It Is Time For All Penn State Track And Field Alum (Golfers) To Help A Foundational Member Of Our Group

 I received word yesterday from Craig Virgin that our beloved Kay Warfel was admitted to Lancaster General Hospital yesterday after a visit to the ER with a very serious illness.  Kay's friendship with Craig goes way back to the wonder years of Athletics West. One of their original members, he met Kay as she was completing her graduate degree at Oregon.

Kay needs prayers, good vibes, and encouragement from everyone now.  She has truly been a blessing to our group and has attended nearly all of our reunions.  I can't count the number of times I have been helped by Kay for our Blog and Facebook site.

We hope to have a meeting of our group with Craig in the near future near Lancaster.  We will keep you informed.  Craig was invited by me to our Reunion many years ago because of his deep affection for Coach Groves who treated Craig just as well as you would expect him to after Craig's epic NCAA win on our very own golf course.  One of Craig's prized possessions is the Nittany Lion statue Coach sent him with a hand-written scrawl of a letter we all would recognize right away.  Craig has stories to tell and a firm desire to join our group as more than an outsider from the University of Illinois! 

   kaypsu76 AT gmail DOT com

   please use the @ symbol and period in place of AT and DOT

 

Random Thoughts And Results Of The 19th Annual Reunion And Golf Tourney

1.  We had a very good turn-out considering the world we currently find ourselves in. There were 40 or so attendees for both the Reception and Dinner.  There were 6 foursomes on the golf course.  And there were many attendees for Vivian Riddick's Zoom Presentation and the Coach Schwartz Celebration for the Women's Team.  Coach Groves finally got his 2009 wish of more women attendees for our celebration of Penn State T&F/XC.
2. The Mountain View Country Club hosted the tourney and were excellent in their support of our efforts.
3. I sorta/kinda won for the 3rd time in a row.  Because Steve Brown's sons golfed with him, we had a team of "ringers" without a hacker like me.  According to the rules set up by Clark Haley decades ago, this team is forbidden.  All teams must be rigidly, strictly chosen randomly on Friday night, except when sufficiently bribing of the Officers of the Group has been undertaken!  The Browns managed 5-under par, with my foursome scaring them with a 4-under par back 9 after an even front nine.  (Please realize I am being mostly funny with this, but I won't know for sure until I see the engraving on The Cup next year.)  I hit few shots with my wonky wrist, but I suppose 4 of my shots actually counted.  For all you non-golfers out there, you would do much better than this without ever having golfed before.  Come golf with us next year.  It was a pleasure golfing with Harry Smith, his son Ian Smith and Coach John Gondak this year.  
4. There was a paucity of potential in the running for the "numb-nuts" award, with the absence of Kevin Kelly O'Brien.  Just joking Kelly, you were missed.
5. The Triathlon at the track, which has replaced the Alumni Run, was won by Steve Balkey, with individual events won by one of the Fullers (I never know which one; it's definitely a problem of mine!) and Greg Fredericks, Master of the Hula Hoop.
6. Speaking of the Fullers...  They all golfed together this year.  It was honestly only by chance, I swear to God.  Bob Gabel became an honorary Fuller to fill up their foursome.
7. Paul Mundy won the Longest Drive contest, which he does nearly every year Beth Shisler does not golf .
8. The dinner menu was excellent (flank steak, grilled chicken with Parmesan sauce, and a chocolate cake that brought a smile to Paul Mundy).  The selection of four different flavors of chicken wings on Friday night was also quite splendid.  Free draft beer and a full cash bar got the crowd in just the right spirits to meet new friends and regale old friends with white lies about the days of yore.
9. There are stories of great times had by many (after my bed-time) at The Phyrst on Friday night and Pickles on Saturday night.  I managed to host Rock and Roll Legend Paul Souza to nearly 11:00PM on both nights before tag-teaming and handing off to Night-Life loving Clark Haley.  I think we have a convert to our efforts in Paul, with maybe even a Rock and Roll Reception in our future!
10. Ken Brinker became only the third recipient of The Rusty Boot, the highest honor that can be bestowed on any PSU Track Alum.
11. Two hardy members of the group drove their Harleys fairly long distances to join us.  Both Mike Shine and Paul Mundy looking good BTW!
12. Coach Gondak won the closest to the pin contest on a hole which is normally his nemesis at his home course. A six-foot putt led to one of our birdies to close in on the Leading Brown group.
13. Kay Warfel made multiple homemade gifts for raffle and Coach Gondak supplied numerous items to add to the mix from the team's supplies.
14. A tour of the new locker room was given by Ryan Foster.  It's good to have him back.
15. The Ghost Award went to Paul Souza who finally joined us and says he will be back every year from now on.  Speaking of future years, we have decided to alternate between May and August in the future, just to see if we can entice a few more reluctant attendees.  More on that to come. 
16. Quite a few attendees climbed Mt. Nittany again this year, in addition to touring the Sports Museum and Berkey Creamery.  Remember, the golf is optional but highly recommended!
17. State College has taken Covid hard by what I have seen.  The entire block containing The Saloon, Hi-Way Pizza, The Deli and the Lions Den has been closed and empty.  Baby's is closed and for sale.  I would love to have enough mullah to buy it and bring back Pedro's! Anyone wishing to join me in investing in this opportunity, let me know.
18. My Nittany Lion Hawaiian Shirt was a big hit.  The Lion's Pride came through for me again this year.  Several others went on Saturday to find the stock already depleted.  Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man happy, healthy and Hawaiian Shirted.
19. The Longest Putt on Hole 18 went to Ian Smith of my foursome with a 9' 1" effort.
    

