The Journal News

To the Editor: 2-18-01

As I was reading your Saturday, February 17, 2001, sport's page, I was amused to

see in Anthony Pinciara's column on the Section I Scholastic Wrestling results, that this current event was the 36th annual. Interestingly I was at the Section I championships held in White Plains High School in 1962, that was held 39 years ago, and I had the pleasure of being the director of the 1963-4-5 Championships held at the Mount Vernon High School. The Section I Championship was first won by the White Plains High School team in 1956. In fact, White Plains won in 1956 and 1957, and shared the title with Scarsdale in 1958. Scarsdale shared or won the title outright until 1962 when I attended my first Section I championship event. I was an assistant to the great Mount Vernon head Coach Henry Littlefield who's 1963 team broke all the previous Section I records, and when on to win the next five championships. Mount Vernon subsequently continued to dominate Section I wrestling through the hard work and great coaching of two of Coach Littlefield's protégés, Randy Forrest, of New Rochelle, two-time Section I winner, 1957 and 1958 and Jimmy Lee, Section Champion in 1964. Henry Littlefield, a Westchester coach of the year, and a Hall of Famer, had a great deal to do with the growth of amateur scholastic wrestling in Westchester. He created one of the first Holiday tournaments, devised the divisional championships and helped establish the coach’s association. Coach Littlefield died last year in Pacific Grove, California, where he had lived for many years, after a distinguished career as an educator at Amherst College and the York School of Monterrey, California.

Richard J. Garfunkel