Rousey remembered as longtime superintendent, 1st PHS football coach

PALMER — Since news of Norm Rousey Sr.’s passing began rippling through the community, the phone at the family’s Palmer-area home has buzzed steadily with callers sharing condolences and memories of a man who spent more than 60 years of his life shaping the ways students learn and play in the Mat-Su Borough School District.

Family, friends, colleagues and former students remember Rousey as a humble man who was kind and smiling; as a well-educated, gentle man who was an excellent athlete, teacher and administrator.

Between 1951 and 1981, Rousey spent seven years working as a classroom teacher; seven as a principal; three as assistant superintendent; 10 as superintendent; five as a football coach; six coaching junior high and junior varsity basketball; and three years coaching track. Rousey retired from the district as superintendent in 1981.

He was born Aug. 27, 1928, in Pomeroy, Ohio, and died at 3:38 a.m., Jan. 17, 2014, in the family’s Palmer area home surrounded by his wife and children from complications following surgery. He was 85.

A celebration of life in his honor is at 2 p.m., Feb. 9 at the Palmer Depot. Everyone is welcome.

‘Here’s a job for you’

Growing up in Ohio, Rousey played basketball and football there for Athens High School and at Bowling Green University, where he earned a degree in education in 1951.

He worked as an ironworker for a few months after graduation before answering an ad for a teaching position in Palmer. When he arrived, the principal said his No. 1 job was to start a football program.

“Here’s a job for you. Try to pick a football team from 37 high school boys who’ve never played the game and then get them ready to face the U.S. Army teams in Alaska,” begins a yellowed newspaper clipping from an Ohio paper telling about a 1952 trip home to visit his mother, Katerine Millikan, in Athens, Ohio.

Rousey was a man of many talents who also played piano, guitar, sang, wrote songs and once recorded two songs that he also wrote for a label called Crest Records. Recorded under the name Norm Skylar, Katie, his wife of 55 years, said the songs even saw a little air play in California in the late 1950s.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Rousey was the state horseshoe champion 15 times or so and twice won his way to the world competition for that sport.

In younger days, he also was a member of the Elks basketball team, and in his ’60s and ’70s, took up running. He consistently finished in the top three in his age group, Norm Jr. said, until a hip injury forced him to give up the sport.

And he loved to shoot pool.

“Pool shark — that’s key,” Norm Jr. says.

It was a favorite tradition for father and son to spend Tuesday nights together shooting pool at the Elks Lodge. In fact, Norm Sr. won his last tournament at the lodge on Finger Lake just a few days before he died, his son said.

‘His boys’

For much of Rousey’s life, few things ranked above his love of Palmer football. He watched the Moose mature from a squad of fresh-faced boys who’d never seen a whole football game into a program with multiple regional and state championships won by the sons and grandsons of those men.

Although he only coached the Moose for five seasons, Rousey never stopped following the team, never stopped walking up and down the sidelines at Machetanz Field, keenly following each movement of the ball. He and his friend Fred Machetanz — for whom the field is named — spent many seasons on the sidelines together before Machetanz’s death in 2002 at the age of 94.

Palmer began its storied football history with a 25-0 loss to the Anchorage High football team Oct. 4, 1952.

After four years and 12 consecutive losses, the Moose notched their first win in October 1955, an 18-6 victory over the opposing Anchorage team on a snow-covered Mulcahy Park field.

“He was always proud of that first victory,” Norm Jr. said.

Katie says her husband also was the man who penned that well-known poem about the team’s first win:

Here’s to the men of Palmer High,

They fed the Eagles humble pie.

Four years of effort was rewarded,

With a victory long retarded.

Stadem, Worledge, Reed and Campbell,

Pulled it off without a gamble,

Drive, block, tackle, went the Moose,

To break their shifty runners loose.

And when they went back to the sticks,

There read the scoreboard 18 to 6.

“He never forgot. He called them his boys,” Katie said. “I’ve gotten calls from a few of them saying how he shaped their lives and gave them direction.”

‘His Ph.D., he did that for himself.’