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

We Are The Champions!

Yes, for the second year in a row, I helped win the Coach Groves Golf Tourney.  Currently, I am the hottest golfer in our group.  

But in all seriousness, I had the opportunity to golf with the best overall foursome ever.  Tom Brown, current PSU Sophomore and progeny of last year's winning foursome member Steve Brown, is an excellent golfer.  He is also smart enough to be studying Accounting. Tom also won the longest drive of the day.

Paul Mundy made it back into the fold for the first time in a few years.  Despite not golfing much in the interim, his frying pan of a driver still provided some excellent shots off the tee! And they changed hole #4 so he couldn't hit another tractor-trailer on 322.  Paul also won the Numb Nut award.  More on that in the next post.

But the MVP of the day was good friend and classmate Bob Gabel.  Despite being a group leader in the pharmaceutical business, he must have found some time to hit the links.  He hit shot after shot of precise, long shots off the tee, pinpoint shots from the fairways and was putting with the finesse of a Tiger.  Hats off to the man who arranged for my Independent Studies Classes back in the day.

Tom Brown, Paul Mundy and Bob Gabel, 2019 Tourney victors! Photo by Kay Warfel.

The King Is Dethroned Again

But a Penn State Track and Field Alumni (Golf) Big-Wig did make it to the podium this year.
Ricardo Hall won the overall title and the accolades from 207 players.  Our very own Larry Mangan was third overall and represented the Officers of the Group well.  Joe Clinton also snuck into the top 10.  Kay Warfel also performed well in 12th place.  And Mark Hawkins can take solace in the knowledge that he was able to outperform all but 1 Animal!

Thank you. Thank you, very much.

In the all important Animal division, Spott Moskowitz was again dragged down from behind by Thomas Roth Bernard.  He takes the second place with dignity and aplomb.  He almost had enough points built up to make the Final game meaningless.

