STANLEY J. STOKLOSA, Class of 1935

STANLEY J. STOKLOSA
Class of 1935
Inducted in 1986

After starring as a First Baseman and Pitcher on the 1935 Lowell High School State Tournament Finalist Baseball Team, Stan went on to be a four-year varsity letterman at Boston University.

Stan took the helm of the Lowell High School Baseball program in 1945. From 1945 to 1968, his teams won two league championships and participated in five state tournaments. Sixteen of his players signed professional baseball contracts. Stoklosa’s teams compiled an overall 286–171–3 record, an outstanding .626 percentage, making him the winningest baseball coach in Lowell High School history. He also served as a scout for numerous major league organizations. In addition, he helped organize the Babe Ruth and Connie Mack Baseball Programs in Lowell.

Stan became the first Greater Lowell area coach to be elected to the Massachusetts State Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame of 1973. A dedicated educator, Stan retired in 1986 after serving as a teacher and administrator at Lowell High School for forty-four years.

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Stanley J. Stoklosa Obituary

Well known and respected teacher, baseball coach, member LHS Athletic Hall of Fame 

LHS Baseball Coaches Cunha, Stokosa, & Skaff; Lowell Sun Staff Photo

LOWELL — Stanley J. Stoklosa, 94, of Lowell, died Friday June 8, 2012 at Fairhaven Healthcare Center in Lowell. He was the beloved husband of the late Kathryn M. “Kay” (Philbin) Stoklosa who died March 21, 1999.

Born in Lowell, November 12, 1917, the son of the late Joseph and the late Mary (Lach) Stoklosa, he attended Lowell schools and was a graduate of Lowell High School in the Class of 1935 as Class President, a member of the baseball team, an Officer in the Boys Regiment and a member of the National Honor Society.

While attending Boston University College of Business Administration, Stanley served in the Student House of Representatives, a member of the Dean’s Cabinet, a member of the baseball team and served as Class Marshall during graduation exercises. He graduated cum laude in 1939 after earning Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and was admitted into Beta Gamma Sigma — the honor society for accredited business programs in colleges and universities.

The following year he was employed by Lever Brothers Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts as Division Auditor of its Philadelphia branch. Then, after serving as an accountant in the Lowell City Treasurer’s office, he was elected as a teacher of accounting at Lowell High School in 1942 and served as its baseball coach for 24 years. He retired from Lowell High School in 1986 after 44 years, with the title of Master.

Stanley’s contributions in the field of sports and youth programs were many. He was one of the first four team managers when Little League Baseball was introduced in Lowell, served as President of the Babe Ruth League, organized prep league and Connie Mack League baseball summer programs, served as a baseball scout for the Philadelphia Athletics and the Baltimore Orioles and was chosen by the Brooklyn Dodgers to manage one of its teams of scouted prospects assembled for an All Star exhibition game. In 1961, he managed the Nashua Dodgers baseball team to the Northeast league championship.

In 1974, he was honored as an inductee and member of the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame and in 1986 to the Lowell High School Athletic Hall of Fame. In later years he was further honored when the Athletic Hall of Fame foyer at Lowell High School and then Alumni Field were dedicated to bear his name.

Stanley is survived by a brother-in-law Donald R. Philbin and his wife Carolyn of North Chelmsford; two sisters-in-law Ruth (Philbin) Boisseau of Bellevue, WA and Dorothea (Philbin) Burke of Peabody, MA; his long and devoted friend Martin “Mickey” Finn of Lowell; and many nieces and nephews.

He was also brother of the late Josephine M. Stoklosa of Lowell, the late Reverend J. Walter Stoklosa of Lowell and the late Mitchell J. Stoklosa of Needham, and brother-in-law of the late Richard M. Philbin, Esq. of Rockville, MD, the late Patricia (Philbin) Howard of Manchester, NH, the late Dr. Philip H. Philbin of Bethesda, MD and the late Dr. Paul M. Burke of Peabody, MA.

STOKLOSA — In keeping in accordance with his wishes, Funeral Services were held privately. Those wishing may make contributions in his memory to the Immaculate Conception Church Building Fund, 3 Fayette Street, Lowell, MA 01852. E-condolences at www.odonnellfuneralhome.com. Arrangements by the O’DONNELL FUNERAL HOME – (978 or 866) 458-8768.

