I Was a Loyal Soldier in Bernie's Army

During the winter of 1974-75, my senior year at Wildwood High School, I had the honor and privilege of being a member of the varsity basketball team as the equipment manager. It was an exciting time at Wildwood High that year. Bernie McCracken was coming back to reassume the head coaching duties of the basketball team after a two-year hiatus. During his previous tenure he had won a handful of South Jersey titles and two state championships, so expectations were running high throughout all of Wildwood.

Aside from being a knowledgeable coach, Bernie was a strict disciplinarian and he expected his players to be prompt and ready to practice at the assigned time. I once heard a player remark that, “if you were shooting around when he blew the whistle to start practice, he expected you to stop in midair.” In my capacity as manager I was also subject to the same code of discipline and I was more than willing to do what it took to help him maintain his winning program. Even if it was only to take the uniforms to get cleaned.

“Here, take my car,” Coach McCracken said to me one afternoon. “Drop the uniforms off at Stokes’ Laundry and we’ll pick them up tomorrow.”

Practice ended and I went home, ate dinner, did my homework, and then called my friend Dan. I was standing in the hallway by the kitchen, as far as the cord would reach (for all of you young readers, phones were attached to cords back then) when I stuck my hand in my pocket and came up with a strange set of car keys. All of the blood drained from my head and I weakly blurted to Dan, “I gotta go!”

I plotted my route while in full sprint to my car: Ocean Avenue all the way to Schellenger (no lights), to Atlantic, to Surf Avenue, to the McCracken house on 3rd Street. My assumption was that there shouldn’t be a police presence down by the beaches in the dead of winter, so I could keep my foot pinned the entire way. My mind’s eye showed the angry coach sitting in a dark, empty gym silently plotting my murder. I quickly decided to swing by the school just in case I could bail him out before he had a chance to put his plan into motion.

Fortunately, the gym was dark so I turned back around and resumed my stealth route. At last I reached 3rd Street, pulled up to the house with a screech, bounded out of the car, and was met at the door by a smiling coach McCracken.

“Coach, I am so sorry,” I sputtered.

“Hey, Joe, it’s nice of you to remember me,” he said with a laugh. “Come on in and have a soda-pop.”

I accepted his invitation with great relief. “You didn’t have to come up here,” he said. “Kitty picked me up.”

I stayed for over one hour, shared a pop and some laughs over my absent-mindedness and then said goodnight. I returned to my car and found that it was still running with the driver’s door wide open.

Then I drove home (within the speed limit).