Overall Top 25:

1	Dynamite, Black	148
2	Wingo, Trey	138
3	Mangan, Larry	132
4	Pritchard, Simon	129
5	Hoover, Douglas	128
6	Crescenzi, Noah	128
7	Clinton, Joe	128
8	Oliver, Ryan	124
9	Brothers, Ellie	123
10	Riter, Tony	121
11	Oliver, Emily	117
12	Warfel, Kay	117
13	Cole, Connor	115
14	Oliver, Abby	114
15	Novak, Jay	113
16	Roth, Thomas Bernard	113
17	Oliver, Steve	111
18	Hawkins, Mark	110
19	Morse, Hallie	107
20	Cole, Braden	105
21	Moskowitz, Spott	104
22	McCarthy, Dennis	103
23	Pritchard, Jonathan	103
24	Haushalter, David	102
25	Patrick, Dan	101

Our Founder Won Both Putting Contests

Founder Clark Haley was triumphant in both the Friday night Hotel and the Saturday Golf Course putting contest.  And he donated all of his winnings back to the total that will be given to the PSU Track Program!

Clark lines up the 50-footer that he then sunk! Photo by Digital Archive goddess Kay Warfel.

Admit It, You've Been Thinking About The 2020 Election!

Really, most anyone paying attention in the past decade realized that the 2016 election was scripted years ago by a demented sadist of some sort, just to bring an equal measure of misery to all of us.

But the 2020 election may be a different story.  And thanks to one of our Digital Archive Goddeses, Kay Warfel, I was re-introduced to the author  of a new novel about the election 4 years from now. (I think we have met before, but my lessening number of brain cells intervenes.)

Most of us know Fred Singleton as a captain of one of Coach Groves' favorite teams, the first of his to win an ICAAAA (IC4A!) Championships in 1974.  I have often said that our ranks (PSU Track Alumni Golfers) produces some of the world's finest people, and Fred is another example of that.

And now Fred has written a novel about the 2020 election which involves something he noticed about the US Constitution in his capacity as a History teacher.  Check it out, ORDER A COPY, and rate it highly on Amazon.  That's an order from Coach Groves!
Addendum:  Fred wishes me to remind you that this is a fictional account of the 2020 election. With the reality today, we all need reminded of that!

The Quorum's Child: And the Constitution-Challenging Election of 2020

Biography

I was born Joseph Frederick Singleton, but at an early age my family called me either “Fred” or “Freddie”. From the late 1950s through the early 1970s I grew up in Mount Vernon, New York (it borders the Bronx), which at the time was a multi-cultural, great place to live. My parents Joseph and Lucille, a postal executive and insurance underwriter, respectively, provided a loving home for me and my older brother Ken.

Like so many young men of that era, I was drawn to playing baseball and basketball, but in the late fall of my sophomore year I tried out for the Mount Vernon High School indoor track team – a decision which forever changed my life. Inspired by the seniors on the team and by my two coaches Dave Rider and Bob Brooke, two men who are on my personal Mount Rushmore, I instantly loved the sport. By the end of my senior year I was a three-time state champion and national champion in two hurdle races.

Accepting a scholarship to Penn State University, I had four good years of running, culminating, in 1974, in being a co-captain of Coach Harry Groves’ ICAAAA championship team – the first for the Nittany Lions since 1959.

Returning home after graduation, I was hired by the White Plains School District as a history teacher, assigned to the high school’s alternative school, the White Plains Community School – a position and location I kept for thirty-six years. I loved being in the classroom and being around my colleagues. In my third year, I was hired as the assistant track coach, where I forged a strong coaching relationship and life-long friendship with Nick Panaro, who had also run for Dave Rider. Presently in my forty-first season of coaching in the district, I am so very thankful for the many thousands of people I have met either in our school district or from other schools– coaches, officials and of course, the athletes. I have been very fortunate.

Our 00 Agent Delivers The Goods Even With Numerous Obstacles

008, our insider at the USATF Championships delivered numerous photos despite being the target of nefarious forces, including illness and injury.  The delay in posting was secondary to my vacation in West Virginia, the internet-deprived paradise I visit yearly.  This year, I didn't even try to use the internet, driving my readership to the lows of 2008!  Welcome back readers!  And thanks to Kay Warfel, our 00 Agent for bringing us the slide show.

My Foursome: A Gimp, a Limp, a Simp and a......

