Doyle gets 'rapped up' in coaching memories

The greatest gift people can share is memories. Pat Doyle felt that way when he looked back at his notes from the nine years he coached "Patty Hockey" in his unique style to 135 players in the Pee Wee and Bantam teams from the Brick Hockey Club from 1989 to 1998 that went 321-72-34 and went on to play in the Pee Wee national championships in two of three years.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PAT DOYLE Pat Doyle (r) with his 7-year-old daughter Christina. Doyle published a book titled "Forever Their Coach: All Rapped Up."

The 50-year-old lifelong Brick resident decided to share those reflections in a 307-page book titled "Forever Their Coach: All Rapped Up," published earlier this year through outshirtpress.com. The book is $27.95 and may be purchased through Barnes & Noble stores or online at barnesandnoble.com or amazon.com. There also is a forevertheircoach.com Web site.D

oyle spent 18 months compiling the book and another six months working at publishing it in March. He said he is donating part of the proceeds to providing recreational opportunities for children with autism.

"The passion always burns in you, and it was running through me for all these years. To compile all of these great memories and put them in a book is an awesome feeling and my way of saying, 'Thanks for the memories,'" said Doyle, who dedicated the book to a number of influential people in his life, particularly his 7-year-old daughter, Christine. "Now that these guys are all adults, it's pretty special. Now they can step back and realized life's lessons you can teach through sports and how they walk through those lessons and learn what life is about and how to handle it."

Many who have played under Doyle have emotionally rekindled past experiences as they read through the book and share his sentiments. Even Brick Hockey Club "outsiders" reading the book can appreciate the legacy of the club and the success Doyle shared in it. Residents see it as another source of civic pride.

"I talked to seven or eight former players who read the book and they all felt the same way I did," said Tom Schlegel, who played under Doyle for the Pee Wee team in 1993-94 and the Bantam team in 1995- 96. "It's an extremely accurate portrayal. Anyone who thought about looking back realized it helped us. We remembered lessons we learned that molded us as human beings not only in hockey but in our lives. I took seriously about being on time and stayed that way to today in the work I do."

Schlegel, 29, works for a plumbing and HVAC wholesaler. In high school, he played for the Brick Memorial team that lost to Brick Township in the NJSIAA Public School state championship. Schlegel still plays hockey in an open men's league at American Hockey Center in Wall on the Red Army team with many other players from Brick.

"I read it through two sittings; I couldn't put it down," said Justin Sorrentino, who played on the Pee Wee team in 1992- 93 and just missed playing on the team that reached the national finals. He also played on the Bantam team in 1994-95 under Doyle. "It amazed me when I read it. How could he remember all that stuff? He made you feel proud to wear that Brick jersey."

Brick Township won four public schools state championships in Sorrentino's four years of high school, including one overall state title. Sorrentino, 29, is a New Jersey state trooper stationed at the Holmdel barracks.

"Half the time I was smiling while I was reading it and half the time I was choking with a lump in my throat," said Sorrentino. "I ran into former players who said they couldn't put it down."

"It brought me back. It almost brought me to tears," said Schlegel.

"You can laugh on one page and cry on another," said Doyle.

The book carries a personal, emotional feeling as Doyle critiques the players trying out for the team year after year, the players who would become the building blocks to another successful season. "Each kid has [his] own uniqueness, and it's up to the coach to see the strong points to focus on and to bring out of them," said Doyle, who shows how they meshed in the 1990-91 and 1993-94 teams that finished in fifth place in the nation and how the "green thread" of the many adults who volunteered their help assured the team of its continued success, including Brick Township Athletic Director Rick Handchen, who was a coach with Doyle.

"I got him interested in coaching back then," recalled Handchen. "He was a character who had his own style of coaching, much like Mr. [Jim] Blackburn, who Pat patterned himself after."

"Nobody could get you fired up like Patty," said Sorrentino. "As a kid, you're so impressionable and he'd give these Knute Rockne speeches, stuff that would get players in a frenzy in the locker room that they would translate onto the ice."

Doyle talks about the joy of coaching on page 100 with one former player: "Sean O'Leary was the kind of kid who made coaching fun because I knew he was having the time of his life."

And Doyle showed another "green thread" — the support of his players who helped him get through the unexpected, tragic loss of his dad in the 1995-96 season.

Later in the book, Doyle devotes a chapter to interviewing former players, as well as coaches and parents who discuss the fondest memories and wildest and funniest experiences.

"It's great. Pat is a Brick guy at heart, and the book shows that it's not only about winning, although that's an important part," said Jim Dowd, a Brick native, former Brick Hockey Club standout and a veteran of 14 NHL seasons, including last season with the Philadelphia Flyers. "It shows that great things come out of a winning tradition."

Dowd wrote the introduction to the book, sharing some important thoughts the book embodies: "I have been very fortunate to have had some great coaches guide me along the way," Dowd writes. "People who had the patience to teach me about the game while all the time stressing that the emphasis was always to go out and have fun."

Dowd cites his former coach, Jacques Lemaire, saying, "He was a firm believer that, good or bad, if you stick to the positives and do things the right way, everything will work out."

Warren Wolf, Brick Township High School's legendary football coach who wrote the overleaf to the book, calls it "outstanding. He's a great coach who got along so well with the boys and they had a lot of fun and it shows in the book."

Wolf should know because he is working on his second book, a retrospect of Brick Township High's 50 years. Wolf said his own book "is coming along" with the help of his own "green thread" of volunteers helping compile data.

Doyle said he was inspired to write his book when he saw Wolf author "Master Mentor," a volume dedicated to his experiences as an assistant coach to Joe Coviello, whom he would later pass as the state's all-time winning coach.

"One time Coach Wolf said to me, 'Pat, you have an attic full of memories. You owe it to yourself and the boys to go to the attic and bring down that box,'" said Doyle. "The more I did it, the more I got into doing it."

Certainly, Brick has become a great subject for bookshelves.