The Recruiter Who Became a Track Dynasty
Fred Rosenfeld did not grow up a track coach. He played soccer in high school. When Overbrook hired him in the late 1960s to teach physical education to the afternoon shift — the school was so overcrowded that kids attended in half-day shifts — he was asked to help supervise the morning workout sessions of the track team. He tried it. He loved it. Within a decade, he had turned Overbrook into the dominant boys track program in the Public League, and eventually — after moving to Central in 1994 — he repeated the feat at a second school.
By the time he retired in June 2004, Rosenfeld had won 17 solo Public League boys outdoor track championships, 16 Public League boys cross country titles, and five Public League girls cross country titles — in just six years of coaching the girls' side. He had been inducted into the Pennsylvania State Track & Field Hall of Fame. He was one of only 10 coaching inductees at the time. He and Tim Hickey (William Penn) were the only two Philadelphia-area coaches in the shrine.
Hey, you'd probably be good in track and cross country. Why don't you come out for the team?
Current and former Rosenfeld athletes tell the same story: he walked the Overbrook and Central hallways every morning, looking for kids who looked remotely athletic, and asked them all the same question. Many of them had never run a step in an organized meet. They left four years later with Public League medals, scholarship offers, and — in the case of Jason Grimes — the world's No. 2 long jump ranking.
Nine Straight at Overbrook — 1977 through 1985
The foundational accomplishment of Rosenfeld's career was the nine-in-a-row from 1977 through 1985 at Overbrook. No Philadelphia high school track program had ever put together a streak like it. Over those nine seasons his Panthers racked up scoring margins like 145.5 in 1993, 176 in 1983, 171.5 in 1984, 145 in 1979 — always scoring 110-plus points and always finishing first in every relay and field event that mattered.
