As I sat in my truck, waiting for the light at Bridge and Mammoth to turn green, one question kept coming back to me…”Where the heck do I begin?”

I had just finished an approximate two-hour interview with Mark Telge to get the information I needed for this story.  

Of one thing I was certain.  I had gotten all I would need…and more.

My “problem,” hence my question, was “Where do I begin with a guy whose life has been so full?”

Mark and I are both graduates of Bishop Bradley High School, he in ‘64, I in ‘61.  Before we got up from our seats at the Daniel Webster Highway Dunkin’ Donuts, he looked directly at me and asked “We’re both graduates of Bradley.  As alumni of the place, what do you think we all have in common?  What did the place instill in us?”

Thinking for a  moment, I answered “a sense of camaraderie.  We all seem to find it easy to make friends, to talk to others, to get along.”

He paused and said “You know something?  You’re answer is better than mine because I thought our Bradley experience gave us a sense of humor.”

Then it hit us both at just about the same time.  We were both right – and our just-concluded conversation was perfect proof.

Though Mark and I knew each other, we never hung out together.  Though our lives have been buried in sports, we’ve never crossed paths, until now.  

Because of our “Pioneer” background, we talked like we had been friends for years, close friends.  And laugh, did we ever laugh!  So much so that customers would occasionally look in our direction to see what was so funny.

Mark Telge has just completed his 32^nd year as a tennis coach.  His 2008 Central Boys Team had snuck into the state tournament as the #5 seed.  I say “snuck” because what else would you call it when three of your six players had never (that’s right, NEVER) played before, and a fourth had never played competitively?

Though they didn’t capture the state title, they did beat #4 seed (and perennial superpower) Concord (whom they had lost to earlier in the season) and finished second to an undefeated Salem squad.

 He loves sports in general – sees them as a tremendous diversion for kids to get away from the world’s problems because kids always seem happiest when playing a game, even when it doesn’t have a story-book ending.

The day before our get-together, Mark had watched his favorite sport – TENNIS – and his favorite Pro athlete, Roger Federer, in an “already-an-instant-classic” five set-four hour and forty-eight minute grass-court Wimbledon finals match, which saw Federer go down to defeat at the hands of Rafael Nadal.

I’m not a huge fan of the game myself, probably because it had always humbled me when I attempted to play it in the past (much like my present golf game, though I still love it), so I asked him to compare that match to an event that non-tennis people could more easily relate to.

Immediately he mentioned the recent NBA Championship game won by the Boston Celtics.

Why a hoop game for his analogy, you ask?

Because that – in high school – was HIS sport.

During his career at Bradley, he wasn’t just an All-Stater in basketball, he was an All-American!  As satisfying as that was for him, he took greater pleasure at being selected as a member of the All-State Football Team because of – as he put it – “the quality of the competition.”  

     As a senior quarterback, he was able to beat out “top shelf” athletes like Bill Lucci of Manchester Memorial, Bobby Hopkins of Manchester Central, and eventual Detroit Lions QB, Greg Landry of Nashua.

His football skills won him a full boat to Duke University where he dabbled in baseball and hoop (Chuck Daley was his coach) as a freshman, but concentrated on football over a five-year collegiate span (one as a “red-shirt”).  His “Pro” experience came with the Norfolk (Va) Neptunes, an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Continental Football League (equivalent at that time to Triple “A” baseball).

Speaking of baseball, Mark was a member of the Bradley Nine and also played for Henry J. Sweeney Post 2 (American Legion), where he met and became close friends with another classic sports name from the past…a person many regard as the best athlete ever to have played sports in Manchester…a young stud out of Memorial’s football, baseball, and track stables…a diminutive kid by the name of Darryl Buck.

While Bucky was a close friend, the athletes that have had the greatest impact on Mark have been his brother, Chris, whom he followed around as a child so he could “run with the big dogs”, Bradley fullback, Dave Wenners, who, as a senior, took Mark under his huge athletic wing, and Central icon, Chuck Bournival, who introduced Mark to the sport of tennis in South Florida.

Asked what accolade he most cherished from his past, the former Union Leader “Athlete-Of-The-Month” answered, “Being seated at the head table of a Leo Cloutier-run Manchester Baseball Dinner (a classic in itself) with legendary sports figures, Carl Yastrezemski and Dick Radatz, among others, and seeing it as a reward for what I had done on the sports field.” 

Mark would not single out any one coach as having the greatest influence on him…and who could blame him when he would have to select from Ed Kissell (Bradley football), John “Jumbo” Reilly (Sweeney Post baseball), or Frankie O’Donnell (Bradley hoop), to name a few.

His answer – ”Suffice it to say that from them I learned toughness and humility (Reilly had cut Mark as a 16 year old) and the combination of those two traits, along with God-given athletic ability, they have allowed me to achieve whatever success I’ve enjoyed in the past…and still do today.”

Success still follows him, no matter the athletic venue, and, while he no longer coaches high school football (as he has at several different high schools) or college basketball (as he has at several different NH colleges), he couldn’t resist the opportunity to take on a new challenge.  As he puts it, “My wife, Kathy, wanted me to give up football, so I did.  And then came the chance to coach the Manchester Millrats, the newly-formed ABA hoop team.  I “begged” and she “bent”, but ONLY because I’d now have all kinds of time in the fall.”

When I asked if there was any sport he never played, but would have liked to, he answered “hockey”.  Knowing how hard he could hit, how well he could dish out punishment, how unafraid he was to “mix it up”, I can easily see his name listed under “All-State” though that couldn’t happen because it didn’t yet exist as a high school team sport in Manchester.

Retired?  Are you kidding!?!

At 62, he serves as a Special Education paraprofessional at Central High School and he’ll retire only when tough, but popular principal, John Rist, “won’t let me in the front door!” and having spent 39 years there in some capacity, that’s not likely to happen.

As to how he’d like to be remembered, his response was “as someone who played the game ferociously hard, but played it, win or lose, as a gentleman.”

He LOVES (no pun intended) tennis…calls it “the sport for life” adding “my game may deteriorate, but my intensity never will.  In fact, I’m getting better!”  

 Fifteen years ago he couldn’t walk onto a tennis court without pain…level 9 pain!  The solution?  Swimming and lots of it…or as he put it…“I swim in every body of water available.”

Today, if you want to see his sports epitaph in action, just stop by Livingston Park where he still plays four to five times a week.  His opponents?  An endless supply of former Central pupils, with an occasional “real” challenge thrown in by Bobby Gelinas or Jack Putney. 

He still wins…most of the time and finishes each match as a gentleman…all of the time.

And how is this all still possible?

Simple. 

It comes from the camaraderie and sense of humor he took from our alma mater, BBHS (or as we used to refer to it back then, Bugs Bunny’s Hilltop Sanitarium!)

Ted Menswar Jr. is a life-long resident of the Queen City and a retired member of the English Department of Memorial High School who has been involved in local sports for 70 years as a player, a coach, a mentor and a fan. He can be reached at tedmenswar@outlook.com