Page 2 - Priorities #9 1999-March

Benedictine Letter
One of the pleasures of becoming Director of Alumni Affairs is the opportunity to get in touch with people from the school’s past. I particularly enjoyed a letter from John Lanzone, Class of ‘62, recalling his experiences playing on the Priory’s league champion soccer team, which achieved an undefeated season that year.
Since Priorities features health and sports in this issue, I would like to share with you some of John’s memories of that glory year. His entire colorful and entertaining letter, and a team photo, is on the school web site alumni page, www.woodsidepriory.com.
Not many high schools had soccer teams in those days but there were enough for a league. The PHSL League then included Menlo, San Carlos, Sequoia, Serra,and South San Francisco Highs- both public and private schools.
Coach Philip Waters, in his first year at the Priory, started his boys out in the autumn with flag football practice, then moved to serious soccer drills, tough calesthenics and pre-season games in the spring, mostly against local college freshman teams, John says.
The boys knew Coach worked them hard and pulled them together as a team. What they didn’t know is that he’d never coached soccer before.
“Our first scrimmage was against Stanford’s Freshmen... They were very good, consisting mostly of European students who were waiting around for their sophomore year when their varsity eligibility would kick in. (These freshmen) easily beat Stanford’s Varsity and Junior Varsity teams in practice games.
We lost to them something like 18-0. They ran us ragged and it was almost fun to watch their footwork and teamwork... That game taught us that we were not at all in shape,” John said.
John’s clearest recollections are of the last two games, against Sequoia and South SF.
“Sequoia had a center forward who was born in Europe and who was a highly skilled soccer player. He was a much, much better center forward than I was and Coach recognized that I could not possibly
guard him effectively. So he had Darryl (Laye), who was a fullback, guard him; Darryl was to stick with him all game long no matter where he went. Louie Brown (‘64) our center halfback was to drop back and take Darryl’s spot at fullback.
This strategy was new to us, but it worked perfectly and neutralized the league’s best offensive player...”
Daryl became the League MVP that season. John thinks Larry David, Louie Brown and Bob Dougherty were also on the all-star team; he remembers for sure than he made second string all-star center forward, right behind that Sequoia guy.
The last game was against South SF. Some of the Priory players dropped in on a game to scout the talent.
“Rick West moved over behind (the South SF) bench to get a better view. Next, he moved in front of their bench. Then, he started talking to their coach and asking him what they were doing, etc. as the game progressed... When Rick came back to our little group, he had a big grin on his face...”
John says he doesn’t know to this day what part, if any, that conversation played in their final game but they won it.
Much to the players’ disappointment, Coach Waters left at the end of that year to take a position in Placerville, CA. John helped him move. During the move he found out about the coach’s background and asked how he’d managed to achieve such a successful season.
‘I got this book on soccer coaching, read it through and coached it, one chapter at a time!’ the coach said.
That’s not so different from the advice we give students facing new challenges today. You set your goal and you give it your best effort, a step at a time.
The year was 1962. Woodside Priory’s soccer team was undefeated. What the boys didn’t know is that Coach Waters had never coached soccer before.
On the Cover:
The historic locomotive teams up with students Alex Moore, Amanda Davison and Caitlin McCarthy to set the scene for this year’s auction and ball. The photo is from The Twentieth Century Limited by Richard J. Cook, Sr.
Maritn Mager, OSB
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