There they were, side-by-side, atop Tuesday’s Times Herald obituary page … two similarly-aged, but very different men, who in their own way impacted sports in the Southern Tier.
Last Friday, Wimpy — nobody called him Lynford — Swetland passed away, at age 88, at his home in Portville and, two days later, Carl Saglimben, 89, died at his residence in Allegany.
In my mind, there was only one way to describe Wimpy: a character.
I got to know him as he was a good friend of late TH sports writer Jim Melaro. He was all Portville, all the time, particularly when his son, Gary, was the football coach. Eventually, Wimpy became part of the committee that selects the Big 30 All-Star Football Team and he took the job seriously, making sure to see every eligible team in New York and Pennsylvania.
An unpolished man who made his living with his hands, he was funny, opinionated, profane, loyal and ALWAYS fired up.
Never, in 50 years at the TH, did I attend a Big 30 selection meeting as they were held on Sunday when I was covering Bills games. But I heard stories.
To say Wimpy stirred the pot is a mischaracterization, more like adding cayenne pepper to a souffle. But he got things moving.
There was never a time he didn’t make me laugh merely speaking his mind and I’ll miss him.
My TH colleague, Sam Wilson, will have more on Wimpy in Friday’s Local Notes.
FACT IS, I didn’t know Carl nearly as well, but clearly learned a lot about him.
Back in 1973, the men who hired me, Mike Abdo and Bob Davies, regaled me with tales of Carl Saglimben.
By then, he was beginning a 21-year stint as superintendent of schools at Hinsdale.
But that was preceded by 15 years as a physical education teacher and four-sport coach in the district.
He was Hinsdale’s athletic director and coached football, track and baseball, but the sports love of his life was always basketball.
Carl played for St. Bonaventure in the early 1950s, was a member of the ’52 NIT team as a sophomore and averaged a double-double his senior year, 11 points and a team-leading 10 rebounds.
And though he was a center, Carl was a perfectionist about shooting, especially form.
It was a message he pounded home to his teams at Hinsdale. His squad went 198-84 over his tenure and that included eight Cattaraugus County championships plus nine Section 6 playoff berths, highlighted by a trip to the finals after which the Times Herald named him Coach of the Year for 1968.
By the time I started at the TH, Carl was an administrator and my only interaction with him was covering Bona games where he was keeper of the home scorebook.
And though I knew him as a man of class and dignity, I also witnessed his on-court impact.
His son Mark starred for what was then Allegany High School, a prolific scorer, mostly because he was an extraordinary outside shooter.
One night in Buffalo, covering a Section 6 playoff game in which Mark dominated, hitting from all over the court in an Allegany victory, I interviewed the opposing coach.
“Where,” he inquired incredulously, “did that kid learn to shoot like that?”
“Probably his father,” I offered.
In hindsight, I wish I’d gotten to know Carl better. Our exchanges were limited to greetings at the grocery store, as recently as a week ago, and I never took the time to tell him about the coach who was so impressed with how well he taught his son to shoot.
(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)