Tony Barchuk leaves his mark on Kingsway sports
In one narrow sense, it was a bad day for Devon Grippe, Gabrielle Bruno and the rest of the Kingsway softball team.
In one narrow sense, it was a bad day for Devon Grippe, Gabrielle Bruno and the rest of the Kingsway softball team.
The Dragons didn't play well. Their bats were silent and their fielding was ragged and they were eliminated from the South Jersey Group 4 tournament in a 12-2 loss to Rancocas Valley.
But in every other way - in a larger and much more significant sense - it was a good day because it was one last chance to pull on that red-and-black uniform and play one more game for a team coached by Tony Barchuk.
"Every day, he makes you smile," Grippe said of her coach. "In the hallway at school, on the field, he always has something to say to make you smile. Every day.
"I'm lucky to have played for him. I'll never forget it."
Barchuk coached his first game for Kingsway in September 1979. It was a football game against Clayton.
"We won the game and I don't think they won a game the previous year," Barchuk said, looking back over 37 years. "They wanted to have a parade. They thought I was Vince Lombardi.
"Don't you know we proceeded to lose the next eight."
Barchuk coached his last game for Kingsway on Wednesday. It was a softball game that ended when Rancocas Valley pushed across two runs for a 10-run lead in the bottom of the sixth inning, and the old coach and his players lined up for the handshake as the sun began to set at the Red Devils' athletic complex in Eastampton.
In the outfield, Barchuk gathered his players for one last postgame meeting, telling them to be proud of their season, to cherish their Tri-County Conference Royal Division title, to remember what it means to wear the red and the black and to be a Dragon.
"Mr. Barchuk is Kingsway," Grippe said, wiping tears from her eyes.
Barchuk will forever be known as the face of Kingsway football. He coached the Dragons for 37 seasons, walking the sidelines for more games than anybody in South Jersey history except Florence's still-active Joe Frappolli.
But there always was something special about watching Barchuk coach softball, which he did for the last 14 seasons. Being around the girls seemed to sand some of his rough edges, and to soften some of his language.
An old-school man's man with a classic Brooklyn accent, Barchuk was a football coach, first and foremost. But he came to love his involvement with the softball program, and to help develop the Dragons into one of South Jersey's best programs.
"The girls are great," Barchuk said. "They work so hard. I love being around these kids."
The feeling was mutual.
"He was the guy when you came from middle school that you wanted to meet," Bruno said. "He is the image of a Dragon."
Barchuk will retire at the end of the school year and "kick back."
He has no definite plans, although he might travel a bit. He said he has family in Florida and South Carolina.
"A place to lay my head," Barchuk said.
He might take up golf again.
"I used to play," Barchuk said. "But I never had time when I was coaching."
He plans to spent much of his sudden wealth of free time with his five grandchildren.
"I haven't done enough of that," Barchuk said. "I'm a family guy."
Kingsway grew up around Barchuk. It was a mostly-rural little Group 1 school when he arrived in 1979.
"I almost drove past it," he said. "I was like, 'That's it?'"
Kingsway today is Group 4 or Group 5 in every sport, a sprawling suburban high school surrounded by housing developments and strip malls where there used to be farmland.
But just about everybody down that neck of the South Jersey woods will tell you Kingsway always has been Kingsway - for 37 years, through all that growth, all those additions, all that development - because of the man who never changed.
That's why his last team formed two lines after his last game, forming an alley for him to walk through on his way on the bus for his last ride home.
Into the sunset, of course.
@PhilAnastasia