Growing Up on the Gridiron

by Vicki Mayk

  Inside the stadium on a cool October night, Central Catholic’s cheerleaders are decked out in the school colors of green and gold, the word Vikings glittering on their shirts as they execute lifts and pyramids in front of the small but enthusiastic crowd. The loyalty of Central fans is evident, from the small boy and girl enthusiastically waving green and gold pom-poms to the middle-aged nun with the green and gold scarf wound around her neck, obviously prepared to spend the entire game standing in her sensible black shoes to cheer on her students playing on the field. It’s Homecoming, and fans wearing shirts proclaiming “We Are Viking Nation—Homecoming 2019” are piling into the stands to watch their team take on Liberty High School’s Hurricanes from nearby Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Liberty’s Grenadier Marching Band, famed for its bagpipe section decked out in plaid kilts, threatens to drown out everything else. The band’s impressive size is a reminder that the much-smaller parochial school is facing off against one of the region’s big public high schools. Central Catholic’s fans don’t seem concerned. Over the years, the high school has had its share of winning teams, including some that won conference and state championships against bigger schools. Quite a few of those winning teams were coached by Jim Morgans, who later went on to coach the Parkland Trojans.

  Coach Morgans is in the stadium on this fall night, sitting with one of his daughters and a gaggle of his grandchildren high in the stands, at the very top where the stadium looks like it meets the sky. Morgans officially retired from coaching at Parkland in 2016, but in 2019, it was announced he’d be helping his alma mater, Central Catholic, as a consultant. And that is what he’s doing at tonight’s game: assessing the action, noting weaknesses, and sharing his expert opinion, honed during more than fifty years of playing and coaching football. That’s why he’s sitting far from the rest of the crowd: he’s available for a quick conference next to the box where Central Catholic’s head coach surveys the field. Although coaching has gone high tech, with drones giving coaches closeups of the action while plays are recorded on tablet computers on the sidelines, Morgans’s experience still has value.

  Coach Morgans ambles down one level in the stadium to chat with someone at halftime, and the conversation is interrupted more than once by people who know him: one of his daughters’ friends, an old neighbor, or a former player. If it’s a former player, there’s likely to be a hug and an invitation to climb up to the top of the stadium in the second half to commiserate over the game. It’s not surprising that Morgans hasn’t fully retired. Football has been at the center of his life for more than half a century, and life without it seems empty. In May 2019, he was inducted into the Pennsylvania Scholastic Coaches Association Hall of Fame recognizing his years as one of the state’s most successful coaches. The induction was the latest in more than a half-dozen halls of fame that have honored him. He’s a member of the halls of fame at both Central Catholic and Parkland, as well as his college, Louisiana State. At retirement, his career record was 283–137–1. During his long career, his teams won two PIAA State Championships, two PIAA State Runner-ups, an Eastern Conference Title, ten East Penn Conference Titles, and eleven District XI Championships.1

  Morgans talks about the way high school football is a game built on relationships—between players and coaches, among players on the team, and among the men who coach it. Over the years, as Morgans moved to various coaching jobs—twice at Central Catholic, twice at Parkland, and in shorter stints at a couple of other high schools—he brought coaching staff with him, or they followed him. That’s why he always credited his staff—the ones who specialize in coaching the offensive or defensive line or special teams—for his success as head coach. Now it’s come full circle in another way: Morgans is consulting for a team coached by one of his former players. Central’s head coach, Tim McGorry, was on one of Morgans’s championship teams. Another one of his former Parkland players is pacing on the sidelines by the Vikings’ bench. Jamie, clad in khaki shorts and the dark polo shirt worn by Central Catholic’s coaching staff, is the team’s defensive line coach. A baseball cap sits backward on his head and headphones are in place to hear instructions from the coaching box.

  To see two former players on the Central Catholic coaching staff affirms the importance of relationships in football as far as Jim Morgans is concerned. He recounts running into Jamie the first time at a Central Catholic practice earlier in the fall.

  “It’s like we never were away from each other. I knew he was coaching there, but I saw him, and we met in the weight room. I hadn’t seen him in probably a year,” Morgans says. “Then I saw him, and we had time to talk about football . . . and everything else, and we spent a half hour just talking to each other.”

  As it is for his former high school coach, football remains central in Jamie’s life. He works a day job in marketing and sales for Gatorade, a role that keeps him in contact with people in the athletic field. But outside of work, coaching football and umpiring softball occupies much of his time. After graduating from William & Mary, he returned to the Lehigh Valley, coached for a year at Parkland and then joined the coaching staff at Moravian College. He took a break from coaching and was a football referee. “But I got tired of being yelled at,” he says chuckling. He welcomed the chance to return to coaching at Central Catholic. Football, he says, is more than a game.

  Married in 2015, he and his wife, Alyssa, welcomed their son in 2017. The baby is also James—the sixth James Pagliaro. “We’re going to call him JP,” Jamie explains. Among the first pictures of the newborn was one of him posed slumbering cozily near Jamie’s Tribe football helmet from William & Mary.

