Betsy Evans - Spring Valley - Coach
Although she coached all the events, Betsy Evans acquired a reputation in Rockland County track & field as an authority on the jumps. As a coach for Spring Valley from the birth of girls’ track in Rockland in the mid-1970s to her final season in 1992, Betsy groomed three New York State champions in the horizontal jumps – Kim McDole, 1980 indoor long jump, before Kim transferred to Ramapo; Howie Allen, 1982 indoor long jump; and Quana Phillips, 1992 indoor triple jump. She also guided Sherwin Sterling to the 1986 state title in the 400-meter hurdles.
Betsy was a student of the sport, and specifically of the events where her athletes showed the most promise, predominantly the jumps and sprints. When Howie Allen came along, Betsy knew she would have to deepen her expertise to tap his full potential. She immersed herself in all aspects of the event, scouring technical manuals, viewing videotape and attending clinics to optimize her protégé’s opportunities for success. All the preparation paid off, as Howie went on to capture the indoor State championship, set still-standing County marks of 24-1.25 outdoors and 23-8 indoors, and place third in the 1982 U.S. Junior Nationals, losing only to two college freshmen.
That approach was typical of Betsy throughout her coaching career: “As long as I had kids interested, I would do it for them,” she says. Such was her level of caring that one year she allotted her entire coaching salary – all $250 – to buy uniforms for her girls’ basketball team. She was also ultra-generous with her time: Throughout her career at the Valley, she followed two-hour varsity practices with another two-hour session for freshmen and seventh- and eighth-graders who qualified for the high school program.
Coaching was a natural outgrowth of Betsy’s ardor for athletics. Growing up on a farm on Owasco Lake near Auburn, N.Y., she excelled in volleyball, softball, field hockey and track & field, soaring 16 feet in the long jump for Union Springs High School during extramural “play days” with neighboring schools in Cayuga County. An excellent scholar-athlete, she was valedictorian and chosen Best Athlete from the class of 1963 at Union Springs. “We would practice three times a week,” says Betsy, a native of Wilmington, N.C., whose mom was a school teacher and whose dad was an engineer for Traveler’s Insurance. “A team would be made up of one player from each school. I was a guard in basketball and I liked to jump in track. I was fast and short.”
After earning her bachelor’s from SUNY Cortland, Betsy taught for two years at Pearl River Middle School, and then obtained her master’s in education from Penn State. That was followed by a two-year stint at Kakiat Junior High before she transferred to Spring Valley, where she coached girls’ basketball, softball, field hockey and track & field. Although Title IX was passed in 1972 and in theory conferred gender equity to interscholastic sports, Betsy and her fellow girls’ coaches had to lobby hard to convince the East Ramapo Board of Education to comply with Title IX’s provisions. It took three to four years, Betsy says, before the district fully implemented the federal law’s policies and allowed girls’ sports to be integrated into the interscholastic budget.
Coaching was intrinsically rewarding for Betsy but certainly not lucrative. At first she coached basketball and track for $1 per season – talk about a labor of love – and only facilities and referees were covered by the district. Students, parents and coaches had to provide transportation for away meets.
Along about 1978, Spring Valley Athletic Director Lou Kliewe encouraged the development of an indoor track program, and the first year Spring Valley and Ramapo combined to form an East Ramapo squad, headed up by Betsy and Jim Pollard. “Jimmy taught me the pole vault so I could learn how to coach pole vaulters,” Betsy says. “I cleared six feet, and that was the end of my jumping career.” Ramapo athletes Tim McIntee, in the pole vault, and high-jumper Jim Manganiello were standouts of the fledgling program.
Betsy took over as head coach of the Spring Valley boys’ and girls’ indoor track program in 1979-80 and remained in that post till state and national champ Quana Phillips graduated in 1992. In the spring, Betsy served as head girls’ coach from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, when she assumed the reins for both boys and girls for a couple of years while Jim Ashcroft took a sabbatical from coaching. Once Jimmy the Jet returned, around the time of Sherry Murphy’s ascendancy in the mid- to late 1980s, Betsy went back to girls’ coaching only. She also had a distinguished decade-long tenure as a volunteer coach for the Empire State Games.
Besides Jim Pollard and Jim Ashcroft, Betsy received bountiful support over the years from Nyack coaches Joe McDowell, who “gave me advice on everything,” and later Shulton Whitley, who worked with Betsy’s prize hurdling pupil, Sherwin Sterling, on mastering his stride pattern in the intermediates. The roll call of esteemed athletes coached by Betsy would fill a few volumes, but among the best, in addition to Allen, Phillips, Sterling and McDole, were: Larry Gardner, state 400 runner-up; Sammy Wilcher, No. 2 on the all-time Rockland outdoor list in the long jump (23-11w) and a Junior Nationals participant; the bronze-medalist State 4x100 relay team of Pierre Fils, Ronald Blain, Gardner and Sterling; sprinter/jumper Laverne Campbell; pole vaulters Darrell Clarke and Delroy Brown; sprinters/relay members Alex Desamour, John Adkins, Lamont McCormick, Fred Michel, Patrick John, Crystal Watkins, Lagreta Marchant, Annette Morton, Randi Mason; triple jumper Eudson Francois; discus thrower MariEllyn Dykstra; shot-putter Yves Volcy; and even high jumper Seth Joyner – yes, the future NFL star competed in track one spring and cleared a respectable 5-11.
