Freddy Fest: A Friendship 25 Years in the Making

Former Penn State men’s soccer head coach Barry Gorman’s first full recruiting class in 1989 included 11 soccer student-athletes: Anthony Castro, John Geltrude, Mike Imm, Jeff Kline, Steve Sergi, Bill Eckelmeyer, Keith Engelhardt, Matt Garey, Nigel Sparks, Steve Thomas, and Matt Woolley. 

This recruiting class was very accomplished coming out of high school, and quickly bonded once arriving in Happy Valley. They went on to win an Atlantic 10 title in 1989 and Sergi was named Big Ten Player of the Year in 1991.

“Some of us had more success than others, but regardless, whatever happened on the field – who was playing, who wasn’t, who was traveling, who was dressing – we all were very close off the field,” recalled Geltrude. 

“Where else would a group of guys like us ever have connected or bonded except at a school like Penn State,” stated Sergi.

In spring of their freshman year, four of those players – Castro, Imm, Kline and Sergi – went to Jamaica for spring break. They returned to Penn State with a carved statue with a soccer ball and the number nine and “PSU” carved into the back in honor of upperclassman teammate Dan Kelly, who they admired.

The Jamaican man who carved the statue said the statue's name was Freddy. Little did the four know this moment was the birth of the infamous Freddy Fest trophy.

The following school year, the four who went to Jamaica for spring break plus teammate John Geltrude all lived together in an apartment downtown. 

Eventually, their time at Penn State came to an end, culminating with graduation in 1993. Now the group had to decide what to do with Freddy, their souvenir from the Jamaica spring break trip in 1990.

“We’re all sitting there looking at the Freddy statue and we’re like ‘well who’s going to take Freddy?’ Because he became part of us … he was always there, he was there for everything in our college careers,” said Geltrude.

The group then decided that the following summer they would come back to State College to play golf and also invited a few other members of the 1989 recruiting class, including Steve Thomas and Matt Woolley. Other friends from college were also added to the group for the golf outing.

“Next thing we know our first Freddy Fest is in the summer of 1995, the year after we graduated, in State College,” said Geltrude.

“The premise of the Freddy Fest has always been about good friendships and really good golf because we like to compete,” explained Castro.

The annual Freddy Fest rituals commence as follows: The participants arrive on a Wednesday or Thursday and have a free day before the festivities begin. The format for the beginning of the tournament is similar to the Ryder Cup. The Freddy Fest committee – comprised of the five original roommates from college – select two captains and the draft begins.

“Everyone cheers and gets excited and then they get paired up with who they’re playing against the next day,” said Castro. 

To increase the stakes, the losing team of the Ryder Cup event has to pay for dinner that evening.

The actual tournament starts the following day and is typically two or three rounds of golf. 

“I’ve been able to watch so many of my friends walk up the 18th fairway knowing that they’re going to win,” said Sergi. “I know it’s not the Masters or the US Open, but it’s really cool to see your friends get emotional about competing…about sustaining relationships.”

A championship dinner occurs after the final round with the champion from the previous year talking for a bit before handing off the trophy to the new champion, very similar to the Green Jacket Ceremony at the Masters.

“Those have been really powerful moments where the talks of those championship speeches talk about the bond that we all have, that life throws curveballs at us but the one solid thing that happens year after year is that we know we’re going to be able to spend four to five days with our closest friends,” said Castro.

Whoever wins gets to keep Freddy for the year as well as choose the location for the next Freddy Fest, although the committee does get the final say in everything. 

“You can ask any one of the guys who have gone to the Freddy Fest who won what year and how many titles they have and they all can tell you and they’re happy to tell you,” said Sergi.

The Freddy Fest Newsletter, written by Sergi, is sent out each March before the event to keep the group updated on the cost and agenda, while also including photos from past events, the letter from the champion, and more.

“You’re right – your story is about relationships. This is what Penn State is all about, this group here,” said Sergi.

While some people may just see this story as a group of friends from college getting together to play golf each summer, Freddy Fest is so much more.

“What started out as 18-year-old soccer players has grown into these relationships where guys are doctors and lawyers and surgeons and business owners. And it’s not just soccer guys,” Sergi went on to say. “We’ve got the best Nittany Lion mascot in history in our group. We’ve got wrestlers, a football player, we’ve got people who are now all over the world.”

“Some of the guys you talked to didn’t even play, but we loved each other and we’ve been to each other’s parents’ funerals, we stood up in weddings, we’re godparents to our friend’s kids, all of those things,” added Sergi.

“You’re just happy to see these guys that have shaped you as a person, that you’ve known from your freshman year of college, basically coming out of high school these were your first friends,” said Geltrude.

“To see each other once a year now it’s become so precious to us really that it’s something we can never replace. For 25 consecutive years we’ve never missed a Freddy Fest,” said Geltrude.

“I can’t believe it’s been this long,” said Sergi. “It feels like it was just a year or two ago we were all coming from different cities and countries and meeting in State College.”