What always struck me about Gene Froebel was that he seemed so quiet.

We had a casual — “Hi, how ya ‘doin” — relationship, but the only way I really knew him was from the insight provided by his friends.

Gene died Sunday, at age 79, shortly after arriving at Olean General Hospital.

His funeral was Thursday morning.

And it occurred to me that while I knew of him, I didn’t really know him or his wife Sandy.

He taught physical education for 30 years at Hinsdale Central School, a good part of that time also serving as athletic director and as an “assistant” football coach to the late Rod Rohl.

However, Froebel always preferred to be in the background. Several times, he paired with Rohl coaching the New York team in what was then the Big 30 All-Star Football Game, but he invariably abdicated talking with the press to the always-loquacious Hinsdale legend.

But on Gene’s passing, Pete Taylor, a classmate of Froebel’s at Bradford High and fellow teacher at Hinsdale, offered some insight.

“This manwas the secret to Rod Rohl’s successful HCS football record,” Taylor wrote in an email. “He was also a three-year starting offensive guard at Lock Haven State College although he weighed 170 at his heaviest.

“Bradford High School has produced some good college players but I do not know many who were more competitive and intense. During practice one day Coach (Rock) Denning was demonstrating a blocking technique on Gene. Coach asked him to show that he understood the move (and) Gene proceeded to knock Coach on his butt.  How the rest of us kept from laughing, no one knows …” 

Wayne MacDonald, formerly from Bradford, was also at BHS when Froebel was a student and, as adults, they played some high-level handball.

Wayne once said, “Gene was as good an athlete as Bradford has ever produced … especially for his size. He was extremely competitive and didn’t know anything but to play hard every minute.”

Retired Olean High coach and teacher, Chuck Bauer, had a long friendship with Froebel.

“My first memory was that I was fortunate enough to have his boys in football,” Bauer said of Eric and Curtis, who also starred in swimming and track & field, respectively. “I thought it was a dad who was really backing me, not realizing Gene was one of the best coaches in Southwestern New York.

“Later on I found out just how organized he was. He had every play on his offense diagrammed against every possible defense. He had it on paper, he had it in a notebook … it was the most organized thing I’d seen from any of the coaches I’ve been associated with. His preparation was impeccable.”

Bauer added of Froebel, “He turned out to be a friend … we were fishing and hunting buddies. Over the years, we kind of formed a bond. When I lost my dad (in 1993) it was him I looked to and followed his leadership … the way he worked with his own sons. That was incredibly motivating to me. I tried to emulate the way he handled his boys and raised his family.

“In later years, I went down to Florida and visited his home in Lakeland and he proceeded to kick my rear end in pickleball … even at his age he humiliated me. Then he would return the visit (to Sebastian) and we’d go down to the beach and have a game of bocce going and the competitiveness never left him. He was a great athlete even in golf.”

Bauer also verified Taylor’s contention that Froebel was Rohl’s “secret weapon.”

“(Gene) was the coach … there was no doubt about it,” he said. “Rod handled the paperwork, talked to the kids, made sure the medical forms were filled out and such … but Gene was the coach.”

And, if there was any doubt, Bauer learned as much when he took the Olean High JVs to Froebel’s school for a scrimmage.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re gonna kill poor Hinsdale,’” Bauer remembered. “Well, if you weren’t one of the 11 guys on varsity, you were eligible to scrimmage (as JVs), so Gene had his juniors and sophomores ready to go. He’d look at the play, know exactly where the ball was going and grab three kids and send them in the hole … they might as well have given him a helmet.

“We thought we were going in for a cakewalk and were licking our wounds when we came back out.”

Fittingly, memorial donations for Froebel will be earmarked for the Hinsdale and Olean High Sports Boosters.

As Bauer concluded, “I lost a true coaching, hunting and fishing buddy and will always be looking up to the standard that he set as a role model.”

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)