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It made sense that Ed Lane and Jeff Gee were inducted into the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference Hall of Fame on the same night. They were honored for their long tenure as cross country and track coaches at their respective schools, Lane at Westhill and Gee at Wilton. Lane and Gee were one-time teammates on the school's track team at Rippowam in Stamford in the 1960s.
"He was younger that I was, so I don't remember him,'' said Lane, who graduated from Rip in 1968. "I was doing what I was doing. I didn't get to know him until I got into coaching."
Gee was a sophomore when Lane was a senior. He certainly knew of him, though. "They had an athlete of the year at Rippowam, and one of the winners that year was Bobby Valentine. The other was Ed Lane. That tells you what kind of athlete he was. He played center on some great basketball teams. He won the league title in cross country as a sophomore and a junior. It's kind of ironic that we're going into the Hall of Fame in the same year."
Lane, 61, said his track career began when John Kuczo, the FCIAC's current executive director, noticed him on a playground at Southfield Village. "At that time, I wasn't even going to school,'' Ed says. "I was coming out of the 7th grade, and I was going to the 7th grade again. John noticed me and I fell in love with sports. It changed my life. John Kuczo saved my life. I'm not kidding about that."
Many of Lane's contemporaries from those days have died over the years. "A lot of them were because of drug overdoses, drinking, AIDs, just stress,'' Lane says. "The last time counted it was something like 60 people that died over the year. I stopped counting. It was just crazy."
Lane attended Western Kentucky, served in the Navy and returned to Rippowam, which has since closed, as a track coach. He has been at Westhill since 1985 and coaches girls cross country and indoor track. He also assists with the outdoor teams.
"I love it,'' Lane says. "By the time I finish from cross country and indoor and outdoor, I'm pretty beat up. The kids are different from when I started, but I find three or four kids to connect with and I latch on to them."
Gee looked up to Lane as a runner, and admires his coaching, too. "Ed has been a consistent coach,'' Jeff says. "I have great respect for Ed, and always have."
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