PLAYING FOR A CHRISTIAN FOOTBALL COACH: REMEMBERING COACH GEORGE COATES TOOP III
The year was 1971, and my sports self-esteem — in the only three sports that seemingly mattered then — was hanging by a thread. My hand-eye coordination was so poor that in little league, when the other team was short a player, without any hesitation, my coach traded me. In the basketball try out, I wasn’t paying attention and when put in, I immediately swished a shot — on the wrong basket. You can imagine how much longer that try out lasted. My football skill set was no more refined. But there was one sort of rough-hewn skill that I had. Though standing just five foot nine, and 155 pounds, I could run full speed for forty yards at another young man who was running full speed at me — and only one of us would flinch. It wasn’t me.
It was having perfected this highly-refined sports skill that I arrived at Chaminade, a Catholic all-boys school in Mineola, NY. On my arrival, the field was covered. Well over 100 young men routinely tried out for its freshman football team in those days.
And that was where I first met my football coach, George Coates Toop III. An elementary school physical education teacher and alternately the Chaminade freshman or junior varsity football coach since 1958, his career did not appear to be upwardly mobile. Perhaps it was his lack of sartorial splendor that held him back. Let’s just say he was the actual inventor of “un-tuck it.” He carried nearly 300 pounds on perhaps a six-foot-two frame. He sported a jar-head type crew cut, which reminded us daily of his service as a marine in World War II. Most imposing of all, besides his boisterous baritone voice and laugh, was that he had an inexplicable indentation in his throat that had apparently been sewn shut — an anomaly that we 14-year-olds rumored was a war wound likely caused by some unfathomable act of heroism.
Attending an all-boys high school, three things were clear. First, my social status was going to be inextricably linked to my sports stature. Second, football, with its large squad size, was the only sport where I had a chance of making the team. And third, that this imposing, crew-cutted man had to send home in silent tears most of the boys in front of him before they even put on a uniform. Helmets didn’t grow on trees.
Football at Chaminade in those days was not for the faint of heart. The varsity team had won the New York Metro Catholic High School Football League Championship the year before, as it routinely did, and a sign hanging over the locker room stairs proclaimed:
“THROUGH THIS DOOR WALK THE FINEST FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN THE CHFSL”
The “back field,” as it was known, was our practice area. Nothing had ever been planted there successfully, not even grass. Perhaps it was ignored by the farmers who settled Long Island because it was adorned with multiple layers of rocks atop a hard-baked crust of dirt that had the texture of cement. I don’t mean a few rocks. Detention at Chaminade, for the unruly among us, consisted of being handed a bucket and told to clear rocks from the “back field.” A decade of detentions had barely made a dent.
The tone on the Chaminade back field was set by former army lieutenant (ret.) Joseph Thomas, son of football Pittsburgh, a WWII veteran, Chaminade’s former champion football coach and now Athletic Director, and another devotee of crew cuts. His football head coaching record at Chaminade over two decades was 120–46–7. He was named the CHSFL coach of the year seven times, until it got monotonous, and they had to pick someone else. Decades after he left, respect for him in the city of Pittsburgh still ran so high that when he passed away in 1995, Art Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Stealers, gave one of the eulogies. And he was supervising my freshman football try out.
“You’re up,” was all I heard. It was Coach Toop’s booming voice. All around me, chest-sculpted young men, who had been lying on their backs on the hard crusted dirt, were now triangularly balancing backwards on just the tops of their heads and their two feet. That was how I discovered what we all came to love: “neck bridges.” And until Coach Toop yelled “you’re down,” making the team meant that you stayed up.
Wind sprints at Chaminade were the stuff of legend. They began at 50 yards. We ran away from Coach Toop, and then towards him, in waves like an advancing army. Given the unique physical attributes that I brought to the table — I was equally as slow as I was small — I needed a wind sprints survival strategy.
When I ran toward Coach Toop, flanked by dozens of my aspiring teammates, I moved to the center of the line and raced right at him. When I ran away from him, I moved to the edges of the group and conserved my energy. A half an hour into the sprints, when those who were running full speed both directions were entirely winded, I was routinely reaching Coach Toop first.
“What’s your name son?” he inquired. “Maloof,” I said, intuitively knowing that he had no particular use for my first name. Then came that voice: “Is Maloof the only freshman out here that wants to win football games?”
I was in.
Soon enough I was an undersized, but starting middle linebacker. We hardly needed to play defense. Chaminade practiced “power football,” sometimes sending three blockers into a hole ahead of the runner. Our tailback had been a track star and was rumored to be the fastest kid on Long Island. If he broke through, the defensive linemen needed binoculars to track him. Our wingback had the type of well-defined six-pack you’d expect from a guy who grew up moving frozen blocks of water at his father’s ice company. Once, he sauntered around the locker room, with just a towel on, challenging his teammates to punch him in the stomach. No one took him up on it.
