Meet Three Thode Athletes The name Ed Thode will be familiar to anybody who attended Abington Friends during the 1970s. An administrator, coach and creator of AFS’s Middle School program, Ed Thode was a vital member of the community until his sudden death in 1979. The Thode gym was named in his honor, and in 1983 the Thode Athletic Award was established to keep his spirit and devotion to the school alive. According to Athletic Director Jeff Bond, The Thode Athlete is “that member of each varsity team who, in the consensus of the players and coaches, best represents the team and the school. To be named a Thode Athlete is one of the highest honors a student can receive at AFS.” Since the Thode Athletic Award program began, the lineup of sports for which our students are honored has evolved. As former field hockey (among many other sports) coach Carol Palmer remembers, “As more and more girls became interested in soccer, the decision was made to switch from field hockey to soccer, since the school could not field two big varsity teams.” In its day, though, field hockey was huge at AFS and the girls’ team had a remarkable record of achievement. Here, three Thode Athletes talk about what it means to be so honored, and how the AFS athletics program has helped shape their lives.
Kathy Alter Hazen ’84, Thode Athlete for Field Hockey, 1984 Kathy came to AFS in fifth grade from public school. Always athletic by nature, Kathy played hockey, lacrosse and basketball in Middle School (as well as kickball and waffle ball in the backyards of her Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood) but by ninth grade field hockey had become her sport. “I was too short for basketball and didn’t really like lacrosse. Our coaches were Debbie Stauffer and Carol Palmer. It was competitive and we played our hardest. We were definitely expected to give it everything we had.
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athletics. Self-esteem, too, and a sense of accomplishment. Playing field hockey at AFS is definitely among my happiest memories. There came a point, though, where all the girls wanted to play soccer. There was a girl who was a year or two below me, Kristine Munholland, who wanted to play soccer and there was no girls’ soccer at that time so they allowed her to play on the boys’ team. Here was a girl who wanted to play soccer and there was no such thing, and they found a way for her to do it.” Carol and Debbie were tough coaches. They expected us to be in shape and to run too much, but they were fun too. They had a sense of humor and could get silly with the rest of the team. It was fun and it was serious all wrapped up in one. Sometimes in practices we’d goof off. We were kids. They could tolerate that. But at the same time we had to be serious.
Jake Segal ’11, Thode Athlete for Wrestling, 2010 Jake Segal started at AFS in the middle of ninth grade, transferring from Germantown Friends School.
Morristown Friends and George School both had pretty good teams. Those are the two that stick in my head. I mainly played left half-back defense.
“When I started wrestling in ninth grade things really changed for me. My first year I went 0 for 16 and even though I lost every match my teammates were still appreciative that I was a part of the team. They didn’t look down on me. The next year I went 5 and 8 and last year I was 20 and 10 or something.
Being named a Thode Athlete? I think it was kind of a big deal. It’s always good to be recognized, especially in your senior year as you go off to college. I think confidence and aggressiveness, that competitive part of me was really developed through taking part in
Last year in the beginning of the year I was going into the season and hadn’t done that well the year before. I went in with low expectations. I remember a tournament at Germantown Academy that year. I went 4 and 1 and got third place. The match that