To view photos of the celebration honoring coach Bob Schaefer, visit the Photo Gallery and click on the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
Some things never change.
Tammy Frazier was at her high school alma mater’s basketball game against Plymouth Whitemarsh last Tuesday night when coach Bob Schaefer voiced his displeasure to one of his players who was slow getting back on defense.
“I’m sitting here, and Schaef yelled at one of his players, and I still jumped,” the 2001 Cheltenham grad said with a laugh. “The score is 41-14, and he’s still telling his players to get back on defense. I told my fiancé, ‘But the score is 41-14. Are they really coming back?’”Frazier wasn’t second guessing her former coach. As a matter of fact, just the opposite was true.
“A lot of what I am as a young lady is because of the values he helped instill,” she said. “It’s beyond basketball. A lot of my foundation as a person, as a young lady and as a basketball player – and even when I coached a couple of years – is because of Schaef.”
The man they refer to simply as ‘Schaef’ won the 700th game of an unparalleled coaching career last Tuesday night when the Lady Panthers downed PW 70-27. Frazier was one of many former players, parents and fans who turned out to pay tribute to the Lady Panther coach for reaching the remarkable milestone.
Ignoring the snowy conditions, sisters Alison (Locke) Segal , a member of the class of ’90, and Melissa (Locke) Schulte, a 1992 graduate, made the trek from Delaware to do something they had always wanted to do – thank Schaefer for instilling a work ethic that has stayed with them throughout their lives.
“Everything about my work ethic, I owe to him,” Schulte said. “I told him before the game – the one thing he taught us was work ethic. I always wanted to tell him that – you know what, I learned it from you.
“I couldn’t have missed this. He’s a great, great man.”
“He’s sort of a father figure,” Segal added. “I told him – he influenced my life and all the players’ lives.
“He certainly drove home a lot of strong messages about hard work and future achievements. He used to say, ‘If you can tolerate me yelling at you, you can tolerate anything. No boss will ever be as tough as me.’”
Brandi Butler Millis, the captain of Schaefer’s first district championship squad in 1996, went on to play basketball on scholarship at Richmond . She acknowledged that she learned life lessons under Schaefer.“You learn what hard work truly is,” she said. “A lot of people think they’ve reached their limit, but they don’t understand that their limit is above what they think they can do.
“He pushes you beyond what you think is your limit. People think, ‘Oh, it hurts. I can’t do another,’ but you don’t even know what pain is until you run 30 suicides in a row.”
Millis is now coaching the boys’ middle school team at Cheltenham, and she recently recounted the story to her players about how – as a freshman on varsity – she asked to come out of a game for a breather after a particularly exhausting sequence.
“After 30 seconds went by, I caught my breath on the bench and said, ‘Schaef, I’m ready to go back in,’” Millis recalled. “He said, ‘You will not play again in this game,’ and I didn’t play.
“That was the last time for the rest of my career that I ever asked to be taken out of a game. I learned my lesson, and that applies to life.”
Interestingly, there was little talk about Schaefer’s wins on Tuesday night but rather the impact of a man who has turned the program into a perennial league, district and state powerhouse.
“You’re pushed beyond your limits,” Frazier said. “When you don’t think you can run another lap, you run another lap. When you don’t think you can get any lower on defense, you get lower.
“He sees your potential. He sat me down as a freshman and said, ‘You could do something, but you have to want to do it.’ It gets to the point where you want to go to practice, you want to get better, you want to be the best.”
Being the best is something Cheltenham has known a lot about under Schaefer, who twice led the Lady Panthers to PIAA Class AAAA state titles – the first in 2000 and the second in 2007. Cheltenham has won district titles in 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2002, and in 22 of the last 24 years, the Lady Panthers have won the league title.
“He has a bar that’s set every year, and you always have to work up to that bar,” said Shayla Johnson, the captain of the 2000 state championship squad. “He never lowers it.
“As a player, he makes you work harder and push everybody else. He has been so successful, so when you actually put on the jersey and you’re going to be a Lady Panther – you don’t want to be the team that doesn’t win the Suburban One League championship.
“You walk into the gym and see all those banners, and you say, ‘Okay, we cannot be the team that doesn’t continue the tradition.’ He has the bar set at a standard where you have to meet that standard and go above it. He doesn’t accept anything less.”
