On Saturday, May 22nd, Tom Yankus retired as head coach of Choate Varsity Baseball after fifty-two years of coaching the team. Before the first pitch of the season home finale against Taft, Director of Athletics Ned Gallagher and Headmaster Edward Shanahan spoke to pay tribute to Coach Yankus’ impact on Choate athletics. As Ned Gallagher put it, “In addition to the class of 2010, Tom Yankus is graduating from the team.”

Gallagher added, “If you’re lucky in this world, you get to meet your heroes, and if you’re really lucky, you get to work beside them.” Shanahan announced that next year the varsity field would be named Tom Yankus Field and the new junior varsity would be named Burgess Ayres Field.

Although the Wild Boars led in the bottom of the sixth inning, Taft knocked in three runs, which led to the disappointing 6-4 loss. “You can’t win them all,” said Yankus after the game. Overall, “The day was emotionally draining, but a good day. It was moving to see the crowd and have the field named after me,” Yankus said. After forty-five seasons as head coach of varsity baseball, Coach Yankus heads to the locker room with 503 wins, 288 losses, and 11 ties, giving him a .627 winning average. Mr. Yankus was inducted to the Choate Rosemary Hall Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996, its inaugural year, and won Choate’s Touch of Gray Coaching Award in 2007.

Head Coach Tom Yankus entered Choate as a Third form day student in the Fall of 1947. Even before that, nine-year-old Tom Yankus visited Choate’s Winter Ex to watch the Boston Braves’ spring training in 1943. The Braves left some of their jerseys, which the team used as away travel uniforms for many years.  Upon joining the Choate varsity team almost a decade later, Yankus “put on [one of the jerseys] to feel the glow.” In his Fifth Form year he won the junior varsity baseball award for outstanding improvement and in the spring of the following year he made the varsity team. His coached described him as a “far from polished pitcher at start…[yet] always a hard worker.” After graduating in 1952, Coach Yankus attended Williams College where he played varsity baseball, for which he has since been named to the Williams College All-Time Baseball Team. Yankus became the only graduate at Williams ever to be elected President of his Class and member of the Discipline and Honor Committees for all four years.

Ready to pursue his dream of playing professional baseball, Yankus traveled to Yankee Stadium in the summer of 1956 to try out for the New York Yankees. Only instructed to bring spikes and a glove, Yankus searched around the changing room for a blue sweatshirt. Seeing him looking around, Mickey Mantle said, “Here, kid,” and gave Yankus his own  sweatshirt, with the number seven embroidered in it.

That year, Mickey Mantle went on to win the Triple Crown (having the highest batting average, and the most homeruns, and the most RBIs) and the World Series. Yankus signed with the Yankees and began a minor league career with the Missoula, Montana Timberjacks of the Class C Pioneer League. From then, he played on a few other minor league teams, including the Greensboro Yankees (Carolina League), the Salem Senators and the Yakima Braves (Northwest League). He later wrote a book, Montana Summer, published in 2000, about his experience in the minors.

Since his return to Choate, Yankus has assumed almost every role a boarding school can offer, but most notably he has been coaching varsity baseball at Choate for over fifty-two years. He began his Choate coaching career as an assistant coach in 1959 and became the head coach in 1966. At the same time, Yankus continued playing baseball in the summer in local and state semipro leagues. He pitched for teams such as Harwich and New Orleans in the Cape Cod Baseball League and later managed the Orleans Cardinals for nine years. The Cape League Thomas Yankus Pitching Award was established in honor of his contribution to the league.  He also ventured north, playing in provincial leagues in Québec in 1967 and 1968. During his coaching career outside of Choate, he helped several players join the major leagues, including Aaron Boone, Todd Helton, Nomar Garciaparra and Frank Thomas. At Choate, Yankus coached Chris Denorfia ’98, who currently plays left field for the San Diego Padres. He has also sent numerous Choate baseball players to Division I colleges, such as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Duke.

Robert Williams, former Varsity Football Coach and spouse of Learning Center Director Harriet Blanchard, was a senior at Choate when Yankus was a freshman. He remembers that as a student, Yankus was a great athlete. Years later, Willaims coached Football alongside Yankus for several years. Williams said, “He used to be my passer in the passing drills because he could throw the ball a country mile, and he was really quite accurate.” Williams added that even from early on he could tell that Yankus was very compassionate; he was especially good at dealing with players that were having a tough time.

Grads Comment

Bill Gilbane ’66, a baseball postgraduate, said, “I never felt like a one-year student because of Coach Yankus. He immediately made me feel like a member of the Choate community. We had a wonderful time... He loved the game of baseball. He made each of us support his respect for the game right from how we dressed and warmed up. He was a class act and above all a real friend. In many ways he was our best friend.”

Scott Viebranz ’69, said, “While he took the game seriously, there was always a sense of fun about Coach’s approach. If he was pitching batting practice and you were swinging particularly well he was almost guaranteed to throw you a couple of knuckleballs to keep you honest.”