Three years after retiring from coaching, Betsy, a Bardonia resident, started a new chapter at Spring Valley, earning appointment as athletic coordinator and remaining in that post until retiring from the district in 2008. She thus became the second female athletic director in Rockland, after Judy Slutsky of Nanuet. In a commemorative book presented at Betsy’s retirement celebration, an inscription aptly describes her impact in the district: “Athletic director helping coaches become better coaches. Helping students become better students. You showed students that there are teachers who care.”
Betsy was a student of the sport, and specifically of the events where her athletes showed the most promise, predominantly the jumps and sprints. When Howie Allen came along, Betsy knew she would have to deepen her expertise to tap his full potential. She immersed herself in all aspects of the event, scouring technical manuals, viewing videotape and attending clinics to optimize her protégé’s opportunities for success. All the preparation paid off, as Howie went on to capture the indoor State championship, set still-standing County marks of 24-1.25 outdoors and 23-8 indoors, and place third in the 1982 U.S. Junior Nationals, losing only to two college freshmen.
That approach was typical of Betsy throughout her coaching career: “As long as I had kids interested, I would do it for them,” she says. Such was her level of caring that one year she allotted her entire coaching salary – all $250 – to buy uniforms for her girls’ basketball team. She was also ultra-generous with her time: Throughout her career at the Valley, she followed two-hour varsity practices with another two-hour session for freshmen and seventh- and eighth-graders who qualified for the high school program.
Coaching was a natural outgrowth of Betsy’s ardor for athletics. Growing up on a farm on Owasco Lake near Auburn, N.Y., she excelled in volleyball, softball, field hockey and track & field, soaring 16 feet in the long jump for Union Springs High School during extramural “play days” with neighboring schools in Cayuga County. An excellent scholar-athlete, she was valedictorian and chosen Best Athlete from the class of 1963 at Union Springs. “We would practice three times a week,” says Betsy, a native of Wilmington, N.C., whose mom was a school teacher and whose dad was an engineer for Traveler’s Insurance. “A team would be made up of one player from each school. I was a guard in basketball and I liked to jump in track. I was fast and short.”
After earning her bachelor’s from SUNY Cortland, Betsy taught for two years at Pearl River Middle School, and then obtained her master’s in education from Penn State. That was followed by a two-year stint at Kakiat Junior High before she transferred to Spring Valley, where she coached girls’ basketball, softball, field hockey and track & field. Although Title IX was passed in 1972 and in theory conferred gender equity to interscholastic sports, Betsy and her fellow girls’ coaches had to lobby hard to convince the East Ramapo Board of Education to comply with Title IX’s provisions. It took three to four years, Betsy says, before the district fully implemented the federal law’s policies and allowed girls’ sports to be integrated into the interscholastic budget.
Coaching was intrinsically rewarding for Betsy but certainly not lucrative. At first she coached basketball and track for $1 per season – talk about a labor of love – and only facilities and referees were covered by the district. Students, parents and coaches had to provide transportation for away meets.
Along about 1978, Spring Valley Athletic Director Lou Kliewe encouraged the development of an indoor track program, and the first year Spring Valley and Ramapo combined to form an East Ramapo squad, headed up by Betsy and Jim Pollard. “Jimmy taught me the pole vault so I could learn how to coach pole vaulters,” Betsy says. “I cleared six feet, and that was the end of my jumping career.” Ramapo athletes Tim McIntee, in the pole vault, and high-jumper Jim Manganiello were standouts of the fledgling program.
Betsy took over as head coach of the Spring Valley boys’ and girls’ indoor track program in 1979-80 and remained in that post till state and national champ Quana Phillips graduated in 1992. In the spring, Betsy served as head girls’ coach from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, when she assumed the reins for both boys and girls for a couple of years while Jim Ashcroft took a sabbatical from coaching. Once Jimmy the Jet returned, around the time of Sherry Murphy’s ascendancy in the mid- to late 1980s, Betsy went back to girls’ coaching only. She also had a distinguished decade-long tenure as a volunteer coach for the Empire State Games.
Besides Jim Pollard and Jim Ashcroft, Betsy received bountiful support over the years from Nyack coaches Joe McDowell, who “gave me advice on everything,” and later Shulton Whitley, who worked with Betsy’s prize hurdling pupil, Sherwin Sterling, on mastering his stride pattern in the intermediates. The roll call of esteemed athletes coached by Betsy would fill a few volumes, but among the best, in addition to Allen, Phillips, Sterling and McDole, were: Larry Gardner, state 400 runner-up; Sammy Wilcher, No. 2 on the all-time Rockland outdoor list in the long jump (23-11w) and a Junior Nationals participant; the bronze-medalist State 4x100 relay team of Pierre Fils, Ronald Blain, Gardner and Sterling; sprinter/jumper Laverne Campbell; pole vaulters Darrell Clarke and Delroy Brown; sprinters/relay members Alex Desamour, John Adkins, Lamont McCormick, Fred Michel, Patrick John, Crystal Watkins, Lagreta Marchant, Annette Morton, Randi Mason; triple jumper Eudson Francois; discus thrower MariEllyn Dykstra; shot-putter Yves Volcy; and even high jumper Seth Joyner – yes, the future NFL star competed in track one spring and cleared a respectable 5-11.
Three years after retiring from coaching, Betsy, a Bardonia resident, started a new chapter at Spring Valley, earning appointment as athletic coordinator and remaining in that post until retiring from the district in 2008. She thus became the second female athletic director in Rockland, after Judy Slutsky of Nanuet. In a commemorative book presented at Betsy’s retirement celebration, an inscription aptly describes her impact in the district: “Athletic director helping coaches become better coaches. Helping students become better students. You showed students that there are teachers who care.”