Johnson, who went on to play at the University of Rhode Island on a basketball scholarship, is now an assistant coach at the University of Portland.
“Coaching now – I find little bits of Schaef in me,” she said. “He’s a smart coach.
“He puts you in a situation where everybody can be successful.”
Speaking of successful – few players anywhere can match the career of McDonald’s All-American Laura Harper, a 2004 graduate. Harper went on to earn a scholarship to the University of Maryland where she was named MVP of the NCAA Tournament when the Terrapins won the National Championship in 2006.
These days, Harper is playing professional basketball for Umana Reyer in Italy, and when the WNBA season begins, she will be playing for the San Antonio Silver Stars. Harper acknowledged the role of Schaefer in her development as an elite basketball player.
“Since Schaef is the first coach I ever officially played under, he was very inspiring to me and always was able to instill confidence, no matter how many mistakes I made,” Harper wrote in a recent e-mail. “It takes a special coach to make you want to – day in and day out – give it everything you’ve got because you know they are reciprocating that effort, and that is what Schaef did.
“I learned what discipline and hard work was at Cheltenham, so that made my transition going into college a smooth one. Of course, the intensity and competition in college rose, but because of how I was coached and taught to be an elite athlete through high school – college seemed that much easier.“Overall, Schaef looked at us as his daughters, and he took pride in each and every one of us. I still have the letter he wrote to me about being a good captain and a better leader hanging on my wall. I took it to heart, and when I go home, I still read it.”
Gloria Schley, a member of the 1996 district championship squad, points to discipline as a trait she acquired playing Cheltenham basketball.
“If people ask me what are my strengths, I would say discipline from playing basketball, starting in seventh grade with Mr. (John) Rogalski,” said Schley, one of numerous former players in attendance last Tuesday night. “They ask me where I got it from, and I tell them I got it from my basketball coach.
“As much as he screams and yells, at the end of the day, he’s right, and he still cares.”
***
Ask Bob Schaefer to describe himself as a coach in one word, and the Lady Panthers’ boss can’t do it. He needs four, and that seems only fair for a coach who has amassed a dazzling 701-152 record in 29 years at the helm.
“Dedicated, committed, intense and aggressive,” he said. “It’s all the things I hope my players will be – dedicated and committed to the program and aggressive and intense in the way they play.”
If you haven’t done the math, Schaefer has averaged just over 24 wins in a season for 29 years. Those are some mighty impressive numbers, and his program is a testimony to his dedication and commitment, and his players are nothing if not intense and aggressive.
Schaefer’s teams have qualified for the district playoffs 27 years in a row and have earned a state playoff berth in 24 of the last 26 years. The Lady Panthers have reached the state’s final four in 11 of the last 16 years.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things to be a successful coach,” said assistant coach John Rogalski, who has been with Schaefer since the beginning. “First of all, he’s an outstanding teacher, and he teaches every opportunity he can get. He never stops.
“The second thing is his work ethic and what he expects from the kids. Somehow they start to get it that being a Lady Panther is more than just basketball. He really does teach life lessons. He sets high standards, and kids like that. They like achieving and doing things they didn’t think they could do.
“Have you ever met an ex-Marine who isn’t proud until his dying day? That’s because they were pushed to do something beyond what they thought they could do, and that’s the kind of pride Bob instills through hard work.”The Locke sisters smile when they recount how Schaefer locked the doors and put chairs in front of the doors to ensure his practices would be uninterrupted.
“You saw the movie ‘Hoosiers’ – that’s what our practices were like,” Segal said. “It was very intense.”
Games are equally intense for the Lady Panthers.
“My grandmother had to take a Valium before watching my games, and that is no joke,” Millis said. “She was prescribed Valium so she could relax because she would cry and get emotional when her granddaughter got screamed at.”
Andrea Jones, a 2002 grad who came back to coach the ninth grade team, admits Schaefer can be intimidating when you’re a freshman.
“After you start playing for him, you get used to it,” she said. “You might get mad at Schaef, but as you grow older and leave Cheltenham, you realize he taught you a lot of important stuff, especially about dedication, hard work and being on time.”
Demanding nothing less than the best has been a hallmark of Schaefer’s career. Sometimes his methods are unorthodox, but they work.
Frazier can still recall coming off the court during a timeout in the district championship game at Villanova University.