Published in the Lowell Sun on June 13, 2012

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Working for a field to match the man it’s named for: First class

June 13, 2010  Section: Sports  Lowell Sun; David Pevear, dpevear@lowellsun.com

LOWELL — Stan Stoklosa’s occasional displeasure while teaching on a baseball field was dignified. He had a pure vocabulary and a clear message. The coach’s stylish wardrobe off the field similarly impressed his players. “We’d always ask him, ‘Stan, how do get such nice clothes?'” says Rodger Martin, a center fielder on the 1945 Lowell High baseball team, the first LHS team coached by Stoklosa. “We didn’t find out until a couple of years later that his father was a tailor.”

“He’d come to school looking like he walked out of a model book,” says Mickey Finn, a second baseman on Stoklosa’s first team. “He was the best-dressed teacher Lowell High ever had.”The baseball field bearing the 92-year-old Stoklosa’s name now requires some fine tailoring to remain a fitting tribute to Lowell High’s classy and beloved coach from 1945-68.Proceeds from the annual Lowell High School Alumni Golf Tournament on June 28 at Meadow Creek Golf Club in Dracut will fund repairs to Stoklosa/Alumni Field on Rogers Street, which has deteriorated in certain spots since the Lowell Spinners played there in 1996 and ’97 while waiting for LeLacheur Park to open.

A share of the proceeds from the tournament will also benefit a memorial scholarship honoring Stoklosa’s late wife Kay, likewise an esteemed Lowell educator, for whom the Stoklosa Middle School on Broadway Street is named.  Stoklosa is now blind, unable to watch the game he loves, and melancholic since “my beautiful Kay” died in 1998. He listens to Red Sox games on the radio. After a second Red Sox runner was thrown out at the plate with nobody out during a recent game, Finn’s telephone rang.Coach Stoklosa was calling.”Can you imagine that?” Stoklosa said disapprovingly of the Red Sox’s base-running sins.”He still has a great sense for baseball,” says Finn, 81.

Stoklosa is Lowell High royalty. He was a classmate (’35) and baseball teammate of future LHS football coaching legend Ray Riddick. He was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in its “Mount Rushmore” inaugural class of 1986. His LHS baseball teams compiled a 272-187-6 recover over his 24 seasons as coach.Yet the number of victories rarely is the theme of his players’ recollections.”For a few years, Stan was the father I never had,” says Larry Connell, whose mother Eleanor raised Connell and his sister Sue in a housing project in the Acre after their father left them. “I can’t imagine a kid having a better coach. He had to have a lot of patience with me, I’ll tell you.”Stoklosa’s patience was rewarded.

As a senior in 1964, Connell put together perhaps the best season any Lowell High pitcher has ever had. The right-hander went 12-1 with 0.79 ERA, and struck out 159 batters in 98 innings for a 19-5 team that won the Essex County League championship.”I remember we beat Catholic Memorial, which was undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the state,” Connell says about his most memorable pitching performance. “Skip Lockwood pitched for them. He signed for about $100,000 (with the Kansas City Athletics) the next week.”Connell signed for considerably less. He pitched three seasons in the minor leagues, in the Red Sox and Orioles systems, before his arm gave out. He lives in Wisconsin, where for 30 years he worked for the city of Appleton.”I can see Coach Stoklosa right here,” says Connell, 63, describing over the phone a picture on his basement wall, snapped after that 1964 game against Catholic Memorial at Alumni Field.

“We are hugging and both have grins about a mile long. I see him every day .”Martin played center field on Stoklosa’s first Lowell High team in 1945. His son Brian was the ace pitcher and leading hitter on Stoklosa’s final Lowell High team in 1968. “He taught Brian a pick-off move better than anybody anywhere had,” says Rodger Martin, 82. During a 1968 game, Brian Martin, a lefty, picked off three Central Catholic runners in one inning.Attention to baseball’s innumerable details was Stoklosa’s trademark.

Whether quizzing players about where to throw the ball if it was hit to them in certain situations, or explaining the proper way to throw the ball around the infield after an out, “he knows as much about the game as anybody I’ve ever heard talk about baseball,” says Martin. Considering the gentlemanly educator for whom Lowell High’s baseball field is named, Stoklosa/Alumni Field deserves to remain a first-class facility, say Stoklosa’s former players.”I can’t remember him ever getting really upset,” says Connell. “No ugly scenes, throwing stuff around, using the f-word. I don’t remember anything close to that.”

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