Emphasis on Slicks life moves from teaching to coaching
Charlie Slick was a teacher, principal, and coach in Brownsville from 1939 through 1964. In this week’s column, our focus shifts from the classroom to the athletic field as some of Charlie’s former players remember Coach Slick. Charlie was hired as an assistant to head football coach Earl Bruce in 1942. One year later, Brownsville’s 1943 team won the WPIAL AAA championship. In a 1982 interview, Charlie told Gary Thomas of the Tribune-Review, “That was a football team. There was Noodie Johns and Nat Barnette at halfback; Dan Stimmell at blocking back; Bert Sutton at fullback; Ross Herron and Bill Sutton on the ends; Bob Kraft and Barney Bakewell at tackle; Joe Drazenovich and John Simon at guard; and Chuck Drazenovich at center. Talk about quality.”
Quality, Charlie believed, resulted from concentration and determination, and he ran practices with that principal in mind. In 1982, Charles Lynch, left end on Brownsville’s undefeated 1947 team, described one of Charlie’s favorite tricks.
“I’ve never forgotten Charlie’s method of holding the football players’ attention while talking with the backs and receivers,” Lynch commented. “Charlie always had a football in his hand. He’d stand within 10 feet of the group, and his eyes would demand complete attention. If Charlie caught anyone whose eyes were not on his, he was known to get his attention by drilling a bullet pass straight at the guy’s nose. Since we didn’t have face masks then, Charlie’s method worked. At the end of every talk session, someone was always going to get the ball from Charlie. When you played for Charlie, you stayed alert.”
Bert Sutton played on Brownsville’s 1943 championship team. Bert, who lives in North Versailles, became a fellow coach and good friend of Charlie Slick.
“I know that at times he was said to be cold and insensitive,” Bert conceded, “but I never saw anything but a warm, funny human being. I remember when Charlie came by after varsity practice one day to give me a hand with my junior high football team.
“I had a fullback who for some reason could not align himself with the quarterback, so Charlie instructed him to line up on the quarterback’s heels. The player did exactly as directed. He moved up and put his toes right against the quarterback’s heels. Charlie looked over at me and deadpanned, ‘Lots of luck.'”
Charlie’s friends knew his lighter side, but his players rarely saw it.
“If you were dogging it,” said Brownsville’s Chuck Johnson, “he would give you a swift kick in the rear end and shout, “Get the lead out, son! Where do you think you are? Gimme 10 laps.”
“Mr. Slick was someone you didn’t mess with,” agreed Bob Bakewell of Morganton, N.C. “If he told you something, you better do it and not even look like you disagreed. He wasn’t big, but I remember him getting after the big guys like Joe Shoaf, Bill Valko, and Lester Billups. When he got through chewing them out, all I could think was, ‘I’m glad it wasn’t me.’ Yet if you had a problem, you knew that you could go to him and he would help you if he could.”
“He was a very good motivator of young men,” agreed Tom Kostelnik, Class of ’61. “Charlie took time to help me with the college selection process and advise me on areas of interest for a major. As a result, I enrolled at Notre Dame in 1961, majored in business, and eventually obtained my MBA. Today I have my own consulting business, and there is no question Charlie Slick played a part.”
After more than 40 years, the memory of Charlie Slick still provides inspiration.
“When I was living near Myrtle Beach,” explained Jim Garred of Phoenix, “I played golf with one of Charlie’s great athletes, Andy Sepsi, Jr. Andy and I were partners against two other guys, and we really wanted to win the match.
“So when we had a difficult shot to make, we would tell each other, ‘Just pretend Coach Slick ordered you to make this shot.’ Two grown men, years removed from those days, and Charlie could still inspire us to produce!”
Charlie declined the opportunity to become head football coach, preferring to serve as assistant to coaches Earl Bruce, Andy Sepsi, Sr., Warner Fritsch, Alex Barantovich and John Popovich. On the baseball diamond, though, Charlie was in charge. Freshmen walking onto Charlie’s practice field for the first time often did a double take when they spied the head baseball coach.
“He was the only person I knew who was more bowlegged than I was,” declared Cutty Cunningham of Yorktown, Va. What’s more, Charlie didn’t linger by the mirror when selecting an outfit to wear on the practice field.
A few years ago, Ron Forsythe, one of Charlie’s former players, humorously described Charley’s practice uniform.
