it long enough, and tt
eventually went up pretty good. I haven't checked lt on
the narket IateIy, but every tlme yre sold lt when it was
at the wrong tlne. So I'm not sure. I saw that he wasn't
ln the S1OO,OOO club so apparently...even though he wanted
to glve us $1OO,@OO we don't have hin there.

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That's terrible to think
But they did give him an honorary doctorate, and our relationship has stayed the same. He's 87 years old, I thlnk, maybe,
what's his birthday? June 9 maybe. Maybe he just turned 88.
I Just talked to him, well he had a message on ny answerlng
machine Saturday night, so vre still conmunicate qulte

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regularly. He real}y loves Sllppery Rock even though they
have not alwayB treated hlm ae he would llke to have been
treated. There's some senaes of thlngs there but I won't
share thoee wlth you.
Maybe in a few years.
YeB, when you turn the tape off.
Maybe we need to have hlm in our oral hlstory progran.
Dr. Wrtght?
Ye8, exactly.
If he were able t,o do lt, he'd probably Ilke it,.

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Yes, I'n sure he would. He has lots of storles to teII.
We don't have any pride of authorshlp in belng the lnterviewers
if vre could get you to do the interview that be kind of

really good because you'd be very knowlegeable about the stuff
!{e wanted to get out of that lnterview. Is that a poEslblllt,y?
I could check with hlm. I'd be glad to do that.
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I'd let, you lnterview hin. I'd
and slt, in with you.
If you would be present for the
That be a lovely thlng to do
He doesn't stllI come up and go
He doesn't hunt as much, but he

sit in.

I could ask questions

lnterview, that's fine.
hunting?

stIIl

has one of hls grand

(78)

ln Grove Clty and he's golng to be married in August.
I{hether he comes to the wedding or not, rJ.ght now he'E Just
came back fron Detrolt. He went down and had some tests down.
He's had some prostate cancer. He's got a pacenaker. It's
funny. I'11 teII you a story. He comes back for meetings
of the advisory board of the Russel l{rlght Elt,ness Center so
he'11 come back sometlmes. l{hen we vrere wrltlng the book,
he would cone back and slt down and spend a week wlth ne.
He stayed a week down at the Apple Butter Inn, and we
worked out in thelr llttLe sun porch out there, and yre'd
work three or four hours a day on this book. He'd make
suggestions, and he'd thlnk that, I ought to be lncluded.
Tfe'd work, and then vre'd walk around canpus here. His
pacemaker ls set at 10, and so he had trouble gettlng up
and down the hills because it's not llke you and I would
adjust where we increase the heart rate so we get more
blood flowlng. So he got a lltt1e bit tired. I'd take
hin over to the Russe} t{right Fitness Center to show
him some of the nev, instruments that we bought wlth the
noney that he'd shared wlth us. Never in my mind thought
anything about the pacemaker, and I just said, w€ have
those heart rate monitors that you put your thumbs on
and it would give you your heart rate. I said, here
Dr. Wrlght here's one of the new heart rate monitors that
nephews

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with the funds that you supplied wlth thls.
He satd, I know $rhat lt's golng to be. I said, what do
you mean? He sald, vrell ny pacenaker's set at 70. Sure
enough he put his thunbg on there and it, was 70.
But he got a kick out of that. He Just can't dance.
Whether or not he r{111 get back for the weddlng. If he
does get back, I'n sure he'd be glad to schedule It.
That srould be a good tlme.
That would be good. l{hen dld you say?
Early August.
Early August. l{e're about to do a lady fron the class of L922.
Oh, are you? He probably knows her.
She has a summer hone of some sort of in Proctor, she and her
daughter. Her neice, grandnlece, vrorks for Bob Watson.
Could lt be Cratty?
I love that fitness center. I was in the first group of
the wellness program. I've been Jogglng ever since.
That was a good program. I thought that was one of the good
thlngs that came out of some of the professorlal grant, money
that, they had. ProJect Profs. The lnitial grant for the
!,re purchaBed

wellness thlng came from Dr. Griffiths

myself, and Kathy Moore had that inltlal,

gave...Sandy Grosky,
and that was a good

Program
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One

of the greatest parts of that was for awarenesa.

llobody

(80)
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had ever pald attention, given it that much enphasis.

C:

WeIl, rr€ gave you the LAQ, Llfestyle Assessment Questionnalre,
and lt brought to your aurface a lot of thlngs ln your life
that your at risk about. Then the Eranlngham study and then

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the educational conponent that was provlded.
It was super.
My wlfe was ln tt, and she's dolng great. I didn't Joln, and
I've had flve bypasses.
Oh, dld you have bypasses?
Eive of then.
I didn't realize that. Before you retlred or after?
Oh, no. Slx months after I retlred. Elve of then
I had a real experlence laet year. I don't know whether you
know about lt or not. Pltt-Penn State game was Thanksgiving
Day. It waE an early gane, 11:15 or sonething like that.
Tfe're having Thanksgivlng dinner at my place so my son-in-Iaw,
ny son, ny brother-1n-1aw, and I, slnce ny son's a Penn State
grad, golng to the Pltt-Penn State gane. So everybody shows
at our house, and $re're runnlng a llttle blt late, and we
park at Soldlers and Sallors down at Oak1and, and $re've got
to walk all the vray up around, Gate 19, whlch ls all the vray
up by Veteran's Hospltal. Because we got a late start, it's
alnost klck-off tlme, and we're rushing to get lnto the ball
game, and we mlssed our gate. So we're up there Just below

(81)
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the Veteran's Hospltal and I see Gate 19 down over the hill.
So we cone back down the road a lltt1e bit and then there's
a walkway that goes around t,he stadlum, and there'g a llt,tle
hl11 about the