The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Players cherish bonds with Lake coach
Every Nov. 1, Dennis Woods begins working on his Christmas card list.
He starts with the Lake Catholic Class of 2000, then 2001 the next day and so on until cards are written, addressed and stamped to every Lake Catholic player Woods coached in the last 16 years.
This year, Woods sent out 165 cards.
After Lake Catholic’s 3-0 win against West Branch on May 13, Woods now owns 715 victories in his 49-year coaching career. He’s sixth all-time in Ohio high school history.
But for each win, there are many more players Woods coached. What they do after is what he cares about.
“Watching them grow up and being in college,” Woods said. “And I had a little part in that. Just a little, teeny part.”
As he follows the lives players he considers similar to his own sons, Woods’ cards arrive every December as a sign of holiday cheer — and a loving reminder of Woods’ continuing compassion.
Woods turns 75 on May 22. He was born on the west side of Cleveland and grew up in Newburgh Heights, near the Slavic Village neighborhood. He played baseball at Cleveland South, which closed in 2010. Woods went out for the team in his sophomore year alongside the group of friends he walked to school with. Woods considered quitting when he was the only one of his friends, who also played basketball and baseball, to make the team.
When he left South, Woods moved on to Miami (Ohio) and played baseball. He played shortstop after his freshman year until his senior season, when an Indiana Hoosier slid into him at second base and inflicted a serious injury upon Woods’ knee. He tried to play one more game, his last, on his 21st birthday in 1963.
He began working at Glenville teaching physical education in 1964, when the Tarblooders did not have a baseball program. Woods half-jokingly kidded the Glenville athletic director often enough the principal, Mr. Stafford, caught wind of what Woods had to say and called him to his office. When Woods affirmed his interest in a baseball program at Glenville, Stafford told Woods to return at 2 p.m.
Woods anticipated the end of the school day also marked his last as a teacher at Glenville.
When he later knocked on the door to Stafford’s office, Woods found the principal sitting across from a sporting good sales rep with an assortment of baseball equipment laid out on the table between them. “Order what you want,” Stafford told Woods.
“I walk out of the office, standing outside thinking ‘Does that mean I’m the baseball coach here?’ ” Woods said. “Now what do I do? Now this is already February, it’s like ‘what do I do now?’ ”
Woods cobbled together a 10-game schedule, and held tryouts for the inaugural Glenville team in 1966. No seniors were allowed in the first year. About 125 students showed to an open tryout, put on by Woods alone.
Sonny Vaughn, a sophomore in 1966, recalled the team’s uniform in its first game consisted of blue jeans and T-shirts. Vaughn, now 67 and living in Columbus, Miss., can also remember seeing Woods working on the Glenville fields early in the mornings. Woods would be out on the field
combing the infield dirt with a nail drag attached to the back of his Volkswagen Beetle or, on damp mornings, burning gasoline at 6 a.m. to dry the diamond grass.
“It inspired me to go the extra mile,” Vaughn said. “Try to do something a little extra and he told us to have character about ourselves and how to be men.”
The Tarblooders won their first game against St. Edward, and finished their first season 5-5. In 1973, Glenville played for the state championship.
Reggie Hannah, now a pastor and social worker in Minneapolis, graduated from Glenville in 1972, and is one of many who consider Woods another father. Woods would pick Hannah and his teammates up on Sunday mornings to collect bottles and newspapers to turn in for uniform money.
Hannah was heavy in high school and Woods ordered him to run the school staircases to lose weight — an exercise Hannah hated. Hannah remembers vividly when he earned himself extra laps when Woods caught him talking to a young woman instead of running. But when Hannah landed in a spot of trouble, it was Woods who arranged his release from custody so Hannah wouldn’t have to tell his father, whom he called a “hardcore” man, and also to pitch in that days’ game.
Hannah is one of many former players who still meet up with Woods whenever he comes through town. Hannah, his son and Woods meet up for catfish with sides of macaroni and cheese and pinto beans while they catch up and reminisce.
“I was a hothead,” Hannah said. “I learned how to really respect his authority, I learned how to accept who he is. It wasn’t a racial barrier, he’s Caucasian, I’m African-American, and it was almost like he was one of us.”
Woods remained on the Glenville staff but resigned from his coaching duties after the 1974 season. He returned to coaching at the Cuyahoga Community College Metro campus in 1977 before he took the head baseball position at Case Western Reserve in 1980. He left Case in 1986 when he was up for the university’s athletic director position, but didn’t want to take it since he would be unable to coach baseball.
