Viewpoint – Gordon Paul: They didn’t inherit a field of dreams; they built it

There was just an expanse of grass, dirt, woods and a dream.

Bruce Kirsh, the feisty young baseball coach of the Franklin Pierce University baseball team, was measuring and placing markers to designate the infield. There were shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows and other equipment on the field. Soon, one by one, young men arrived and the work began.

It was 1973, and members of the baseball team were about to do something that was truly ingenious – they built their own “field of dreams.”

On Oct. 16, Franklin Pierce University will induct the 2026 Hall of Fame class led by the 1999 NCAA women’s championship team, among others, including the 1973 baseball team – an honor that is long overdue.

As a 1977 graduate and the university’s first sports information director, I understand the significance of their achievement. Beyond basketball star Bob Szklarz – who averaged 53.4 points over 19 games, including 85 against Windham College in Putney, Vermont, in 1967–68 – the school had no sports legacy.

The university was in its infancy, having opened its doors in November 1962, and like many institutions, it faced budget concerns. Unlike today, when Franklin Pierce has emerged as an NCAA Division II powerhouse, the team was comprised of student-athletes.

But their talents shouldn’t be underestimated. In 1973, led by Tony Albanese, who lobbied for this honor, Bob Ciotti, Russell Deag, Bob Broughton, Phil Crystal, whose family contributed funds to the project, and two future all-stars, Brice Craven and Neil Bernstein, among others helped build the field and establish a foothold in baseball, which culminated in the team’s first NEIBA title and a berth in the NAIA District 5 final against New England’s best smaller colleges.

And given the struggles of college institutions around the country today, this special group of student-athletes should serve as an inspiration.

“It was hard labor,” recalled Bernstein, a Union high school in New Jersey graduate now living in Colorado. “We worked hard. I would say everyone did their share of work.”

Yet their legacy extends far beyond that achievement. These largely non-scholarship athletes helped establish Franklin Pierce’s athletic tradition through pride, perseverance, and commitment.

My early college memories include sitting in the dining hall and talking about how the baseball team was building the field. Here is a group of athletes literally getting their hands dirty. They weren’t fielding ground balls; instead, they were moving dirt, digging and building something for all of us.

It was inspiring.

Our athletics had no media presence, so I felt compelled to act. If the players were doing their part, I had to do mine. I lobbied the communications department to promote our teams, and despite resistance, the school created the Sports Information Director role, which I became the first to hold in 1973.

I understood adversity. Growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, we knew boxer Chuck Wepner, the “Bayonne Bleeder.” A ringside sportswriter coined the nickname after Wepner’s bloody fight with Sonny Liston, which left him needing nearly 100 stitches. He kept fighting until referees stopped him. Later, his knockdown of Muhammad Ali helped inspire the iconic film, “Rocky.”

I was with Wepner in his hotel room in Cleveland hours before the fight against Ali, with city officials from Bayonne and famed boxing promoter Don King, and later wrote about my experiences for the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.

Juggling school and work, I built relationships with the late Don Wade of the Keene Sentinel, the Union Leader, Boston Globe, and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, promoting our athletes.

Given the right environment, these student-athletes could have thrived in any era. Without offseason training programs, they stayed fit by playing multiple sports, helped build their own field, and graduated facing student loan payments.

A couple of players stood out: Craven and Bernstein. Craven was a 6-4 pitcher/first baseman with power and good speed for his size, running from home to first in 4.5 seconds. He had a 4-1 record and batted nearly .300, good enough to draw interest from the New York Mets. Bernstein was a battler like his coach, who, after a poor freshman campaign, came back to lead the team in many statistics.

My senior year I was awarded a full scholarship. Although I continued my work with the same passion, it felt different.  My obligation was to do my job. 

For all those non-scholarship athletes of that earlier era, something different drove them. They played for school pride. They played for loyalty to one another. They played because they believed they could accomplish something that others thought was beyond them.

They didn’t inherit a proud athletic tradition at Franklin Pierce. They built it.

Gordon Paul, Franklin Pierce University Class of 1977, is a former student sports information director (1973-1977) and former sports columnist and reporter for The Star-Ledger of Newark and a freelance contributor to The New York Times.