“Coach also found a way to value and recognize everyone’s contribution to the team,” Viebranz continued, “I was not a great pitcher—I usually entered games when they were no longer in doubt—but I knew the game really well and Coach had me coach third base for that reason. I took it pretty seriously, usually made good decisions and Coach always took the time to recognize that contribution. I have taken that learning to my business career as it taught me how important it is to recognize all the contributions team members make to the success of the team. I can’t believe he is stepping down or that it has been more than fifty years. To have touched so many people in so many ways through his coaching is a truly great achievement.”

Edward Kuchar ’72 was on the varsity team all four years at Choate and played in the Cape Cod Leagues with Yankus for two years. He said, “Tom is one of those people you meet along the journey in life that makes one a better person for having shared some time together. He was not just a coach in sport, but in life.”

Kuchar added that Yankus had specific and high expectations, not only as to what you did but how you did it. According to Kuchar, Tom Yankus was never about individuals; he always had a bigger purpose in mind, and he demanded respect and the drive to win. “He always seemed to be able to discern qualities in events and people that others couldn’t see. I remember thinking what the hell is he doing? —But it would always work out.” Yankus’ true care for kids reminded Kuchar of his father. “Even when I was getting in trouble, Yankus was supportive and made me understand what I had done wrong… he was gentle.”

“Coach never once got outside of his character. He handled himself in a humble way that wouldn’t bring attention to the immaturity of an individual. He preserved class and character no matter what it cost him or what he was going to gain. He drove you to be the very best you could be in all aspects of life, and for that I can’t thank him enough.”

Dan McDonough ’73, captain in his senior year and father of the current first baseman Kyle McDonough ’10, said, “Coach Yankus made you feel like you were playing for a professionally coached team, and in a sense you were. Everyone loved playing for him and truly wanted to win for him, and I think that’s a coach’s ultimate compliment. The players wanted to win not just for the school, but for him. He was a true student of the game and a cerebral baseball coach. He’s probably the smartest baseball person you’ll ever meet.” McDonough added that his most memorable experience on the team was driving to and from preseason in Florida: “We drove for 24 hours, everyone with his license taking a turn driving. It was a really great way to get to know not only your teammates but also your coach.” Dan McDonough went on to play baseball at Boston University.

Christian Leckerling ’99, said, “Tom Yankus is the Phil Jackson of prep school baseball coaches. He has that zen quality: relaxed, confident, intellectual in an unostentatious way, committed to teaching the fundamentals of the game, competitive without the ego or baggage.” In an email to The News, Leckerling said, “The bumper sticker on his car (“A mi me gusta beisbol; es un parte de mi vida”) reflects his undying enthusiasm and love of the sport in an understated, almost reverential way, as if it didn’t need to be spoken but could be sensed by all those who share his passion for the sport.”

In his junior spring, Leckerling was stuck behind a senior catcher and a postgraduate at first and not getting many at-bats. The fatigue of taking six tough classes and editing the sports page of The News only added to his frustration about his lack of playing time. Consequently, he went to Coach Yankus and told him that he wanted to play, even if that meant swinging down to junior varsity. “He conveyed a sense of understanding of where I was coming from and an appreciation for the fact that baseball was one of many priorities I had at the school and that I wanted the game to be fun. The fact that he was also an institution as an English teacher and form dean helped me relate to Coach Yankus as someone who was more than just my baseball coach, which in turn made him a better baseball coach. He is the quintessential boarding school teacher in that regard. And I had a great time playing those JV games, which included the now legendary 5-2-3 double play with the bases loaded at Taft to preserve a 5-4 win for senior pitcher Marc Wein in his last baseball game ever.” He remembers laughing with Yankus and James when he hit a home run for the alumni in their game against the varsity squad.

Captain Sam Herzig ’10, a three-year starter who will play baseball in college next year, said, “Coach Yankus guided me through the college recruiting process and has always been a strong influence on my pitching form and mental game.” Herzig added, “Our team wasn’t stellar this year, but Coach did a really good job working with what we had.”

One of Coach Yankus’ fondest memories is when his team played the Riverdale Baptists, who were ranked eighth in the nation, in Cooperstown. Down 8-4 in the top of the seventh, Choate had five straight base hits. Next up was the catcher who hadn’t hit in three weeks, but sure enough he hit a triple and then scored to win the game.

Next year, Mr. James will take over the position as head coach and Mr. Small will remain the assistant coach. Yankus said, “Doug James and Ben Small will be an ideal combination to coach the team next year. Both of them are intense and knowledgeable, and they know how to motivate players.”

At the ceremony last Saturday marking Yankus’ last game as head coach, Shanahan said, “In the words of Yeats, ‘An aged man is but a paltry thing,/ A tattered coat upon a stick, unless/ soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing/ For every tatter in its mortal dress.” Shanahan later added that the old Rosemarian credo, “vetus tamen juvensco” embodies Tom Yankus; old in years, yet forever young.

Although he will no longer be head coach, Yankus assured that he was not going far: “You’ll still see me on the sidelines, but only when it’s sunny and seventy degrees."