We went undefeated.
With two games to go in the freshman season, I broke a knuckle making a tackle. Now in a cast, I told Coach Toop that I would be removing it for the purpose of playing the last game. I had done that “successfully” in junior football, removing a splint on a broken pinky, which “allowed” me to play. My right pinky is still deformed today. Coach Toop looked me straight in the eye and, in his usual voice, bellowed “Son, I wouldn’t let you take that cast off if you were Johnny Unitas.”
I wasn’t Johnny Unitas.
Not only did we win every game, but we won the “Toop Way.” Coach Toop seemed to follow four principles, which I will call the “Four P’s.” First, you out-“Prepared” your opponent — hence the wind sprints. Second, was that “Passion” mattered — you went full speed on game day. Third, was “Positivity” — no matter how great or little skill you had, when you gave it your all, Coach Toop praised you like you were a star. And fourth, “Pride” mattered — not only your pride, but the pride of the other team. He wanted us to win every game, but never by more than just a few touchdowns.
The angriest that I ever saw him was when our third string tailback, eager for his first trip to the end zone, and forgetting the directive that we were not to run up the score, instead of going out of bounds ran the ball in (putting us up by four touchdowns). He then gestured toward our sideline with his arms extended, expecting to be praised. To his surprise, Coach Toop was already halfway across the field, clearly animated in his unhappiness. If he had a helmet, I have no doubt that he would have tackled the tailback at the five.
A few years later, we were the varsity. We had a different coach.
We lost our first two games.
Then something happened that rarely happens on the high school level. The varsity coach was replaced by Coach George Coates Toop III. The junior level Chaminade football coach since 1958 was somehow now oddly appointed my coach again in mid-season. It was such a strange turn of events that it made The New York Times.
It didn’t take Coach Toop long to resurrect me, from where I was gathering dust on the bench, to play linebacker. The ice–lifter had become the best running back and one of the best linebackers on Long Island. But when you run 80 yards carrying people on your back, you get tuckered out. That was when I shined.
Just as Coach Toop had resurrected me from the bench, he also resurrected our team. We won five games in a row — qualifying for the CHSFL playoffs.
In the playoffs, we found ourselves matched up against Cardinal Spellman, a city powerhouse. They had the best running quarterback in the metro area, who would also star in college. In a rarity for those days, we actually had film on him. He seemed to rack up like 200 yards. Watching the film left the team silent. We had no one near his stop-and-start quickness. Coach Toop then addressed the team: since this would be our last high school game, all of the seniors would start. And, he said, Maloof would not play a set position (uh oh, I thought, back on the bench). Instead, Maloof would be our guy to track and tackle their star quarterback wherever he went. I was a “rover back.”
We seniors fought like it was Guadalcanal. Our offense scored a ton of points, with the ice-lifter running for 254 yards. Our back-up senior quarterback, throwing short, crisp passes, looked like, you guessed it, Johnny Unitas. If this was a Disney movie, I would tell you that we stopped him dead, but in reality, while their star quarterback was hit hard by all of us, in the end, he ran for, well, like around 200 yards. I don’t think we could have stopped him if the game was two-hand touch. We narrowly lost the playoff game. Proving once again that in football, while toughness is critical, speed is priceless.
As for my career, I was more than satisfied. Never having grown, the deficit between my size and that of the linebackers in the league had only continued to widen each year. (There was one technological advantage in that regard that I utilized to full benefit to help close the gap: vastly oversized shoulder pads. See Number 50 in the lower right-hand corner of the photo at the end of this article). Yet even when I didn’t have a position, my teammates made me a critical “starter.” They designated me to start each game by leading the team in prayer in front of the statue of Mary. One of my coaches, Pat Kirwin, who today is a leading NFL analyst on Sirius XM radio, told me I should consider myself “like the special team’s captain.” (I then went on to brag to all my teammates that I was the special teams captain, which caused him to gruffly pull me aside to ask “What are you doing?, I said you were like the special teams captain”).
And I had the odd moments where passion prevailed. In an exhibition game against our archrival, Garden City High School, we won 14–12. I blocked both extra points, partially with my face, because I was too slow to get my arms up. On the punt block team, I convinced the meanest, toughest guy we had to block the lineman who was supposed to block me, so that I could rush in and get the football. We ran the play over and over — never bothering to notify our coaches. Finally, it worked. I blocked a punt, caught the football on one bounce, and ran it in for a touchdown, winning the game. Passion mattered.
