Oct. 25, 2010
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -
By Lou Prato
Bob Warming didn't know it when he became Penn State's head soccer coach this summer but the job he now holds has a historical footnote that matches the one of that other, more famous "foot-ball" team on campus.
The Penn State football team that fills Beaver Stadium in the fall has had just six head coaches since 1925. That was one year before Bill Jeffrey was hired to coach the Penn State soccer team, and as varsity soccer celebrates its 100th year of existence in the nearby stadium named after Jeffrey, Warming is also just the sixth head coach since 1925 prowling the sidelines for the Nittany Lions soccer teams. "Oh, my goodness," Warming said with surprise when told of this eerie connection between the two fall sports.
Now, there were other coaches before football's Hugo Bezdek and soccer's Ralph Leonard 75 years ago. In fact, Bezdek, who became the coach in 1918, is officially listed as football's 10th head coach since the sport started in 1887, and at least five other men preceded Leonard before his first season in 1924. But it's certainly ironic that the two biggest sports of the fall have had the identical number of coaches in the same long period, and so few of them.
Bob Higgins (1930-48) came after Bezdek, then Joe Bedenk for one year in 1949 before Rip Engle (1950-65) brought Joe Paterno (1966-present) on campus as an assistant. Jeffrey retired in 1953 and his former player, Ken Hosterman, ran the soccer program from 1954 to 1967, followed by Herb Schmidt (1968-73), Walter Bahr (1974-1987) and Barry Gorman (1988-2009).
Warming admitted he knew little of Penn State's illustrious soccer legacy and coaching history before succeeding Gorman, but he was aware of Jeffrey and his direct tie to Bahr.
"I'm a soccer junkie, and I've been in the business for 32 years as a head coach and before that as a player," Warming said, "and I know there's been a number of tremendous coaches and great players who have come through here. But prior to 32 years ago, I don't know a whole lot about it."
That means Warming's knows a lot about the Bahr, Schmidt and Gorman eras. "They're all coaching friends of mine through our coaches association and conventions," Warming said. He knew nothing about Hosterman, and was not aware that Hosterman had been the Penn State soccer coach, let alone coach of the team's last two national championships in 1954 and 1955.
Until recently, Warming also didn't know too many details about Jeffrey either, including his eight national championships or the collegiate record 64-game undefeated streak that Jeffrey's teams set from 1933 to 1940.
"I know that it's a remarkable circle that Jeffrey was Walter Bahr's coach on the (United States) team in the World Cup," Warming said. That 1950 team defeated England 1-0 in what is regarded as one of greatest upsets in the history of sports "There's something I didn't know about him until I moved into the soccer office (in Rec Hall). I'm looking through all the archives that were there, and I found a book. It's more like a little spiral bound pieces of paper. And it was Bill Jeffrey's `How to Play Soccer.' It has these pictures of Penn State players back in the `50's playing. I've poured through it. There were a couple copies of it, and I gave one to Erica (Walsh), our women's coach, and I said, `This is the history of our sport, right here.' I still can't believe I just found this."
As for Walter Bahr, Warming said. "I'm very pleased that I've had the chance to meet more than one person from that 1950 World Cup team. When I coached at St. Louis U. (1995-2000), Frank Borghi, who was the goalkeeper, became a big fan of our team and came to all our games. I got to know Frank, and just what you can glean when you sit at the feet of men who have achieved great things in our sport is remarkable, little things. I hope to develop that relationship here with Walter.
"Sometimes, the most important thing you find out about other coaches is what the players say. And Walter's players say the practices were about playing. The games were about playing. It was all about how you played. And I love that because when I first got into coaching it was all about, `Did we win?' And I still want to win because I'm very competitive. But now it's about `How do we play? How did you play today?' And I loved that about Walter."
Even though Herb Schmidt left coaching to become a Penn State administrator in 1973 (He retired in 2006 as an associate athletic director.), Warming is probably closer to him than he is to Gorman, who has been more of a contemporary. "Barry and I have always had a good relationship and he's been very involved with our coaching association and helping our sport grow," Warming said, "but Herb has been the `smiling face' of Penn State soccer at our conventions.
"We have the largest convention for soccer in the world and we have the largest coaches' association of all sports in the world in the NSCAA (National Soccer Coaches Association of America). And my sequential number since the association started is 1966. So I was the nineteen hundred and sixty-sixth person to join the NSCAA. The numbers now are in the hundred thousands. Ever since I started going to the conventions in 1976, I've seen Herb's smiling face at registration. Back when there were only 1900 of us, we all kind of got to know each other. And for a long, long time, Herb's been one of those guys you see every year at the convention and you look forward to it because of his personality."
That brings us back to the sixth head coach since 1925 for both the Penn State soccer football teams. At 56, Bob Warming is 16 years older than Joe Paterno was in his first year as the Nittany Lions' head coach in 1966. Because of his previous head coaching jobs at Creighton and five other colleges, Warming already has 394 victories after this past weekend's 2-1 overtime win vs, Ohio State, not far from the 398 wins racked up by Paterno to date. If Warming can be even half as successful in his tenure as Paterno has been, then another glorious chapter will be written in the history of Penn State soccer.
--NITTANY LIONS--