It's January
1979. Jimmy Carter is President. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird have yet to step
foot on an NBA court. There's only been one Star Wars movie and the Bee Gees'
"Too Much Heaven" sits atop the music charts. While all this is going
on, Michael Foley is embarking on his career at Osbourn Park High School. He'd
be an employee of the Prince William County school system, but over the next
forty-two years Foley would become an institution at 8909 Euclid Avenue through
his teaching, coaching, and announcer's duties.
These days he’s known for his
superb announcing during OP football games, but his journey over the last four
decades is quite remarkable. Following his freshman year at Dayton University,
Foley would attend Virginia Tech and graduate with a degree in Marketing & Education.
Don Strock was the quarterback at Tech back then.
“They’d score forty-eight
points pretty easily but the defense would give up forty-nine. It was
depressing but kind of exciting, too,” said Foley.
He’d go on to teach at
Fauquier High School for three and a half years. At that time, Osbourn Park had
only been open less than four years. The teacher he’d replaced was to be the
boys' tennis coach. Foley was sitting in his office one day when his teaching partner
was in the doorway chatting with then Athletics Director Al Crow.
“Found anyone to coach boys
tennis yet?” she inquired from Crow.
“Nope.” Crow turned to Foley,
“would you want to coach them?”
Always known for his
trademark positivity and enthusiasm, the spry Foley replied, “what the heck,
why not?” Only one problem: Foley’s teaching contract.
Foley was a coordination
teacher and was not able to coach sports at the time, but eventually got a
special dispensation from his county supervisor to do so.
“Let’s let you do it this
year to get it out of your system,” said the supervisor.
Set to coach in the spring of
1979, Foley was adjusting to the difference in size from Fauquier to Osbourn
Park. Faulkier was T-shaped, with one stairwell at each end of the school. One
went up, the other down due to the high volume of students. At OP, he asked
when students switch classes since the hallways were almost empty aside from a
smattering of students.
“They’re changing right now,”
replied the principal at the time.
OP at that time was a AA
school and wouldn’t go to AAA until 1985. The emphasis on things like AP
classes wasn’t there, but the school was just as good as any other in Prince
William County according to Foley.
Athletics at that time were especially
competitive. Men’s cross country and track were elite, with Osbourn
Park Hall of Famers Kevin Ambrose and Todd Colas leading the charge. 1981
saw OP win states in the 3200 meter. I got to catch up with Kevin after he was
inducted.
“When I think of Mike Foley,
I think of how he never changes. He never ages. He’s got the best personality,
the best outlook, the perfect voice- a fun-loving guy. You simply can’t say
enough nice things about him.”
Football and basketball were also
competitive. The school’s leading scorer in men’s basketball, Billy Fields, had
graduated in 1978. Fields excelled in golf as well and built a special
connection with Foley over the years.
“Mike’s the type of person
who is very easygoing, and easy to talk to,” said Fields. “He gives off a lot
of positive energy. I’ve talked to the kids he’s coached in golf and they only
have positive things to say about him. He’s a big influence on the school and a
big asset to OP.”
Out of all the sports he
coached, Foley was least comfortable with tennis- which led to one big
qualifier to get on the team: you had to be able to beat the former Hokie at tennis.
“If they couldn’t do that, we
couldn’t be competitive.”
His strongest sport he
coached was wrestling, having wrestled in both high school and college.
Starting as an assistant for a year in the early 1980’s it didn’t take long for
Foley and his team to see success. 1982 saw them have two state champs, and
1983 saw two more state champs. Osbourn Park was the second best AA school in
the district. He’d remain head coach for fifteen seasons.
Foley at one of many DECA events over the years
The crossroads came when DECA
States in Williamsburg intersected on the same weekend as an OP wrestling
tournament in Virginia Beach. Foley chose DECA and had his assistant coaches
take care of wrestling to the disappointment of some of the parents.
“By that time I wasn’t having
fun anymore and my style of coaching wasn’t popular. It was the mid 90’s when
wrestling coaches were doing it all year: practices, camps, tournaments, etc.”
Many coaches who stick to an
individual sport might burn out at a quicker pace, but Michael’s ability to
take on any and all opportunities at a variety of things has helped extend his
career at OP into 2021 and beyond. 1986 saw him break into announcing for
football, but the roots of this talent can be traced all the way back to high
school when he ran for treasurer. Foley stepped up to the mic and delivered his
speech. Afterwards a teacher pulled him aside.
“I had no idea you were so
good at talking,” the teacher told him.
Grinning from ear to ear, that
was all the young Foley had to hear to give him the confidence in front of any
microphone.
“That might have been one
regret- not going into that type of career. Had I gone into that realm of work,
we wouldn’t be sitting here talking. God had a plan for me and I followed it
the best I could and was open to all opportunities I was given.”
Mike behind the mic- he's just a natural.
Foley’s faith in God is
strong, as he’s been known to pray and ask for the strength to do his many jobs
over the years, whether teaching, coaching or MC’ing events. But another source
of strength comes from his wife of forty-eight years, Marykate.
The two met in high school when
she was a sophomore and he was a junior. She invited him to a dance, and the
next night he returned the favor at a folk concert at his school. In 1973 they would
get married.
“She is a former teacher,
too. She taught for 35 years, mostly in kindergarten. She would come to all the
games at first, but over the years she’d get tired of sitting in the bleachers-
yet she never stopped taking interest in what I was doing. She’d ask about how
things went every time.”