“My friend’s description of the coach was camera correct,” Ron remembered about his first day at practice. “He had this guy down pat – voice, mannerisms, drills. But for some reason, my friend had never said a word about what this man wore on the field – an outfit without parallel in baseball history, a get-up that would have had Stalin in stitches, garb so bizarre as to demand description.
“How he ever got that faded black cap off his head, I’ll never know.
It looked as if it had been painted on centuries earlier. And those World War II army pants – baggy, brown, woolen – must have weighed 10 pounds per leg. If he wore spikes, I never saw them. His trousers hid his feet. His off-white football jersey made him a tough batting practice pitcher. Its arms were so long that the hitter never saw the ball coming.”
Appearance aside, Charlie was all business on the practice field. He had no patience for shenanigans or lukewarm effort.
“I can sum it up in one short sentence,” said Jim Garred, “that all of his former athletes can relate to – ‘Take off, son.’ When a player heard those words, he knew he had crossed the line and many laps would follow.”
“He taught us to play baseball aggressively,” added Gary Klingensmith, whose memories were shared at a 1982 testimonial dinner for Charlie. “We would steal on any pitch, and we were a swinging team, because in practice if we failed to swing at a good pitch, the next one was coming at our head.”
“I used many of the things he taught me when I became a coach,” noted Erman Hartmann, Class of ’59. “Charlie taught us things in high school that some major leaguers don’t learn today. We studied base stealing techniques in detail, and he taught every defensive position to every player, because you never knew when you might have to play out of position.”
Coach Slick made an instant impression at Gary Klingensmith’s first baseball practice.
“I was a freshman outfielder,” remembered Gary. “Coach Slick pitched batting practice, and I was positioned in center field behind his back, so I thought I was pretty safe. The first time I missed the ball, I started jogging after it.
“Then I saw the other outfielders waving to me that Mr. Slick was giving his ‘spinning fingers’ sign for me to start running laps. After a few laps, Mr. Slick called me over and said, ‘Don’t you ever trot after a missed ball. You run after it. And remember, I’ve got eyes in the back of my head.’
“I owe everything to Mr. Slick,” Gary declared. “He and Coach Dave Simon did a great job of selling me to Coach Earl Bruce of Penn State, which meant a full college scholarship for me. Mr. Slick taught me all I ever needed to know about discipline.”
Charlie even made a lasting impression on one particular Brownsville basketball player. Joe Fenwick told me, “Mr. Slick was a Penn State fan and a good friend of my dad, Joseph E. Fenwick. I played basketball at Pitt, and in my final game in l956, we beat Penn State and I played pretty well.
“The following weekend I went home, and on Saturday morning the phone rang. It was Mr. Slick. He had called to talk to my dad, and he was surprised when I answered the phone. He had been at the Penn State game and complimented me on my play. He went on to say how proud he was that night to be from Brownsville. Through the years I’ve always remembered that phone call, and what his compliment meant to me.
“I have always wondered, though, whom he was rooting for that night, Pitt or Penn State?”
Charlie enjoyed coaching, but his greatest disappointment was the decision to tear down Brownie Stadium in order to construct a new high school on the site.
“Dad was still principal when they were discussing building the current high school,” said Charlie’s daughter, Lee Slick. “Harrisburg officials came to inspect the site. My Dad accompanied them and told them, ‘This is probably the best stadium in the whole Mon Valley. The lighting system, the field, the drainage, the seating — why would you tear this down, when we have all of this land around here?’ His objections were futile, and Dad was always so disappointed that they tore that stadium down.”
Students and athletes knew that Charlie Slick was a demanding taskmaster. What must life have been like at home for Mr. Slick’s only child? Next week as we conclude our series, Charlie’s daughter Lee will reveal the side of her father that few students or athletes ever saw. Perhaps we will even find time to drop by the raucous 1982 “roast” of Mr. Slick, organized by his friends to honor this Brownsville legend.
Glenn Tunney may be contacted at 724-785-3201, glenatun@hhs.net or 6068 National Pike East, Grindstone, PA 15442. Comments about these weekly articles may be sent to Mark O’Keefe (Managing Editor – Day), 8 – 18 East Church Street, Uniontown, Pa. or e-mailed to mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com . All past articles are on the Web at http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~glenntunneycolumn/