Published: July 13, 2008 12:01 am            

Last-minute choice has done a first-class job

Jim Siehl is not your typical high school coach.

The Bedford tennis coach took over a floundering Bisons program just two weeks prior to the start of the 2003 season and has been there ever since then.

“Matt Otis was a very good player in Bedford and when he was younger, his mother was calling some older, more experienced people to help provide him with competition,” Siehl said. “In his senior year, there were two weeks before the season started and they still didn’t have a coach. I became an emergency coach when Matt’s parents, Tom and Marilyn Otis, called me and asked if I would coach the team. The way it was presented to me, is that Matt would take care of the team, and all I would have to do is drive the van and take care of the administrative details, so that’s how it started out. From that point on, I stayed and got more interested in it.”

Matt Otis said that Siehl was a very empathetic coach and a very nice person.

“He would do anything to help you progress in your game,” Matt Otis said. “He wasn’t just about winning he also helped with your character development. He was very supportive in helping you to believe in yourself.”

Siehl, a former Tribune-Democrat news and sports reporter, had never coached any high school sport before taking the reins at Bedford.

But there is another thing that makes Siehl rather uncommon as a coach.

He just turned 79 years old during the team’s last season. In deference to his resiliency and similarities to Penn State’s Joe Paterno, some of his relatives and acquaintances have dubbed him “the JoePa of high school tennis.”

“I had never even thought about being a coach, especially this late in life, and it’s still a very pleasant experience for the most part,” Siehl said. “It’s a lot of work and a big commitment because we’ve had a lot of success at it, and the only way you can build a successful tennis team is be with the boys in the offseason. You’re not allowed to have organized practices, but you can make yourself available and if the kids want to come, you develop them.”

In his six years with the team, the Bisons have won all the District 5 team tournaments and 10 of the 12 matches in district doubles and singles competition.

“We’ve had a pretty successful run,” Siehl said. “We have finally caught up with Sue Minchau’s Westmont program. She has done a terrific job and it’s the goal of all the teams in the Laurel Highlands, to try to catch up and beat Sue Minchau’s programs. So last year, our team was able to beat Westmont for the first time. We tied them for second place two years ago behind Somerset, and this year we tied them, we split with them. They beat us in our opening match and then we won 17 in a row, including a 3-2 win over Westmont, and that was a real highlight match of our season.”

Minchau said she has the highest regard for Siehl.

“In his many years at the Tribune, Jim always had a special interest in tennis,” Minchau said. “He has a special place in my heart, because he wrote such a wonderful story about my father, Bill Hinkle, who died almost 20 years ago. Jim is a gentlemen among gentlemen.”

The Bisons and Hilltoppers were crowned co-champions of the league, receiving a half-year share of the Bill Hinkle Memorial Trophy while Minchau and Siehl were named co-coaches of the year.

“What you try to do as a coach is to put the players in a position to win, but it’s their talent that really wins,” Siehl said. “Tennis is a game like golf that has a lot of aspects to it. You have to work on all of them, service, ground strokes, volleys and overheads. Dealing with kids, I prefer to do it on a one-to-one basis.”

As a youth, Siehl played basketball and baseball as well as a little bit of football.

“I had some success in playing for some teams that were championship teams in basketball and baseball,” Siehl said. “As a baseball player, I started in the outfield for Johnstown high school for three years and I was on the Kiwanis Club that played in the AAABA Tournament, the second tournament, the one that was played in Washington, D.C.”

Siehl’s striving to do his best in athletics was developed during that time.

“It’s a lot of fun to take part in sports and you like competition and you like to win,” Siehl said. “You want to do the best you can as an individual and as a team. It’s something I’ve always had and it carries over into my coaching. I’m not satisfied just to get in there and nursemaid the kids.”

The first tennis matches for Siehl came when he was 30-years-old.

“I quit playing in the Moxham Sunday School League after we had won three championships in basketball,” Siehl said. “I had a very good friend, Homer Rice, that I had played a lot of basketball with. He and I started playing tennis and I stayed with it.”

Siehl maintained his interest in tennis after his retirement in 1991, and he continued to play after he and his wife, Lois, moved to Bedford County.

He says that he is a much better tennis coach then when he first started with the Bisons.

“The reason I think I’ve been successful, is that I decided I was going to work harder than every coach and, because I’m retired, I could make myself available,” Siehl said. “I do a lot of hands-on teaching kids getting to the net. It’s a matter of repetition. Some kids are more coachable than others.

“Overall, they are a wonderful group of boys and that’s probably one of the best parts of coaching, the interactions you have with the kids. I come back with lots of good stories to tell Lois.”

The Bedford squad had 19 players on the team this year and lost just one player to graduation, Steven Dull, so the Bisons should be favored again next year, which Siehl projects will be his last.

“I’ll be 80 years old before the season is over next year,” Siehl said. “I always considered myself younger than my age and the reason for that is that I always worked at physical fitness. I think that’s something that I wanted to always be in a position to help myself. Life is a series of takeaways and I’m trying to slow down those takeaways so physical fitness has a lot to do with it. I joined a local fitness club here in Bedford and have kept myself in really good shape and was able to play tennis with my players. Now I have enough kids that I can’t do that.”

Siehl said it was nice as he was ending his active playing career to pick up and do some coaching and then to find out it’s something he really enjoyed doing.

“It kind of helps to keep you young,” Siehl chuckled. “You develop some wonderful relationships, not only with the players themselves but also with their parents. But it’s a big commitment and Lois makes a lot of sacrifices. When the season begins, we practice on Saturday, so we’re either playing or practicing six days a week from March to mid-May and then it starts to tail off.”

Siehl says he feels blessed in so many ways.

“I’ve had my good health that I can continue to coach,” he said. “It’s nice to be called ‘Coach.’ I just never thought I would be in this kind of a position. It’s something that I cherish. Things have always worked out well for me.”

And, the once-emergency coach seems to have found a niche in Bedford.

        

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