Ray Fell Took His Woolley Lessons to Pat-Med

Had Ray Fell’s desire to be a high school varsity soccer coach not been so great, he may never have left his teaching post at Sachem and rose to prominence in the Patchogue-Medford School District.

A 1963 graduate of Sachem High School, Fell was a three-sport athlete with the Flaming Arrows, captaining the soccer, wrestling and baseball teams.

It was legendary soccer coach who had the largest impact on his life in high school.

“He taught you how to play the game of life and the game of soccer very well,” said Fell, who was an all-county selection in wrestling and baseball. “He was someone you wanted to emulate. He always seemed to do the right thing.”

Fell excelled in soccer and was a member of Sachem’s Suffolk County championship team in 1961, the first title any team in school history won. That win spurred the Arrows into somewhat of a dynasty in the 1960’s.

While he was on the field when Sachem snapped Mattituck’s 22-year home unbeaten streak, it was his goal against Amityville during the fall of 1962 that he calls his best moment.

“I just sprained my ankle in the game and Amityville was not supposed to be a good team,” he recalled. “Coach said to me, ‘you’re not going to be playing anymore.’ We were fighting for a league championship. It got to the last quarter, we were tied and I told him to put me in. I scored and we won, 2-1.”

He was offered a scholarship to play college soccer at Ithaca. The night before he left he visited Woolley, who always seemed to instill sound advice.

He had a respectable career in college and the team was undefeated by his senior season, losing to Brown in the Eastern Regionals.

Fell ran into Walter Dunham, Sachem’s first superintendent, during his last year of college. The chance meeting led to his first full-time job as a teacher in the Sachem Central School District.

His stint back in Arrows country only lasted a year thanks to a phone call from Dutch Schultz, that athletic director in Patchogue-Medford then.

“He said we’re looking for a varsity soccer coach, ‘are you interested?’” Fell recalled. “So I left Sachem at the end of that year and got a teaching job and coached soccer. I was there the rest of my career.”

Over the next 13 years he coached soccer, baseball and wrestling, then went into administration as an assistant principal, principal and eventually superintendent of the district.

His coaching career didn’t garner much adulation, but he passed down many lessons that Woolley taught him.

“I don’t know if you can teach someone to be a competitor, but he did,” Fell said. “He taught me how to be a good winner and a bad loser, but not a sore sport. If every kid could learn that lesson it would be great.”