Norm Jr. said when he was a student in the district, many of his teachers — including his Palmer High running coach Mike Janecek — had been hired by his dad.

He said he grew up hearing stories about his dad, like he gave me my first job. Or another common comment, “I was a pain, but your dad was always fair.”

“Something about the way he dealt with the situation seemed to have a lasting effect,” Norm Jr. said. “It’s 40 or 50 years later and these guys still remember it.”

Katie shared a story about Rousey’s approach to one student sent to his office for discipline issues.

She said the boy was in trouble for refusing to spend his allowance on a 10-cent Scholastic Reader that all students were required to purchase. Katie said he told her husband he knew everything in the reader already and shouldn’t have to buy the book.

Rather than punish a willful child, Norm Sr. solved the problem by striking a nickel bargain with the boy’s father. Each man chipped in 5 cents to buy the reader and the lad spent his allowance on his heart’s desire.

Katie Dryden met Norm Rousey in 1958 after he returned from earning his master’s degree at the University of Southern California. A friend first introduced them at Bert’s Drug Store, but two days later they discovered they were both living in the teachers’ dorm — where the Colony Inn restaurant is today.

The year they were married her parents, John and Clarice Dryden, disappeared in an airplane. The young couple moved into the Dryden place, but that house was razed when the Glenn was upgraded in 1967. Another upgrade planned for the Glenn Highway in the near future will take more of the parcel, Katie said.

When the highway came through, they found out in June that they had to vacate the house by December, so Rousey took a leave of absence and returned to school to earn his doctorate in education at Ohio University, which he completed in August 1968.

“His Ph.D., he did that for himself. He knew it would help his career, but he did those things to prove to himself he could do it, Katie said.

‘Hey, Janacek, you want that job?’

Many longtime Mat-Su Borough School District employees, like former Palmer High principal and superintendent Pat Chesbro and longtime Palmer teacher and running coach Janecek, were first hired by Rousey.

By phone from Hawaii last week, Janecek recalled the circumstances of his hiring.

He said he was teaching an electronics class at Mat-Su College at the time and had heard Rousey wanted to add a similar class for high school students.

He was in the middle of a roofing project, several days out from a shower or razor, when superintendent Rousey called to ask him to come in for an interview, Janecek recalled.

Come as you are, he told Janacek.

So the eager young man climbed down off the roof and drove into Palmer to meet with the head of local schools.

“Hey, Janacek, you want that job?” Rousey asked.

“You bet I do,” Janecek said.

“OK. It’s yours,” Rousey said, rushing out the door to his next appointment.

“That’s the kind of guy Norm was,” Janecek said. “In 27 years working for the district, Rousey was the most pleasant, down-to-earth guy I ever worked for.”

He also coached Norm Jr. as a championship cross-country runner and said Norm and Katie Rousey were always there asking, “What can we do to help?” he said.

“Both of them helped me with all kinds of running events over the years,” Janecek said. “Their family supported their child in athletics. They were just the model parents; there every week asking how they could help.”

Although Norm Jr. was among the elite cross-country runners in the state during his high school career, he said he never felt any pressure from his dad to lead the pack. He said his father’s focus was much more on the joy of seeing his son do something he loved than on where he finished in any race.

“The only thing we requested is that you finish what you start,” Katie said. “If you start the swimming season, you have to finish. Your team is counting on you. Honor your commitment.”

Chesbro said Rousey also hired her in 1974 as a reading teacher at Palmer High and remains an example of commitment to community long after retirement.

“It’s fair to say he helped build this place,” Chesbro said.

When Rousey was hired as superintendent in 1971, the district had an enrollment of 2,359 students.

There weren’t many teachers or administrators either, Chesbro said. Back then, they could all fit in what was then the Palmer High cafeteria.

All three of the Rousey’s children attended district schools and make their homes in the area.

Rhonda Rousey Knopp has taught in the district for almost 30 years. Jenny Rousey is an accomplished equestrian rider and instructor who teaches and trains at Sindorf Equestrian Center off 49th State Street in Palmer.

And Norm Jr. taught for about 15 years in the Mat-Su school district, but is presently a stay-at-home dad raising his young son.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.