Woods returned to Glenville’s athletic department that fall. The Tarblooders came off a 1-19 season and were the “sorriest baseball team you could ever imagine,” according to Leonard Davis, who was a rising junior in Woods’ first year back.
Davis was a left-handed catcher, who Woods moved to the mound and the outfield. He taught him a pickoff move, which allowed Davis to nab more than 20 runners leading off first base. And in maybe the ultimate testament to Woods’ coaching acumen, Glenville went 17-9 in his first year back after the Tarblooders lost 19 of 20 games the year prior.
“Nobody can understand how he did it,” Davis said. “What he did, he made us believe in ourselves.”
Davis spent his summers with Woods and his teammates painting houses. Davis was happy to make extra money, while Woods helped his players stay out of trouble.
Davis’ senior season ended with a loss to John Marshall in the city championship game.
“He pulled me aside and said ‘let me tell you this Leonard Davis,’ ” Davis said, “‘if this is the worst moment of your life, losing this championship game, you’re going to have a good life.’ And that stuck with me, about 20 years ago I had something happen to me and I remember what he said. I’m like ‘Wow, Coach was right.’ If that was the worst moment of my life then I’m going to have a good life.”
Woods coached at Glenville until 1996, when he retired from the school’s faculty, as well. Glenville’s field was dedicated the Dennis T. Woods Field on July 7, 2012.
He spent three season at Cleveland Heights, where he spent much of retirement fund on sod for the baseball field. Woods was hired at Lake Catholic in 2000.
Adam Sanden, a junior when Woods arrived, was in the weight room when he met his new coach. Sanden almost immediately had a sense Woods would be more than just a supervisor while he played baseball.
“We talked about more things than just baseball,” Sanden said. “I really believe he feels he plays a vital role in raising young men versus just teaching them how to throw a curveball.”
Sanden grew up down the street from longtime Eastlake North coach Spark Sankal, another of Northeast Ohio’s all-time great baseball minds. So when Woods arrived in Mentor, Sanden also quickly learned his new coach knew what he was talking about.
“I can say unequivocally I never met anybody with more baseball knowledge than him,” Sanden said. “It’s not even close.”
According to Sanden, the Cougars didn’t miss a game if they were supposed to play at home. When he arrived school in the morning,
just as he did as Glenville some 30 years before, Woods was on the diamond at 7 a.m., or earlier, preparing for a game even if rain or snow was in the forecast.
Wood’s own work on the field, which allowed the Cougars to play on it, set the standard for his players.
“Live up to what you said,” Sanden said. “I think when it boils down to it, that’s exactly what he’s doing. He came here to coach and to him, coaching isn’t just showing up five minutes before game time with a uniform on, flashing some hand signals at third base then going home.”
Sanden is a member of the second class to land on Woods’ Christmas card list, which now includes Adam Urbania. Urbania, currently a member of the Frontier League’s Schaumberg Boomers, graduated from Lake Catholic in 2011 and is one of the latest to learn Woods’ care grows with each passing year.
Such care is resembled by a simple card.
“It just goes to show that he just doesn’t care about you as a player and then off to college it’s ‘see you,’ ” Urbania said. “He wants to build that relationship with the players, baseball isn’t everything and it’s not always going to be everything.”
Woods’ current players attest to such sentiments.
Lake Catholic catcher Frank Lanning’s thoughts echo those of men who played for Woods nearly 50 years ago. And for every serious moment, when Woods reinforces his no cursing mandate by making players run, there are the times the Cougars look in the dugout to see their coach with licorice protruding from his nose.
“I promise you won’t find another coach who cares about his players as people more than coach Woods cares about us,” Lanning said. “He genuinely cares about us and we’re really appreciative of it.”
Recently, Woods learned of a former player, Ed Shelton, who is now unable to walk. When Vaughn and some of his teammates came into town, they visited his nursing home.
The games Woods has won aren’t indicative of runs scored, innings played or pitches thrown. They’re meaningful because of the kids who won them, who grew up to be men that became a Cleveland police officer or a schoolteacher in North Carolina, and the relationships Woods cherishes.
“He’s always giving,” Vaughn said. “He’s a giving person. And he remembers, he remembers stuff about me that I can’t. I just love him to death, man.”