|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Miller Bugliari Memory Book - Page 16 | ||
I am sorry that I will not be able to be there for Miller. This could not happen to a more worthy individual. In all honesty, Miller was one of the few bright spots in my Pingry experience. Every student that came into contact with him was equal in his eyes, on or off the soccer field or basketball court. Pingry has been blessed to have a man like Miller represent the school. I never had Miller as a teacher, but as a soccer coach he helped shape my life greatly, although I did not know it at the time. When I was around him, things were fun, as I am sure they still are for others that have followed me. Miller, thanks for everything! David Neunert - Class of 1962
| ||
Bobby Dwyer has some particularly sharp and focused memories of Coach Bugliari. In the Third Form, he had the candor to let me know in his Biology class that my lack of manual dexterity and microscope visualization probably ruled out my hopes of becoming a doctor. That helped direct me out of something that wouldn’t have worked out and into a successful career as a lawyer. In the Fourth Form, he threw me out of JV Basketball practice when I had the misfortune to be at the bottom of the pile and didn’t get up soon enough. Miller didn’t want to listen to my excuses (I couldn’t get my teammates off of me). Since then, I haven’t stopped pushing people out of my way; he made me understand that excuses are no substitute for performance. In the Fifth Form, Coach took the chance of starting me on a Varsity Soccer team that had been unbeaten for several years even though I hadn’t even started on the JV the year before. That was the first time that someone saw that I had the promise to perform at high levels. And when we lost 1-0 to Lawrenceville that year, breaking our 33-game unbeaten streak, all he said on the bus back to Pingry was, “Time to start another streak.” So we did, and it went to 49 games (long after my graduation) before Pingry lost again. I learned from that not to focus on the momentary stumble, but to get focused on the next opportunity and the next and the next. We beat BMI 4-0 that year, but didn’t play particularly well, so Coach made us run laps afterwards. The BMI players asked: “What do you guys have to do if you lose?” We replied: “This is why we don’t lose.” (The next year, we beat BMI 12-0.) In the Sixth Form, we went undefeated and were County and State champions, and I made First Team All-County. We were only scored on twice all year – a garbage time goal in the last seconds of our 4-1 opener against Cranford and a penalty kick in our 2-1 win over Jefferson. Those were truly glory days, and I know that our defensive success and the feeling of accomplishment I got came from two tenets I learned from Miller: (1) they can’t score if they don’t have the ball; and (2) keep attacking on defense – they won’t beat you six times in a row. Both of those tenets still shape my aggressive approach to defense in my litigation practice today. After the fall time change that year, one day Miller brought out a fluorescent ball so we could continue to practice in the dusk. A great idea, until we had to stop (after 15 minutes) because we could see the ball, but not each other, and kept running into each other. My biggest compliment from Miller that year came after our loss to Chatham in a pre-season scrimmage. He told the whole team that only Bobby Dwyer had had a good game, and that it was too bad I didn’t have the physical skills to match my work ethic and brains, or I’d really be a great player. That year, against Peddie on a rainy day, I headed the ball over a Peddie player and was called for a foul. The referee told me I’d have to leave the game and I (remembering back to the JV Basketball incident) refused to leave, saying it wasn’t that egregious a foul. Only after Miller came out and I started bleeding on his white raincoat did I realize that I had a serious cut about my eye. I guess that was the one occasion on which I was tougher than he wanted me to be. Coach allowed me to play the next two games with stitches in my forehead, which was padded and wrapped with gauze, and I was moved from sweeper to outside back because I couldn’t head the ball, since he knew how much that season meant to me. So, in short, Coach Bugliari meant a lot to me at a critical point in my life. He taught me how to identify goals, to recognize how to come up with plans to achieve them and to work hard to achieve them, to not make excuses when things go wrong, and to always try to get the opponent to make mistakes. I continued to play soccer at Amherst, but those are lessons that stayed with me through all the ups and downs of my personal and professional life. Bugs wasn’t just my coach, he was my teacher, and what I learned from his Hall of Fame coaching stayed with me all my life in every aspect of my life. No one is more deserving of the honor he will receive this Friday. -Robert J. Dwyer ‘65
| ||
|
||
|
||