News from Sept. 2007:

Proctor recalls history vividly

By Craig Juer
(Daily Sports Writer)

STRASBURG — A 23-year-old sports enthusiast, fresh out of college, accepted a job in the rural Shenandoah Valley hamlet of Strasburg, Va. He had aspirations that far outweighed the job he was offered, but he took the position knowing it could be a terrific starting point for what he hoped would be a long, rewarding career.

The preceding sentences could easily be found in the opening paragraphs of a biography of Strasburg Rams coach Glenn Proctor. That's why it's so difficult to wrap my mind around the significance of Proctor's current feat: not the 300 wins, mind you, but the fact that he's in his 44th year of coaching at Strasburg High School. Truth be told, those first two sentences could just as easily be written about me.

The sheer longevity of his tenure to date is what's mind boggling to someone with my relative inexperience. Proctor came to Strasburg High School in 1964 as a 23-year-old graduate of Glenville (W.Va.) State, with what he now refers to as "illusions" of eventually coaching in college football. He already had two years of experience as a football, basketball and track coach at Green Bank (W.Va.) High School, and Strasburg looked to be the next step for his wife and him.

Twenty years later, I was born. Twenty-two years after that, I got my journalism degree and found my way to The Northern Virginia Daily. Thirteen months later, I'm in my second year working in Strasburg; Proctor, of course, is still here. He's been in Strasburg longer than the road I took (Interstate 81) to get here.

I'm not trying to make anyone (Proctor, least of all) feel old; I was blown away to learn just how many years have accumulated in his tenure. The man doesn't look like he's much older than his 46-year-old career, and seems to have no problem motivating players who are less than a third his age. His memory certainly doesn't seem to be struggling with the near half-century's worth of names and faces he's encountered in Strasburg.

I made an unannounced visit to Rams practice Monday and, after waiting for the end of the team's daily conditioning drills (during which Proctor, as usual, explained to his players the physiological benefits of the crunches they were doing as they were doing them), I approached him with an arsenal of questions.

I'd spent the better part of the afternoon holed up in the Daily's crypt-like archives, poring over 44-year-old newsprint and envisioning myself stumping Proctor with some of the trivia I'd dug up on his inaugural squad.

"Do you know I could name every one of those guys on that team?" he said when I broached the subject.

"Think so?" I replied, grinning. I had the '64 roster scribbled down on the notepad in my hands.

Without pause, he began to name every player he coached that first season — by position.

"The ends were Ikey Himelright and Gary Campbell," he began. "The guards were Randy Estep and Winston Gillenwater. The center was Henry Himelright, the quarterback was Carl Burgreen ..."

"All right," I said, when he'd finished. "Now do 1965."

And he would have, if I hadn't stopped him — I didn't have the 1965 lineup written down, and it was clear I'd have to do better than that if I wanted to impress him with facts about his own coaching history. (Later, he told me the jersey number of each one of the six members of the Ramsey family who'd played for him.)

I reminded Proctor of the first quote of his printed in the Daily, in a story dated Aug. 18, 1964, announcing the beginning of the Proctor era.

"Proctor said the 34 footballers that turned out for practice 'looked good, spirited and eager.'"

I didn't have to tell him who wrote it.

"Bill Orndorff was the sports editor at the time," he informed me, unbidden. "I thought right much of Bill. Bill and I had a very good relationship."

It turns out Proctor keeps lists of the people who've played even the smallest of roles in his life. Not just of Rams players he's had, but coaches he's worked with, coaches he's coached against, and even sportswriters. On that list you'll find Orndorff, who had a single page of newsprint earmarked for sports each day and who (ostensibly) had the distinction of writing, for the only time in the last 44 years, the headline: "Strasburg Gets New Head Coach."

You'll also find the more recent writers, any of whom would tell you that Proctor is the best quote — as well as the most approachable fellow — in the area, which is saying something considering the caliber of the Shenandoah Valley's cast of coaches. Think it's a coincidence that he's also been around the longest?

Proctor abandoned his "illusions" of becoming a college coach, he said, when he noticed in the classroom that the kids whose parents moved them around from school to school were more commonly the ones who exhibited discipline issues. He didn't want that to be the case for his sons, Todd and Nick, so he stayed put rather than subject his family to the instability of the college coaching carousel.

"In order to really advance in the collegiate coaching world, you have to be prepared to move, and move a lot," he told me. "You've got to be at Florida State for two years, you go to Auburn for a year, you're in Texas for a year, you go to Hawaii for three years, you're at Penn State for five years. ... I just really was not willing to have my kids grow up like that."

After 20 minutes or so of chatting Monday, I asked Proctor how much longer he was planning on staying at his second job.

"It's getting close," he admitted. "That's something that I don't know. We'll see."

I, for one, hope it's not getting too close — after all, I just got here. And with 44 years and 299 wins in the bag, what're another 101 or so?