Mike McCahill, Coach Fritz Spence, Tim Johnson and Your Humble Host being photographed by Digital Archive Goddess Kay Warfel. Photo by Mark Hawkins.

I really do need to take lessons.  This was the worst I have ever played.  With no Mulligans, putting strings or other gimmicks, the scramble format exposed my pink under-belly of golfing talent and led to a frustrating afternoon of thrashing and wailing after little white balls.  I'm happy I pay about 25 cents apiece for the little dimpled orbs, as I left quite a few on the grounds of the Mountain View Country Club (formerly the Elks Club Course).


The greens were fast and somehow tilted more than they used to be.  But it was good to see the course in such good shape otherwise.  At least after you slice your shot 2 fairways to the right, you have a splendid view of either Nittany Mountain or Ski Mont (or whatever they call it nowadays!). I didn't even have any "cheater golf balls" left over from previous years. (These balls are slightly smaller than real ones, and have more dimples.  They supposedly were supposed to give me an extra 10 yards on my 150 yard drives.  As if any would ever notice!). Our group started out with 8 straight bogeys, a feat hard to do in the scramble format.  We were truly horrible at first.  But then, something clicked, and we played the last 10 holes at one-under par, right on pace with the best foursomes in our 9 foursome tourney.

My only good shot was 30 foot putt that I made with a twice-bent blade putter from the 1950s.  Several others may have recognized this club, as it was frequently in the extra bag people needed in previous years.  And it was once left on a green and retrieved by a generous alum who could have easily pitched it into the can as a club no one would ever want. It now has putter cover and has been renamed Billy Berue.

The Limp was Mike McCahill who hurt his calf muscle by picking up a golf ball while practicing putting.  I'm not making that up.  He played well despite the increasing limp during the round and I saved him from next-day incapacity by dispensing him some Celebrex after the round, a drug which gave Ken Brinker the ability to retire early to Florida and enjoy the good life. (You're welcome , Ken!)  Mike is a long-term member of our group.  I think he's only missed one Coach Groves Tournament.

The Gimp was Tim Johnson who suffered a debilitating "groin pull" recently playing ultimate frisbee.  I'm not making that up.  He was hoping continued golfing would improve his condition, which may or may not have happened.  Tim also played well at times, but we could tell the groin was holding him back.  I know the feeling, even after 30 some years. I had a groin-pull from fencing class at PSU gym class.  Yeah, I'm that dumb, which brings us to......

The Simp is me, of course.  As one of only 2 or 3 golfers to have braved this tourney every year, you would think I would learn my lesson and either take lessons or give up the game.  A Simp never learns...

The fourth in our group was Coach Fritz Spence.  He even agreed to be The Wimp to make things somewhat complete, but I don't have the heart to follow through with calling him that.  It doesn't fit at all, and neither does Blimp, Primp or Shrimp.  I was happy to share the cart with him as I set up my 7th grader's PSU Track Camp visit to spend time with him as the Women's Multi-Event Coach.  It was a pleasure to meet him and as a Bahamian who knows Mike Sands, I have hope he can help set up our dream of a Winter Coach Groves Golf Tourney in the Bahamas.  I'll bet we can get at least 2 foursomes for Paradise.

Foursome Number 6 (I think???)

 

It has been correctly pointed out that I have failed to show all the pictures of foursomes from last year's Coach Harry Groves Golf Tournament as I had promised.  I'm still trying to figure out which ones I haven't included. The slight is inadvertent, as is all slipshod shenanigans on this site.  And with the new camera I had purchased just for the event, it somehow places the photos in different folders depending on how I try to upload them. Finding them again is difficult for the computer illiterate!  The photos were all taken by Kay Warfel with the help of Coach  Jeri Elder, (who I still owe money to for going to get the proper batteries!)  I'm all about organization.

Well anyway, here's a promised picture of the foursome of Paul Mangan, Larry Mangan '81, Greg McKelvey '80 and Mark Hawkins '81.  They ended up in a respectable (-4) for the tourney in the grossly wet conditions.  And looked sharp in doing it, by the way.