Ralph Wolfendale was preparing for his senior season with the basketball team at Lawrence High in 1986 when head track coach Ernie Perry called him into his office. Mr. Perry, Wolfendale recalled, “told me that ‘You’re barely 6 feet tall, you can’t dribble with your left hand, and you can’t jump very high, so where are you going to play college basketball?’ ” Seeing the wisdom of that counsel, Wolfendale ran on Mr. Perry’s track team instead, won the state 600-yard championship, and received a track scholarship to Central Connecticut State University. “I have Ernie to thank for it,” he said. “He took me under his wing.” Mr. Perry, a 1996 inductee to the Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame, died April 22 in Wingate Healthcare in Andover of heart complications related to a fall. He was 79, lived in Andover, and his teaching and coaching career spanned five decades. A founder of the Massachusetts Decathlon and Northern Area meets, his track coaching accomplishments included guiding the 1972 Lawrence Central Catholic squad to a 10-0 season and his Lawrence High team to consecutive Merrimack Valley League titles in the mid-1980s. He also had coached at Methuen High School. “Ernie knew exactly how to help his athletes succeed,” said Methuen High athletic director Jim Weymouth. “He was an icon.” Mr. Perry retired as a physical education teacher at Methuen High in 1994, but remained as track coach. Mr. Perry “was the consummate professional. In 50 years of teaching and coaching he got to work on time, never missed a day,” E.J. said, adding that he “taught his kids to work hard, and how rude it was to be late.” Mr. Perry’s father, Ernest Sr., was track coach at Lawrence High and a 1977 inductee to the state Track Coaches Hall of Fame.
Inducted: 1996