Faces in the Crowd

Vito Montelli

TRUMBULL, CONN. > Basketball

Montelli, 79, the boys' basketball coach at St. Joseph High for all of its 49 years, led the Cadets to a 79--53 victory over Fairfield Prep in the Class LL final in March to win his 10th state title. He became the first basketball coach in Connecticut to reach that milestone and to win a title in all of the state's four divisions. He finished the season with a state record 853 wins.

Stan Woods

EMERSON, N.J. > Wrestling

Woods, 71, broke the alltime New Jersey high school wrestling wins record with his 602nd career team victory in February, when his Emerson--Park Ridge High team defeated Nutley High 52--25. Woods began his career at Randolph High in 1964 and joined the Emerson program in '67. His teams have won 31 league titles, 10 county titles and eight sectional titles.

Susan Guertin

MARBLEHEAD, MASS. > Swimming

Guertin, 69, the aquatics director at the Lynch/van Otterloo YMCA, won her first state title in 24 years at Marblehead High, with a girls' squad of only seven qualifying swimmers. Trailing defending champion Wayland High's 19-member team by half a point going into the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Magicians won by 1.05 seconds to clinch the Division 2 title.

Al Murdoch

AMES, IOWA > Ice Hockey

Murdoch, 64, an assistant kinesiology professor at Iowa State, won his 1,000th game as the Cyclones' coach with a 5--2 win over Indiana in February. He began coaching the team as a grad student in 1969. Two years later he helped found the Central States Collegiate Hockey League. In '91 Murdoch helped create the American Collegiate Hockey Association.

Joe Lombard

CANYON, TEXAS > Basketball

Lombard, a 58-year-old phys-ed teacher, led the undefeated Canyon High Lady Eagles over Austin LBJ High in the Class 4A championship on March 5, his birthday, to extend his record for career state basketball titles—girls' or boys'—to 15. He won his first in 1979, as a rookie coach at Nazareth High. He has had just one technical foul while amassing a 1,100--98 record.

Jennie and Jeff Salmon

MOUNT SINAI, N.Y. > Fencing

Jennie, 39, and Jeff, 43, married in 2002, led the Ward Melville High girls' and boys' fencing teams to their 10th and fifth straight unbeaten seasons, respectively. Over the last decade the Salmons' combined record is 273--10 and they have sent 47 fencers to NCAA programs, four of whom were All-Americas.

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COURTESY OF BOB STUDLEY (MONTELLI)

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IDA FARO-TETRO (WOODS)

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BO HATFIELD (GUERTIN)

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REGAN ANDRESS (MURDOCH)

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COURTESY OF WESTERN PHOTO (LOMBARD)

TWO PHOTOS

PHILIP DALY/PHILIPJAMES PHOTOGRAPHY (SALMONS)