Lacrosse
icon Kohn inspires many
By Aimee
Berg, special for
On Wednesday afternoon, just
before Middlebury takes the field for its quarterfinal in the NCAA Division III
men's lacrosse tournament, a player will inevitably ask the team's 73-year-old
field manager, "What time is it?"
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"Time to beat
Wesleyan," Peter Kohn will say.
Players have been asking
Kohn what time it is for 24 years, and if Middlebury advances to the title game
as it has five of the past six seasons, then the scene will repeat itself all
the way to May 29.
The shtick has become as
beloved as Kohn himself — and not just at Middlebury, where the women's
lacrosse and field hockey field bears his name.
"No one has touched
more lives in the game," says Jim Grube, the
former coach who persuaded Middlebury to hire Kohn as an assistant equipment
manager in 1981. Kohn also has been involved with annual lacrosse festivals,
camps, 32 all-star games and six world teams.
"He's an
institution," says current head coach Erin Quinn.
As proof, last year Kohn
was enshrined in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, though he never scored a
goal.
And last month in
Baltimore, six decades worth of Kohn fans showed up to greet the city's native
son as he shuffled humbly down the red carpet as the star of an award-winning
documentary, Keeper of the Kohn. The film takes its name from the one or
two freshmen, known as "keepers," selected each year to look after
Kohn and ensure his daily needs are met.
Kohn has demonstrated
symptoms of mild autism since childhood, although he has never been formally
diagnosed. He is enamored of trains, counts their cars and records the numbers
in a notebook. He remembers players' middle names decades after they've
graduated. He also habitually carries four or five different cameras to
lacrosse functions.
He lives on his own but is
hard of hearing and doesn't drive.
"Initially, I thought
it would be much more of a burden, but quickly I found out that it's an
honor," says midfielder Dave Campbell, a 2005 keeper.
One of the main
responsibilities is to make sure Kohn has a ride to practice. "I don't
have a car,"
Although Kohn is
technically responsible for filling water bottles, retrieving errant balls and
cleaning players' cleats, his influence extends far beyond the field.
"For every second
spent on Pete, you take something valuable away, whether it's newfound
knowledge of the railroads, baseball statistics — or something a lot more
special. Pete showed me a lot about life," says
2004 keeper Alex Palmisano. "I was amazed at how
thankful he was for all we gave to him when he really gave so much more to
us."
Getting the job at
Middlebury, however, "really took some convincing. I brokered hard," Grube says. "My wife and I were just about to start a
family. It would have been so easy to say, 'Don't complicate your life,' and
sort of shut the door before it's open."
Says Kohn: "Middlebury
gave me an opportunity to harness the skills I had. I don't like talking about
my skills because I don't want to make myself look big. But I wanted the kids
to know what I was doing and why I was doing it. Middlebury gave me an
opportunity to do that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had a chance to make
it."
As a result, players rarely
ask him about his condition. "You treat him the way he is," says
"People who meet him
feel like they're part of a profound exchange," says director David
Gaynes, who chronicled Kohn's 2003 season, his last before semi-retiring. (Keeper
of the Kohn won the Jury award for best documentary at the Vail Film
Festival and the Audience award for best documentary at the Palm Beach Film
Festival; it will travel to
During filming, Middlebury
lost its bid for a fourth consecutive title in sudden-death overtime, and Kohn
also lost two close friends (including Jerry Schmidt, a Hall of Fame coach and
player who had lobbied to get Kohn in the Hall).
Kohn missed his extended
family and has been returning for tournaments ever since.
It was therefore no
surprise when the lights went up after the
Without hesitating, Kohn
said, "Time to give back what so many have done for me for so many years."