  “My wife didn’t know what she was getting into when she married me. She’d never been around a football player like me,” Jamie says. If he isn’t coaching, he’s watching the game—high school games on Friday, college matches on Saturday, and the pros on Sundays. “It’s more than just a sport. You bleed football. You enjoy the little things people don’t see about the game.” He explains that people who haven’t played the sport or embraced it as a passionate fan don’t “realize the intricacies and depth of the game.” And there’s something else that he thinks sets football apart: “There’s a camaraderie in football that you don’t get in any other sport,” Jamie says.

  He acknowledges that what happened to his friend Owen affected him. But it has not diminished his love for football. “It doesn’t affect the way I view the sport or the lessons I learned from playing it,” he says.

  Jamie isn’t the only former Trojan to become a coach. Mike Fay, who came reluctantly to the game as a middle schooler, now coaches the middle school team in the Southern Lehigh School District, just south of Allentown. He teaches high school English and started out coaching the junior varsity team but took a step back to teach the younger boys. It will allow him to spend more time with his growing family that includes a spunky toddler, Penelope, and an infant son, River. He found that the six- to seven-day-a-week demands on high school coaches—practices, games, analyzing film—left little time for anything else. Before making the move to middle-school coaching, he consulted Bob Steckel, the guy who coached him in middle school, for advice. Mike laughs, remembering that he was complaining about some of his players during their conversation. Coach Steckel, his hair now gray, reminded Mike of his own beginnings.

  “And he said, ‘Don’t forget, Michael, that you got a scholarship and you were that fat kid crying on the sideline because we had you run,’” Mike says. “And I said, ‘You know, you’re absolutely right.’”

  Armed with Steckel’s advice, fall afternoons find Mike back on the sidelines, a small portable white board close at hand to illustrate plays. After years of being a Parkland Trojan, Mike is coaching the Southern Lehigh Spartans. It’s another thing that doesn’t change about football: team names on every level of play continue to honor history’s most valiant warriors, fearless in battle, willing to die with honor. At the Southern Lehigh stadium, homemade signs near the entrance to the locker room
offer inspiration from the sport’s history. There is advice from George Halas, legendary Chicago Bears coach: “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” Or words from Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw: “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” Or some thoughts from a Pennsylvania native, quarterback Joe Namath: “Football is an honest game. It’s true to life. It’s a game about sharing. It’s a team game. So is life.”

  So much about the game is rooted in its traditions. But Mike and other coaches also have new rules to follow. Concussion protocols, now an accepted part of play, govern when players must leave a game and when they will be allowed to return to play. A team physician stands ready in the stands to evaluate players, should the need arise. Although it wasn’t part of his own experience as a player, Mike has adapted to the new rules.

  Coaching younger players follows a time-honored pattern of skill building and mentoring. During a hard-fought game against an undefeated team from Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, Mike calls a player over after a play to review what happened and discuss what might have worked better. He illustrates his point on the white board. When he speaks to a member of the team, Mike looks him in the eye, often with a hand on his shoulder. This is a chance to start players, however enthusiastic or reluctant they might be at thirteen, on the path to playing football for the next eight years or more. Although Mike was not enthusiastic at the start of his own playing career, he credits the sport with bringing him to where he is today. “It was obviously the best thing that ever happened to me in terms of community and friendship and college scholarship and job and coaching. It’s a huge part of my identity now,” Mike says.

  Bob Steckel says he’s honored that Mike asked him for advice about coaching. “I told him, ‘I’m so proud of you for asking these things. The fact that you’re willing to listen to what I had to say means a lot,’” Bob says. He’s retired after coaching for twenty-five years—seventeen at the middle-school level—but still volunteers with Parkland’s middle school team. Like Jim Morgans, he’s found that it’s not easy to walk away from a sport that’s been the thread running through the fabric of his life. And like they are for Morgans, relationships are perhaps the most significant part of what football has meant to him.

  “I tell our kids all time: Your best friends are going to come from the locker room,” Steckel says. “Our culture is so individualistic. People are taught to step on other people to get ahead. In football, it’s different. It’s the consummate team sport. We don’t experience that in this culture. Individualism is what we aspire to. It leaves you feeling hollow.”

  His own life is proof that football breeds lasting friendships. As he prepares to leave on a fishing trip with former teammates, he notes, “We’ve been the best of friends since ninth grade. In spite of your warts, they still love you.”

  Since Owen’s death and CTE diagnosis, Steckel has concluded that the brain injury must have been a factor in his former player’s suicide. It’s the only explanation for the way Owen ended his life—an action that seemed so out of character for the young man who was both fearless and feared on the gridiron. Owen’s old locker at Parkland remains a shrine to his memory, one that Steckel created when he died, filled with his old jersey, newspaper clippings, and team photos. His loss has led Steckel to ponder the physical damage that can happen on the field. “Is there a negative physical aspect?” he asks. “Yes. Look at me: I have this wrong with me, I’ve got that wrong with me. I know it’s because of football. I’ve had a knee replacement, knee surgery, back problems. But I wouldn’t change anything. Next to my family, it’s one of the most important things in my life.”