To say that Coach Toop was ready for his promotion is a significant understatement. His next two teams restored Chaminade to the league championship. His 1978 team went 10–0–0, and won the Metro-Bowl as the best Catholic or public school team in the New York area, a record unequaled to this day in the CHSFL. His overall record as a football coach at Chaminade was 137–42–4. He won 6 CHSFL championships at various levels. He also won numerous championships as Chaminade’s baseball coach for 15 years. He was named an honorary member of the CHSFL “Board of Governors.” Not just for a term, or even for life. He was named to the Board — forever. Today, Chaminade awards its most improved varsity football player every year “The George Toop Award.”
In 2005, Coach Toop had cancer. I was told that he had lost a lot of weight. Now it was my turn to preserve his pride. I didn’t want him to have me see him that way. So instead of visiting him, we had a long, leisurely, telephone conversation. Time stood still, for what seemed like hours. He reveled joyfully in every major play and laughed heartily.
He told one story that I didn’t recollect. He said that in our first game against Mount Saint Michael, as lowly freshman, they had just chalked up a non-descript field in the Bronx, it probably didn’t even have goal posts. Once our track star had left the defense in the dust, he duly spiked the ball. His first touchdown. The problem was that he had only made it to the five-yard line. Coach Toop was in stitches. He said you never saw such mayhem as 21 young men scrambled, half the length of the field, like “Keystone Kops,” to jump on a football. By then, he was laughing so hard, I was hopeful that a nurse’s station was nearby. I always knew that he loved football, and by the end of the call, I knew that he had loved me. I already knew that I loved him.
There’s no doubt that love of football was something he inspired. Now, 45 years later, his two sons, Mike Toop and Greg Toop, are still coaching football at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Imagine how thrilled Coach Toop must be. As Mike put it, Coach Toop taught them that a good coach, like a good car, had working rearview mirrors, so that you never forget where you came from.
As for Coach Toop’s war wound, Mike Toop revealed to me that we had only guessed the half of it. Coach Toop volunteered for the marines at the age of 17. He stormed the beaches to take Saipan, an action known as “The Pacific D-Day.” The taking of Saipan was the turning point of the war, the use of whose airfields allowed our bombers to reach Tokyo. The marines’ battles with the Japanese grew so fierce there that one of the highlands was nicknamed “Purple Heart Ridge.” The Japanese refused to surrender, living in caves and tunnels. The toughest marines patrolled the jungle.
On patrol, their job was two-fold. One, to protect the marines. Second, to convince any Japanese they found that it was safe to drop their arms. It was a tough sell. Because surrendering was considered shameful, many Japanese committed suicide off a single cliff. One marine on Saipan, Corporal Guy Gabaldon, who spoke Japanese, won the Navy Cross, as he is credited with convincing over a thousand Japanese to surrender there and on another island, an extraordinary act featured in the movie “Hell to Eternity.”
Coach Toop was the “point man,” typically several meters ahead of the rest of the soldiers, in a tunnel. He was seeking out the enemies, authorized to take prisoners, when he took a bullet in the jaw and shoulder. Thus, even then, he was looking out for both teams. And there was here a second act of heroism — by a surgeon who performed an emergency tracheotomy on him in the field. Mike Toop explained that only a handful of his platoon made it home alive.
Dozens of former players came to Coach Toop’s wake. To a man, they all said the same thing — he wasn’t just a coach, he was a second father. And there, amidst a trophy case filled with football memorabilia, I learned something new. This gruff, oversized marine was a poet. The poem in the case read something like this, except it rhymed:
“ANY OLD COACH CAN COACH A WINNING TEAM, BUT IT TAKES A SPECIAL COACH TO SUCCESSFULLY COACH A LOSING TEAM, AND TO PRESERVE THE PRIDE OF EACH PLAYER.”
One wise person has written of sports:
“YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE ISN’T SOMEONE ELSE. IT’S THE ACHE IN YOUR LEGS AND THE BURNING IN YOUR LUNGS.
IT’S THE VOICE INSIDE YOU THAT YELLS “CAN’T” BUT YOU DON’T LISTEN — YOU PUSH HARDER. AND THEN YOU HEAR THE SAME VOICE WHISPER “CAN.”
AND YOU REALIZE THAT THE MAN YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE IS NO MATCH FOR THE ONE YOU REALLY ARE.’”
As a vulnerable young man, Coach Toop yelled “CAN” to me — not once, but twice — until, finally, even I believed him. And he taught me that “Passion” matters, a lesson that has served me well as a leading international lawyer and human rights advocate. I like to imagine that from time to time he may even be proud of me for looking out for the other team.
