By Menachem Wecker
When the Red Sox came back from a four-run deficit to win their April 4 season opener against the New York Yankees, two senior staff members at GW could not have been happier.
The Red Sox appear in the official bios on the GW Web site of both Robert A. Chernak, Ed.D. ’97, senior vice president of student and academic support services, and Frederic A. Siegel, associate vice president and dean of freshmen.
In addition to enjoying playing cards, TIVO, golf, travel and fine dining, Dr. Chernak, according to his profile, “is an avid fan of Boston area teams like the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots, the Boston Red Sox and the Celtics.” According to Mr. Siegel’s bio, his hobbies include watching Michigan football and Woody Allen films and listening to classical music, and he “is an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox and Celtics and the New England Patriots.”
“Growing up in Chelsea, Mass., in a family that consisted of all sports nuts, it became obvious to me at an early age that unless I pledged my soul to any team that had Boston written across its jersey, I would forever be seen as a family outcast,” says Dr. Chernak.
Dr. Chernak’s mother used to listen to almost every Red Sox game on the radio, and his father started taking him to Sox games when he was 3 years old. The two went to about 15 games a year at Fenway Park, where Dr. Chernak landed his first job at age 14 as a vendor working for Harry M. Stevens, the so-called “King of Sports Concessions.”
“I kept that job seven years through college when in 1967 the Red Sox had the impossible year with Carl Yastrzemski to win the American League pennant on the last day of the season,” he says.
Dr. Chernak attended the first Boston Patriots game at Boston University’s field and saw the team’s second game at the Polo Grounds in New York against the New York Titans. He also attended Celtics and Bruins games.
An active child, Dr. Chernak played Little League baseball, junior high school and high school basketball, club hockey and “even a little football.” After graduating from high school, he served as a basketball referee at the high school and college level for many years, and for nearly 40 years, he has overseen intercollegiate athletics at three different schools, including GW.
Like Dr. Chernak, Mr. Siegel, who grew up in Boston, experienced many of the great Boston sports moments. By age 25, he had been to seven Stanley Cup playoff games, a championship game against the Los Angeles Lakers in the mid-1960s and the Patriots final game at Fenway Park. As the “greatest World Series ever played” between the Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds was going on in 1975, Mr. Siegel was living a few blocks away from Fenway Park working his first full time job at Boston University.
“Need I go on?” he says. “Both Bob and I grew up expecting the Celtics to win every year, watching the Splendid Splinter hit .388 at the end of his career, lived through the renaissance of the Bruins with Bobby Orr and Espo, and enjoyed Butch Songin, Gino Cappelletti and Ron Burton make pro football fun in the early 60s with the AFL. It was a glorious time then, and even better now with Brady, Garnett, Papi, et al.”
Readers who are not yet Boston sports fans may need a translation. The Splendid Splinter is Ted Williams, Espo is Phil Esposito and Mr. Siegel’s final references are to Tom Brady (Patriots’ quarterback), Kevin Garnett (Celtics’ forward) and David Ortiz (designated hitter for the Red Sox).
When Mr. Siegel became director of admission at GW in the ’90s, he found an opportunity to mix work and pleasure. “I believed that GW did not get its fair share of Massachusetts students, and I did make an extra effort to promote GW in New England,” he says. “Bob did even better by placing Joe Greenberg there as a field representative in 1997. Our market share has only grown there, creating a core group of Boston fans here in Foggy Bottom.”
According to Marty Ray, public affairs manager of the Red Sox organization, the team’s fan base 450 miles away in Foggy Bottom is not that unusual.
“Transplanted New Englanders such as such as Bob Chernak and Fred Siegel at George Washington University might have left their homes behind, but their association with the Red Sox is lifelong and resolute. We salute them,” says Mr. Ray. “We are incredibly fortunate to have an expansive fan base in the form of Red Sox Nation.”
Red Sox fans throughout the United States and the rest of the world are “passionate, loyal and dedicated,” and “they display that support with pride,” says Mr. Ray. “It speaks volumes regarding the appeal of the Red Sox and the connection that people have, through generations, with the team and with Fenway Park, the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball.”