Bradley, Coakley families honored with Edgewood High memorial scholarships

Two Edgewood High School scholarships were named Friday in memory of the late Lambert E. “Bud” Coakley, a longtime teacher, coach and athletic director, and the late student-athlete Carl E. “Wee” Bradley.

The memorial scholarships were dedicated during the eighth annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony Friday morning in the EHS auditorium.

Bradley’s brother, Dudley, was on hand for the ceremony with his wife, Stefanie. Coakley’s four children, who are all Edgewood graduates, were on hand, too.

Carl Bradley, who had been a standout basketball player for EHS along with his brothers, Charles and Dudley, died suddenly from a heart attack in 1975 during his junior year.

“Carl was a wonderful athlete but an even better person,” current Edgewood student Julia Spinner said during her introduction.

Edgewood High students introduced the family of each scholarship honoree and each of the seven Hall of Fame inductee. The ceremony happened during the school’s Homecoming celebrations, and each student was dressed festively, many wearing elaborate headgear.

The Hall of Fame inductions usually happen in the late spring around the same time as commencement, but school officials switched to Homecoming this year, as the commencement ceremony is being held at the Harford Community College arena effective the end of the 2017-2018 school year. School administrators also thought it would be appropriate to have the inductees on campus while many other alumni are there, principal Kilo Mack said.

Five alumni and two former staffers were inducted Friday. It is the eighth group of alumni, staff and community supporters inducted into EHS’ Hall of Fame since the first class of inductees was celebrated in 2011. The Hall of Fame is a joint effort of the school and the EHS Alumni Association.

The alumni association oversees the two memorial scholarships announced Friday, according to the event program.

“It’s hard to find the correct words to say, ‘thank you,’” Dudley Bradley told the audience, noting that “sometimes that’s all it takes” is saying those two words.

Dudley graduated from EHS in 1975, and his brother, Charles, graduated in 1977. Both went on to play basketball in the NBA. Dudley was in the league from 1979 to 1989, playing for the Indiana Pacers, the Atlanta Hawks and the Washington Bullets — now the Washington Wizards.

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Harford's Greatest Athletes is a continuing feature of www.exploreharford.com brought to you by The Aegis and The Record, the only sources for Harford County news and sports for 156 years. Greatest Athletes are men and women who have excelled in a sport or sport(s) for a sustained career beyond high school and who have been born in Harford County or lived or played in the county. Also considered are athletes who have spent a significant part of their lives in Harford, even if their greatest successes may have occurred somewhere else. We welcome nominations based on these criteria at www.news@theaegis.com or avought@theaegis.com. Pictured is Harford County native Cal Ripken Jr. giving his acceptance speech at his 2007 induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (MATT BUTTON | AEGIS STAFF, Homestead Publishing)

Charles, whom Dudley said lives in Arizona and could not get a flight to attend Friday’s ceremony, played during the early and mid-1980s for the Boston Celtics. He had NBA star Larry Bird as his teammate, Dudley said.

Charles and Dudley were part of the inaugural class of EHS Hall of Fame inductees in 2011.

Dudley said his late brother “helped me be the player that I was supposed to become, because he said so.”

“He was a decent person, everybody liked him, everyone wanted to be around him,” Dudley said. “He was a good brother; he was someone that was easy to talk to, easy to love.”

Dudley said later that all three brothers were on the EHS squad that won the state basketball championship in 1975.

“You enjoyed playing basketball,” he said of the experience of playing with his brothers. “You enjoyed going to school at Edgewood, and everything was just sensational.”

Dudley and Stefanie Bradley live in Randallstown. Their son, Carl, is named for his late brother, and Carl plays basketball for Cecil College. His daughter, Sandra, is studying dance at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.

The Carl Bradley scholarship is called the Unsung Hero Scholarship, which Dudley said will be awarded each year to “a deserving student here at Edgewood.”

“I know that Wee would have been very excited that he is helping others with their education,” Stefanie Bradley said.

Lambert E. “Bud” Coakley worked at Edgewood High from 1957 to 1984. The basketball team reached the state finals during the 1964-1965 season under his leadership, and he also served as football coach with two seasons in which the team had a 9-1 record, according to the program. Coakley taught multiple subjects at EHS, and he spent more than 10 years as athletic director.

Coakley, who died in 2015, was named to Maryland’s halls of fame for football coaches and athletic directors, plus the Harford County Public Schools Educator Hall of Fame.

Mike Coakley accepted the athletic scholarship honor along with his sisters, Kim Kosinski, Melissa Nelson and Shelley Vines. He said his father “was passionate with his students about giving 100 percent, whether on the field of play or the classroom.”

Coakley said his father “took a lot of pleasure” in seeing many of his students graduate and go on to successful careers.

“The fact that this scholarship is awarded to a student athlete is a fitting tribute, and I’m sure that Dad would consider this the icing on the cake of his many milestones,” Coakley said.

Kosinski called the honor “a very proud moment for our family.” Her family lived in Edgewood while she and her siblings attended EHS. Kosinski noted, in an interview after the ceremony, that her father “was always proud to say he was from Edgewood.”

“He lived a long, full life,” she said. “He was very happy.”

One of the 2018 Hall of Fame inductees, 1967 alumni Frank Ogens, had Kosinski’s father as a teacher and coach. The two reconnected in Florida, were her father lived in his final years, in 2014, Kosinski said.

“He would be so honored and so humbled to see that something like this [scholarship] was being given in his name,” Shelly Vines said of her father.

Vines said she does not think her father fully knew how much of an impact he had on people.

“I think he would be so humbled to know that his legacy is carrying on with this scholarship,” she said.

This year’s Hall of Fame inductees include alumni Dr. Kenny Messman, (Class of 1961), Frank Ogens (Class of 1967), Robert Bruch Sr. (Class of 1967), Linda Foster Dousa (Class of 1976) and Richard Chizmar (Class of 1983), plus former staffers Marva Ringgold Choates and Frank Mezzanotte.

Alumni Bruch is also a former EHS staffer, with seven years as a teacher and jazz band director. The former student musician has spent 40 years playing trombone. He worked for Harford County Public Schools for 36 years, until his retirement in 2011, as a band director for various schools, according to the program.

Bruch said “this recognition is especially meaningful, since he and his wife — and their children — are all Edgewood graduates, and he and his daughter are both former faculty.

“Congratulations to my fellow honorees,” he said. “I am very humbled to be included with this outstanding group.”

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