1986 was a special year for
OP athletics as the electric Victor Cahoon was excelling on two different fields.
He was a NW Regional Player of the Year in football, and a AAA State Champion
of the long jump. The OP Hall of Famer’s feats were the stuff of legend.
“I recall him running a sweep
play to the right as the entire defense converged on him. Victor turned on a
dime and reversed field all the way to the other sideline and scored from at
least eighty yards out. In track, he was the anchor of a four by one-hundred relay.
OP’s runner of the third leg lost ground, but Victor not only made it up but left
the opponent in his dust and stretched the lead before everyone’s eyes,” said
Foley.
1986 also saw one of his courses
undergo a name change as Distributive Marketing would change to Distributive Marketing
and Education. Staff was a bit befuddled by the name change, as the course didn’t
see much increase in students if any at all. But in 1988 it was re-imagined as
Sports and Entertainment Marketing and the staff went from two, to four, and
finally six teachers due to the increased demand by students.
Two of Foley’s favorite
things from that course were fantasy football and a concert project. The catch
with fantasy football was that the students had to add up their own points based
off box scores to figure out who won. For the concert event, students had to
design a tour of a music artist including merchandise, where they would stay
and not using the same city twice in a row.
Foley with his golf team
“It logistically had to make
sense- a continuous route around the country for three months,” said Foley.
Foley would retire from
teaching in 2008 alongside former educator and AD, Dan Evans, Sr. Former
principal Tim Healey would also leave to be an assistant superintendent, and eventually principal at the brand new Colgan High School.
I spoke with Dan Evans, Sr. about working alongside Michael.
"Mike has been voice of OP for many years. I can’t thank him enough for his many years of service. It is not an OP football without his advertisement for the OP Booster Club concession stand and the hotdogs with “extra mustard”. Mike not only announces football games but emcees other major events at OP."
One of his favorite hobbies
became a part of his job eventually: golf. The younger Foley had no clue what
the appeal was until he tried it with friends at nineteen. He was hooked. These
days you can find him at Stonewall, Bull Run or his favorite course- Evergreen.
He’d coach OP’s golf team up
until 2015 when Colgan opened and the pipeline for
athletes was severely affected, leaving the team with only one boy and one
girl. Colgan’s opening also affected many other sports, especially football.
I joined the OP ranks in 2015
when I began doing statistics and recaps for the football team as Dan Evans, Jr.
was hired as head coach. The two of us met via Beyond Sports Network, owned by
former Yellow Jacket kicking legend, Jimmy Kibble. Kibble’s punts rarely if
ever went less than forty yards, and his kickoffs often went out of the endzone.
“The one time it didn’t, it
was a pooch kick and went as high as a punt,” remembers Foley. Kibble would go on
to play at Virginia Tech at the same time Michael Vick was quarterback.
Dan Evans’ father, Dan, Sr. taught
at OP since 1976 and was the OP athletic director from 1995-2008 and coached
alongside his son for three seasons.
Foley has announced with Sandy Tucker at the Virginia DECA State Leadership Conference each year for over a decade.
“I’ve known Mike Foley my
whole life,” said the younger Evans. “He’s done a bunch of different things He’s
incredibly loyal and dedicated to the OP community. He’s a favorite among the
students, staff and parents due to his positive energy.”
Settling in for my first game
at OP, I immediately noticed how friendly and charismatic Michael was.
“You help me a lot,” he’d
say. “One thing I get frustrated with these days is my vision and not being able
to discern player numbers at times.”
With his rich history as a
Yellow Jacket, great memory and sharp
wit, it only made sense that Foley would MC the OP Hall of Fame event in
October. Current student activities director Keith Laine even appointed him a
trustee to help plan it.
“Mike’s been around since
1979 and our announcer for 35 years,” said Laine. “He’s really an icon to the
school. Everyone knowns his trademark calls such as ‘laundry on the field’, ‘extra
mustard’, ‘take turns when exiting the parking lot’. He truly is a part of OP
and what it embodies.”
Former basketball coach Larry Nemerow told me "Mike sometimes goes extra on the mic, but is always memorable." Jack Lynch praised him for his ability to do many different things and never seek out glory.
Having struggled to find wins
over the years, I asked Foley what his mindset would be as a coach trying to
keep players engaged especially late in the season.
“I think it’s really important
for the kids to know that the coach believes in them and what they can do. Never
say they can’t do something. It comes down to a positive attitude- and if there’s
one thing OP teams don’t do, it’s quit.”
When asked how much longer he
sees himself announcing, Foley lets out a hearty laugh.
“There’s no endgame. I enjoy
doing it.”
In sports, success is measured by winning. But what is winning as a teacher?
"It's hard to measure success in the classroom that year. If you can bring a student out of their shell, that's gratifying. But what's more gratifying is seeing what they accomplish after they graduate. One became a teacher and a professor at the Naval Academy. Another owns a multi-million dollar production company that I occasionally MC for."
Over the years, Michael Foley has made sure to add his flare anytime he's behind the mic. His "extra mustard" is an ode to Robin Williams' "Good Morning Vietnam". With senior night approaching, a whole new class awaits their graduation and Foley will utter another popular line at halftime, "thank you to the parents who got together eighteen years ago."
On behalf of the Osbourn Park community, thank you for choosing OP forty-two years ago, Mike.
