It was an ordinary day. Just got off the phone with my son Tad. Told him about a great article that was in a recent Sunday newspaper telling about the guy that was influential in his early street hockey career. Guy with the scraggly beard and hair that looked like he had stuck his finger in an electric socket. Don Krow was a street hockey...well, add to that inline, roller or any type of outdoor hockey, coach when Tad first got interested in the sport.
It was about the same time that he took up ice hockey which would have been when he was in Middle School or a very early teenager. Tad was a natural from the moment he put anything on his feet. Gliding across the crease and taking a quick slap shot was something easy to miss if you weren't watching him closely. One day he asked if he could play street hockey on a team with a couple of fiends at the outdoor Lancaster rink near our county prison. Street hockey is slightly different than roller in that you wear only sneakers on your feet. His coach was a strange looking man by the name of Don Krow. Tad introduced me to Don on my first visit to the rink.
A friendly and genuinely nice guy. He loved athletics as well as coaching. For a few years we traveled to the rink in Lancaster for games, but in the early 2000s Tad began playing on a roller-hockey team at the East Petersburg rink which was just about the same distance from our home in Lancaster. When Carol and I showed up for his first game, there he was; the guy with the scraggly long hair. Only difference was it was showing signs of gray. Tad has been out of school for almost 25 years now and still plays roller-hockey every week-end with a bunch of guys who love the sport and are looking for a good week-end workout. Many of the guys were classmates and teammates when Tad played ice hockey in Middle School. But the rink they now use is near Tad's house on the far west side of Lancaster; thus no Don Krow anymore.
Don still coaches boys and men at East Petersburg. Well, after coaching 20 years in Lancaster, with 17 of those at East Petersburg, the East Petersburg Inline Hockey organization named their rink "The Krow's Nest" in honor of Don. They have also named their championship trophy "Lord Don's Chalice." Quite fitting for a man who has given his entire life to coaching boys, young men and adults in the sport of hockey. Now, if you have been wondering about sexism, I'm sure there were a few girls that he coached during his career. Tad and I would see Don from time to time at other sporting events and he always found time to stop to talk with us. I'm sure he really appreciated the recent accolades, but I truly believe he coached year after year since hockey, of any sort, was his passion and his life. I'm sure when Tad reads the article it will bring back many fond memories. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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| Tad's High School senior photograph |
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| Don Krow |
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| Don standing behind the plaque that will be displayed at the rink. |
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