“His face was all red, and the place was kind of quiet, and he said, ‘Tammy, the only thing you can catch is a jelly donut,’” Frazier recalled with a laugh. “The whole place knew my business, but I never dropped a pass after that – at least I tried not to.”
Schaefer takes exception to the suggestion that he yells ‘at’ his players.
“Yelling to – yes,” he said. “I was told many, many years ago – you can tell a kid something a thousand times, and maybe the thousand and first time, they’ll think of it on their own, and that’s when you’ve gotten to the kid.
“My technique of coaching – at practice, I’m up and walking up and down the court with them, constantly telling someone what they should be doing, what they should have done, what they didn’t do correctly, and it’s not so much yelling at them – I’m yelling, but that’s my style of coaching.”
It’s a style that works for Schaefer, who never settles for anything less than the maximum effort from his players.
“They’re up by 50 points, and he’ll still get mad if you don’t box out right,” Millis said. “It’s aiming for perfection. You know you’re never going to be perfect, but you’ve got to try to be.”
Schaefer, according to Millis, will not be outworked, and she goes on to recall practicing during a snowstorm.
“It must have been a foot and a half of snow,” she said. “Everything was closed, but Schaef and (Lew) Wisnoff and (Mike) Houghton went around and picked everyone up. They can’t do that anymore because of the liability, but that’s why we won districts that year because we went the extra mile.
“His teams aren’t just good. They have done the work, and they deserve to win. The fact is he makes everybody play to their potential and play their role. He takes the one, two, three skills you’re good at, and he perfects them and makes sure the whole machine works. He doesn’t try and make you something that you’re not. He makes you the best of what you are.”
***
Schaefer is always quick to share the credit for his success with a coaching staff that includes Rogalski, Mike Houghton and Lew Wisnoff – both of whom have been with him for 25-plus years, Tony Houghton and Bob Graham – both have logged 20-plus years, and Brendan Nolan, who has been with the program three years. Ashley Webster and Andrea Jones have worked with the ninth grade team.
“Lew Wisnoff is a major cog in the wheel,” athletic director Scott Layer said. “He gets the girls in fifth and sixth grade, and Bob Graham continued the tradition at Cedarbrook, and it’s been a long pipeline, and that’s the way successful programs are built.”
Layer, who also did some scouting in the past, can still recall his ninth grade boys’ team scrimmaging against Schaefer’s squad.
“What makes Bob unique – he demands a lot from his girls, and he has certain criteria and expectations for them, and he holds them to it,” the Cheltenham athletic director said. “He runs a real tight ship.
“There are times his players love him, and there are times when they absolutely can’t stand him, but ultimately, I think the girls know that he’ll say things, but he respects them, he cares about them, he wants them to do well in school, and that’s what coaching is all about.
“What separates Bob is he’s able to cultivate those relationships – get the kids to buy into the system. His style is unique too. He wants to play up-tempo, create turnovers and havoc on defense. His program is very tight. There are not many flaws in it, and ultimately, he cares about the kids, and that’s evident by the number of the people who showed up the other night (to celebrate his 700th win).”
It was a night that proved that while wins might be important, it’s the relationships that matter most.
“I feel that everybody who plays at Cheltenham – whether you’re young or old – always stays in touch,” Johnson said. “We had a family atmosphere. To this day, the people I played with – we’re the best of friends, and we talk all the time.
“That’s Schaef. He just created that atmosphere. We had a good time playing together, and we did stuff off the court. The trips to Hazleton were team bonding experiences. He just did a lot. I’m proud of him.”
Across the gym floor, Schaefer is meeting with the fifth and sixth graders who just scrimmaged during halftime of Cheltenham’s varsity game.
“He’s cultivating them now,” Frazier said. “He’s saying, ‘Hi, don’t you want to be a Lady Panther when you grow up?’ That’s how it starts.”
Frazier saw Kia Wilson playing for the Lady Panthers and wanted to be like her.
Shayla Felder, a captain of this year’s team, was inspired to play basketball after watching Shayla Johnson.
It’s a cycle that has been repeated countless times and doesn’t figure to change anytime soon. At least it won’t as long as the man they call ‘Schaef’ is still at the helm, instilling that feeling of Panther Pride in his players.
“In my mind and heart, I still wish I could be here,” Jones said.
Based on the turnout at last Tuesday’s celebration, she’s not alone.
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