By CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun Senior Sports Columnist
For the past few years it was clear he was failing.
The phone calls from Tim Bergan sometimes numbered three a day but eventually they tailed off. I never asked whether it was dementia or Alzheimer’s, the disease which took my mother, it didn’t seem to matter.
But it was important to him that I knew about the latest podcast that his daughter had arranged for him.
I had known Tim since he was hired at Ellicottville Central School to coach a myriad of sports in 1978. His marquee skill was football but he also showed his expertise in basketball (boys and girls), softball, volleyball and bowling.
He devoted 46 years to his coaching career and the St. Bonaventure alum knew that a big part of the job included teaching and mentoring. Tim left his legacy in every sport he coached.
His overall coaching record, in six sports, was 1,286-728-4. In 2016, Tim was inducted into the Section 6 Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to high school athletics and it was well-deserved.
TIM PASSED away a week ago at Olean General Hospital following a lengthy illness, a month short of his 77th birthday.
He and his wife Lois, over a 53-year marriage, shared a passion for the Steelers and Yankees, two teams over which I constantly badgered him.
Early on, during his football coaching career, I got to know Tim and how seriously he took his job. On the Friday nights I was in the office, win or lose, he was one of the first two coaches to phone in his results. The other was Smethport’s Carl Defilippi, not coincidentally a pair of the Big 30’s best.
The difference was, Carl had fashioned one of the area’s elite running games. Tim never saw a trick play he didn’t love. And invariably, when it worked, he’d call me laughing about how he’d made fools of the other team. It wasn’t mean-spirited but rather the concession of a triumph for preparation and practice.
TIM AND I also shared one “like.”
We both loved Drambouie, a very sweet liqeur made with Scotch Whisky, Heather honey, herbs and spices.
He was vastly amused that I was introduced to it by my grandmother, the former head housekeeper at the Governor’s Mansion in Albany.
I KNOW THIS, I’ll miss him.
Tim had a fantastic sense of humor, much of it delivered at his own expense.
He had impressive football knowledge, conversational familiarity with other sports and amusing wit and wisdom. Years later his players would come back and thank him … the true vindication for a coach.
And I was privileged to call him a friend.
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