  Because he knows his body has paid the price for his love of the game, and because he loved Owen Thomas, Steckel made a decision: when he dies, his brain and spinal cord will go to the CTE brain bank at Boston University to be used in CTE research.

  During his time at Penn, Jake Peterson had developed a relationship with Andy Reid, then head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, and with it came the opportunity to play professionally. For a player like him, it would fulfill the dream of a lifetime. He was preparing to participate in off-season workouts known as optional team activities with the pros when he tore his Achilles tendon. Characteristically drawing on his Mormon faith, Jake said, “Looking at the spiritual side of things, it was a massive blessing. It woke me up. It made me realize that maybe I need to look at something besides this game.”

  It wasn’t an easy transition when he stepped away from something that had defined him since he was a kid.

  “I had to learn to answer the questions ‘Who am I? What do I do?’ Before, it was ‘I’m Jake Peterson. I play football,’” he recalls. “Now I’m Jake Peterson. Period. It was a huge loss of identity.”

  Since graduating from college, he’s built a career in the fitness industry in California, gotten married, and become a father to a daughter in fall 2019. He remains active in his Mormon faith. Even watching football games on weekends has taken a backseat to other interests. For example, on Sundays he’s busy with his church. If he’s not working, he prefers to spend time with his wife. The years playing football seem very far away.

  “For decades, [football] was my number one priority in life. It influenced the way I slept, the way I ate. From high school on, it was my top priority. That wasn’t fun. I wish I had enjoyed things a little bit more. Ultimately it just ends up being a game.”

  He’s not the only former Quaker to turn his back on football. After graduating with a degree in biomedical engineering, Daniel Lipschutz was living the life twenty-somethings dream of having. He had a good job, an apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, and a lot of free time to socialize. “I started realizing my job wasn’t challenging enough and it didn’t leave me very fulfilled or energized,” Daniel says. He left his engineering job in 2015 to travel, spending time in Bangladesh and other countries. A mechanical engineering and design class taken in his last year at Penn had sparked a long-forgotten interest in drawing. Eventually he returned to Philadelphia, establishing himself as a freelance graphic designer, muralist, and teaching artist. Working with a mural arts program in the city has given him “amazing opportunities,” he says. It’s caused him to focus in a way that reminds him of the days when he first learned to kick a football. He likens the focus required to learn to be a place kicker with the focus he brings to creating art.

  “That was tapping into a similar part of my brain that hadn’t been tapped since those early months of playing football,” Daniel says.

  He was ambivalent about his beloved Philadelphia Eagles’ 2017 Super Bowl. It prompted him to write a long, thoughtful statement on Facebook.

  “Football has provided so many benefits to my life. Some of my old teammates are still living their NFL dreams today, and it’s been thrilling watching them manifest their careers. But the current state of the game that I once loved is breaking my heart,” He says. “I can’t watch without thinking about Owen and wishing he were still here. I’m in a strange place, having played the one position largely devoid of any chance of head trauma. I don’t have to worry about my own brain in this regard, but I can’t help thinking about my friends.”

  Although many of the football boys experienced changes in their transition from college to adult life, perhaps the most significant change came with fatherhood. Raucous parties were replaced by baby showers and get-togethers for a child’s first birthday. Marc Quilling was the first to become a father with the birth of Chase Owen in 2012. His second child, a daughter named Alivia, arrived in 2016. His pictures on social media are now likely to be shots of family camping trips or trick-or-treating at Halloween. Mike Fay, who once protected Marc’s blind side on the football field, posts pictures of his wife, Stephanie, little Penelope, and baby River on afternoon trips to the pumpkin patch or visits to Santa Claus at a Christmas tree farm.

  Jamie Pagliaro and his wife, Alyssa, have already brought their son, James, to W
illiam & Mary’s Zable Stadium where Jamie played. When the couple announced that a second addition to their family slated to arrive in 2020 would be another boy, Jamie posted on social media, “We got two-fifths of an offensive line in the Pagliaro household!” The baby, whom they named Brady, was born January 2, 2020.

  For those who are the fathers of boys, there is the inevitable question of whether their sons will play football. At one time, Owen’s friends would have said that the question is not “if,” but “when.” The answer is not as clear now. They all agree that they have no regrets about playing. CTE—which, with every new research finding, appears to have been a significant factor in their friend’s death—has not tarnished the game for them. The shared bond with other men who love football made it worth the risk. The brotherhood formed around hours in the weight room, the shared discipline of early morning runs, and the joy of Friday nights under the lights or crisp fall Saturdays in the stadium is an indelible part of their lives.

  “It meant so much, including building character for me and my friends,” Marc Quilling says. “High school football for me was one of the best times of my life, from the point of view of the brotherhood I had from playing the game. The friends I had and the coaches I had were some of my best friends.” He supports the idea of his son playing the game “100 percent.” Marc acknowledges that flag football is the best way for the youngest players to begin building skills.