GOW News
Honoring Coach Rob Marshman, Recipient of the 2017 Floyd Peckham Memorial Award By Luke Loeffel ’19
The article below, written by Gow junior Luke Loeffel, was printed in Gow’s student newspaper celebrating Gow’s Head of the Upper School Rob Marshman and his recent recognition as the 2017 Floyd Peckham Memorial Award. In November, Mr. Rob Marshman received the Floyd Luke Loeffel Peckham Memorial Award. This award is given to a coach who has distinguished himself, his soccer program and has been coaching for a long time. The award is named for Floyd Peckham from Holland, New York, who is known as the father of soccer in Western New York. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mr. Peckham organized the first interscholastic soccer league with seven public schools and three private schools. The Gow School was one of those original schools, making it one of the first schools in Western New York to compete in soccer. Mr. Marshman first started coaching at The Gow School in 1998. He coached modified soccer for his first year, then quickly moved up to head coach of the junior varsity soccer team for three years. After being the head coach of junior varsity, he became the assistant coach for the varsity soccer team for two years. After being the assistant coach, he became the head coach of the varsity team until 2016.
2017
Mark Szafnicki, Gow Direcor of Athletics, Rob Marshman and Mark Butler, Head of the Officials’ Association
One thing Mr. Marshman really enjoyed about coaching were the relationships he developed with his players and how much he grew to care about their success and ability to do well on the field. For Mr. Marshman, soccer came pretty late in his life. It wasn’t until he spent time in the United Kingdom that he started to learn about soccer. In the United Kingdom, soccer is a passion for everyone, and almost everyone has their own favorite team or player. For him, as time went on, his love for the sport grew more and more. He ended up playing soccer in school since he enjoyed the sport so much. Some of Mr. Marshman’s favorite memories of coaching over the years are watching the team winning a championship and overall seeing everyone’s growth as a team each year. Mr. Marshman ended his coaching career in 2016 with Mr. Zeis taking the varsity head coach position.
Gow Life
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