KEVIN FREEMAN & JUDD WISE LOOK BACK ON LENGTHY CAREERS

Longtime Keys Coaches Chronicle Evolution In Athletics

TRACY McDONALD www.keysweekly.com

Coaches in the Keys seem to be split between two camps. In one, they are here for a few years, coach a few sports, have a little fun, then move on to more affordable living on the mainland. The other group seems to have been here forever, coaching the kids of the athletes they coached at the beginning of their careers and becoming fixtures at the schools fortunate enough to have them. It is the second group of coaches who seem to have made an indelible mark on the students, athletes and communities in which they work, and their expertise is heavily relied upon by new hires and those learning how to survive in such a unique work environment.

With prep sports competition all but over for the summer, this week the spotlight will be on a pair of educators who have more than 65 years of combined coaching experience in the Keys. Kevin Freeman is a physical education teacher at Marathon High School and has coached plenty of different sports, many times taking the helm for three in one year. Judd Wise is a health and physical education teacher at Key West High School where he has done (and often still does) just about everything related to athletics.

Freeman is one of the longest tenured coaches still actively coaching in the Middle Keys. He started his career in 2002, taking roles in JV football and JV basketball that season. Over the course of his 20-plus years coaching, Freeman has filled coaching roles in football, basketball, volleyball, softball, tennis and golf.

He said the biggest change he has experienced is technology.

“We used to take a school bus to every single away game. We didn’t have school vans and didn’t do rentals then. Not everybody had a phone, so we would talk to each other on the bus trips,” he said.

“Players and coaches had conversations, and we used to have more fun traveling, even though it was on a school bus.”

He noted the positives of technology as well, such as the ease in creating interactive practice plans and finding new drills. “You used to have to go to a coach’s clinic or buy a book, but that’s all easier now,” he explained.

When asked about the craziest printable thing that ever happened to him in his two decades of coaching, he cited his varsity basketball team’s district championship win over Westwood Christian School in 2010.

“After we won the game, the kids dumped the cooler of water over me in the gym,” he recalled. “The assistant coach from Westwood slipped and fell in the water and had to get stitches in his head. He was already unhappy about the loss, so that didn’t help.”

Longtime Conchs coach Wise is a Key West athletics fixture. Wise started coaching in 1981 and rattled off a resume including coach- ing roles in volleyball, swimming, football, boys and girls soccer, girls wrestling, basketball, baseball and softball. But you might recognize him from his current role as Coach Wise, announcing home games and events for the Conchs in the press box and on the radio.

When transportation became an issue on an island so far from the mainland, Wise earned his CDL and has been driving a school bus for 30-plus years. He’s worked the concession stand – “cooked a lot of food, raised a lot of money” – and even did a stint on cable television highlighting Key West’s sports teams.

Clearly he knows the ins and outs of athletics, and when asked about the changes in coaching, he did not hesitate. Like Freeman, Wise found technology to be the biggest difference.

“Social media has changed it all. Kids didn’t have phones 24/7 in the ’80s and ’90s,” he said. “Before the phone was such a big part of their lives, sports were everything.”

He had a lot of praise for today’s coaches, saying, “You’re a special person to coach today. You’ve got a lot to deal with outside the sport itself and parents are more involved. Parents didn’t go to practice in the ’80s, but now they take very active roles and make it difficult for some coaches.”

In his 40-plus years in athletics, Wise recounted an event that occurred during his first year in the Keys as the craziest. “My very first year of coaching down here, I was doing baseball. There was a foul ball and the catcher and first baseman ran into each other. The first baseman’s gum got caught in his throat, and we all had to rush to get it out because he couldn’t breathe.”

He credited “Coach Welch,” his assistant, in saving the player’s life. “We didn’t know much about the Heimlich back then. Coach Welch just reached in and grabbed it out.” Astonishingly, the first baseman finished out the game after his near-death experience on the field.

After decades in the classroom, Wise is contemplating retirement in the near future, but don’t worry, he says.

“I’m not giving up coaching.”