Jerry Savage, the winningest active high school basketball coach in the metro area and one of the most respected by his peers and players, has decided to make this his final year at Loyola High School.
"I made the decision last year that this would be my final year at Loyola," Savage said yesterday.
"The school has been very good to me, but it's time to move on. I have no regrets."
Steve Baker, the son of local basketball guru Paul Baker, will succeed Savage. Baker started working in Loyola's admission office this year.
Savage is 597-435 (.578) in 34 years at Loyola, where he is an institution in the Baltimore Catholic League. He will turn 65 in May, at which time he will retire from teaching at Loyola.
The only Baltimore-area basketball coach to reach 600 wins is the late Ray Mullis of Cardinal Gibbons, who was 621-346 (.642) in 31 years.
While Savage, who was a founder of the Baltimore Catholic League in 1971, is leaving the Dons, he is not necessarily retiring from coaching.
"I'm leaving it wide-open as to whether I will coach at another school," said Savage, a New Jersey native who starred in basketball at Mount St. Mary's and landed his first teaching/coaching job at Mount St. Joseph in 1961.
After coaching JV basketball and JV and varsity baseball for the Gaels, Savage moved to Loyola in 1968, one year after coaching the Loyola College freshmen.
Few high school coaches have earned the respect Savage has for his dedication to his school, players and the league.
"Jerry Savage is the Baltimore Catholic League," said Calvert Hall coach Mark Amatucci, who has been in the league 16 years.
"Early on, he established our credibility with the outstanding teams he had and his administrative leadership. He made us a class organization. He has handled all the little things no one else wanted to do, like the scheduling and organizing meetings."
Cokey Robertson, coach at St. Maria Goretti of Hagerstown, who is the only active coach in Maryland with more career wins (689) than Savage and has been in the league nearly 20 years, said Savage "has been a symbol of integrity and well-coached teams, just a class individual."
League teams plan to honor Savage when his Dons visit the other eight schools this season.
Robertson and Amatucci agree Savage is not through coaching after this season.
"I think there is a little coaching left in Jerry, " said Robertson.