Keeping Up with the Tyroneses
Drew makes his pitch to be included in his high school's Sports Hall of Fame.
By Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
I spend a lot of time looking at my neighbor Tyrone. Mostly because he won’t leave my house until we run out of beer, but also because he thinks he’s better looking than Grant Hill. He was also recently inducted into the Chancellor High School Sports Hall of Fame, which makes me contemplate my own high school athletic legacy.
During these moments of self-reflection, a few questions emerge—with the most pressing being, how much has Tyrone had to drink to think he’s better looking than Grant Hill? Maybe Tyrone thinks that being a member of the Chancellor High School Athletic Hall of Fame gives him an accolade that Grant Hill can never achieve (mostly because Grant Hill did not go to Chancellor). I don’t think that I am better looking than Grant Hill, but I do wonder why I am not in my own high school’s Hall of Fame.
I was a two-sport standout at Exeter Township Senior High School, and I believe that my Wins Above Replacement metrics as a soccer goalie never received the kind of scrutiny that could lead to increased support for my inclusion in the Exeter Hall of Fame. Thirty-eight years after setting a Berks County record in boys’ soccer (that still remains), I think that achievement should cause the selection committee to consider my worthiness for their highest honor.
My rise to soccer greatness started in junior high school when I quickly noticed that the goalies did not run with the field players before practices. The goalies punted a ball into a net while their teammates ran 2-3 miles as a warmup.
When Mr. Frey, who was the junior high soccer coach and had been my elementary PE teacher—so he had a familiarity with my athleticism as well as my most recent scoliosis test results—asked if anyone wanted to train as a goalie, I could not raise my hand fast enough.
This kind of quick twitch muscle response also earned me third chair on the high school quiz bowl team. (Apparently quiz bowl is not considered a sport by the Hall of Fame committee because they claim I never knocked any pins down while doing it.)
Mr. Frey soon realized that my abilities in net were passingly average, but I think it was the way I wore the “baby shit yellow” goalkeepers’ jersey that sealed it for him. (“Baby shit yellow” was Mr. Frey’s description of the jersey, and it was one of those moments that reverberates throughout a lifetime—a first kiss, passing the swim test, having a child, or hearing your elementary school PE teacher swear for the first time. During that fateful season for Exeter Junior High School, it would, alas, not be the last time that Mr. Frey swore.)
Junior high school proved to be an important springboard in both my soccer career and my future professional career, because I realized I was fated to wear the “baby shit yellow” jersey until I could earn enough money at Burger King ($2.30 an hour) to buy my own jersey.
It was as a sophomore that I announced my presence with authority to the soccer world. I was the starting JV goalie, but about halfway through the season, it became obvious that I was better than the starting goalie on varsity because, mainly, I did not smoke weed before every match and would only see one soccer ball during the run of play, unlike my senior counterpart.
The head coach pulled me up to ride the varsity bench early in the season, where I sat until the Wally Pip moment that set Exeter soccer on a trajectory that ultimately turned them into a Berks County soccer powerhouse.
I don’t remember the opponent, but I do remember the moment like it was only 40 years ago. The other team had hit a lazy, high-bounding ball toward our goal, which our goalie only needed to walk a few yards forward to catch.
For reasons that remain unknown (actually, those reasons were well known by everyone on the team other than the coach—our goalie was really, really stoned), the goalie stormed to the edge of his box to catch the ball only to watch it bounce once—about six feet off the ground, he could have simply raised his arms—and then gently roll over the freshly-mown grass at Lorane Elementary School into the net where it nestled without a sound (soccer was such an afterthought at Exeter that we had to be bussed to an elementary school for our games because we were not allowed to play on the football field).
Our coach was furious that we had conceded a soft goal, but also because the goalie was giggling and asked him if he had any Hot Pockets to eat as he was subbed out.
Like Lou Gehrig before me, I seized the opportunity and made the starting role my own. (Until the next season when another goalie transferred in and had a much cooler goalie jersey than I did.)
During my career at Exeter, I recorded the first ever back-to-back shutouts in a varsity match and JV match as a sophomore. Even though I was promoted to starting varsity goalie, I still had to play in the JV match immediately after the varsity match because I was the only goalie on both rosters, which lends credence to my Wins Above Replacement argument.
My replacement at the varsity level would have been a stoner who wanted Hot Pockets during the game, and my JV replacement would have been no match for a stationary trash can, so I think it’s safe to say that any wins we did register as a team were well above the replacement options.
It was during my MVP senior year when I set a County standard that remains unbroken to this day. My name, soon to be etched in Blue Marsh stone, in perpetuity, all throughout the universe. We were playing Oley Valley High School and their star striker, Jamie Christie (who went on to play professionally), scored seven goals in a match that we lost 11-1. Exeter High School’s Sports Hall of Fame contains some impressive athletes like LPGA golfer Betsy King, but few (none?) have achieved that level of infamy on an elementary school’s soccer field.
With that moment of distinction resounding over the ages, I approached Exeter’s current athletic director, Thomas Legath, and asked him if that feat alone should warrant Hall of Fame inclusion. His response was undeservedly terse.
“No.”
I thought that maybe Mr. Legath was confused by my question, because I had opened with a lengthy discussion of Tyrone and Grant Hill, so I clarified that I was not asking if I was better looking than Grant Hill, but rather if allowing the most goals to a single player in a soccer game in County history was Hall of Fame worthy.
“One accomplishment, in one game, does not typically merit Hall of Fame inclusion, but I am only one member of the committee.”
As we hung up the phone (props to Mr. Legath for taking time to call back a Virginia humorist at a Substack on this matter), he also mentioned that one of my former coaches was a member of the Hall of Fame selection committee. Turns out the dream was not dead and would only take a call to my former tennis coach who hopefully did not remember that as he drove my doubles partner and me to the district tennis tournament in 1988, I made him listen to Todd Rundgren and Utopia sing “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now” for the entire drive. My feet did not fail me at the district tournament…it was my overheads.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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