Larry Coyle

Larry Coyle, a low-key coach who built a boys’ cross-country juggernaut at Ridgewood High School, died Saturday at a Manhattan nursing home. He was 74.

Larry Coyle 

 

He had Alzheimer’s disease, his family said.

“Larry was this quiet guy who never raised his voice, never lost his temper, but had this way of commanding kids’ respect,” said Mike Glynn, his successor as cross-country coach.
“He would do anything for his kids, and they would go through a brick wall for him,” Glynn said.
Mr. Coyle taught English at Ridgewood and coached cross-country for all his 29 years there. His Maroons won state Group 4 championships in 1991 and 1992, a dozen Bergen Group 4 championships and a slew of Bergen Meet of Champions and other titles. He also coached track and field early in his Ridgewood tenure.

Suburban Bergen County may have been the last place James Lawrence Coyle imagined finding himself. The Bronx native went to Iona College on a track scholarship — Glynn was a teammate — and began his teaching career at a Catholic high school in Harlem. He was hired by Louis D. Brandeis High School on the Upper West Side, but a citywide teachers strike sidelined him and he wound up working at a Coca-Cola bottling plant.

A job placement agency found Mr. Coyle a teaching position in Ridgewood, a town he never heard of. “New Jersey was completely foreign to my parents,” daughter Audrey Siciliano said. “Their world was the Five Boroughs.”

Mr. Coyle started at Ridgewood High in 1968 and immediately commenced coaching. He commuted from New York City for a few years before settling his family in Midland Park.

In retirement, he and his wife, Sandra, known as Patsy, moved back to Manhattan.
Mr. Coyle is survived by his wife of 48 years; his daughter, of Winchester, Mass.; a son, Patrick, of Atlanta; and four grandchildren.

Arrangements were by Cremation Consultants in Brooklyn. The family is planning a New Jersey memorial service in September.