It was fitting that, last night, the field hockey team from Lititz Warwick (Pa.), despite having a better record and better seed than opposing Palmyra (Pa.), wore its road black kit to the PIAA Class AAA semifinal game at Landis Field in Harrisburg, Pa.
Whether you knew it or not, Warwick’s team was in mourning, as long-time head coach Bob Derr passed away yesterday. He was one of the winningest male coaches in the history of scholastic field hockey, but the number of stories about him as well as his players abound.
There’s the story of his start, which lasted a mere 10 days and three contests, due to the departure of the previous Warwick JV coach. The three-game audition was, frankly, a hit. The players on that JV team benefitted to such a degree to his structure and approach to the game, he eventually developed into the team’s head varsity coach a few years later.
The first time I met Derr, it was at a non-conference match when his Warriors traveled to Newtown Council Rock (Pa.) in the mid-1990s. He struck me as a person who, at his core, was genuine. He seemed to enjoy the fact that this intrepid journalist who came out to this game was interested in its intricacies as well as the people who played it.
Over the course of seasons, I would see well-trained and attack-minded Warwick sides compete for trophies, whether it was District 3 or PIAA titles. And on the sidelines was Derr, being his jovial best and answering questions (some of which he might have heard dozens of times) with a smile on his face.
It was around the turn of the century when the Warriors were at their best. They won six District 3 championships between 1998 and 2005, and PIAA titles in 1999 and 2000. Derr would win consecutive National Field Hockey Coaches Association national coach of the year titles in 2000 and 2001.
He would go on to win 630 games over 39 years of coaching varsity field hockey at Warwick. He also changed countless lives on the hockey pitch as well as on the wrestling mat. He was a top-rated wrestling official, rising to the level of officiating NCAA matches. Yep, you might have seen him flying in the air and diving on a mat to get a close view of whether the shoulders of an opponent were pinned to the mat for the half-second needed to cause a fall.
And to top it all off, he was a track-and-field coach for 29 years.
Derr retired from coaching in 2022. Since then, one did hear rumors, bits, and stories about his health, and how he wasn’t feeling well. Of course, a lot of people in their 70s . A movement grew in the small town of Lititz (pop. 9,742) to rename the school’s new turf field after him. More than 1,800 people signed the Change.org petition, but the powers-that-be within the Warwick School District have thus far been resistant to the idea.
Maybe they won’t be now.