Remembering Kellenberg AD Solosky

Ed Solosky's kids - it was his freshman team and, at least every football Saturday, they were his kids - sat around him as he underwent his weekly transformation.

Dryly funny and effortlessly even-keeled on a normal day, things were a shade different in the moments leading up to kickoff. On this particular day, he addressed the locker room at large. They were just boys, he said, before leveling his impassioned challenge.

"Who wants to be a man?"

This is what fellow coach Chris Alfalla will remember when someone asks him about Solosky, the Kellenberg Memorial High School athletic director who was so eloquent in his pre-game speeches that "by the end, I wanted to put a football helmet on."

Solosky, 48, died Tuesday in a three-vehicle crash in Bridgeville, Del., on his way home from his aunt's funeral in Virginia, police said. He was rushing back to Long Island to see the Kellenberg boys basketball team take on St. John the Baptist, friends said. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and two daughters, Katie, 9, and Lauren, 6.

"He prided himself for not missing work," said John Benintendi, his best friend and assistant principal for admissions at the school. "He would show up. That was a big part of it for him: passion and consistency."

Solosky, of Westbury, taught at Kellenberg for 20 years, ascending to dean of men in 1997 and eventually becoming athletic director in 2005. He coached football, softball and volleyball and chaired the history department. He met his future wife when she joined the staff as a teacher and he was tasked with mentoring her.

Solosky's wake is scheduled for Friday from noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. at Kellenberg High School. He will be interred in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury on Saturday.

For countless students, teachers and administrators, Solosky was a shining example of what an instructor should be, said Stephanie Hellemeyer, a physical education and health teacher at Kellenberg. "He had it on every single level," she said.

It showed in the students who lined up to take pictures with him during the senior trip, the highlight of the school year for him, Benintendi said. After news circulated of his death, Facebook erupted with profile pictures of Solosky posing with students on the yearly holiday, "like a Disney character," said Jeanne Ceasar, a health and physical education teacher.

On Wednesday, it was the teachers who lined up, eager to share their thoughts about the man Alfalla simply called, "awesome."

It started with Alfalla, whom Solosky coached his junior year of high school. Soon, he was joined by three others: Benintendi, Kevin A'Hearn, a fellow history teacher and coach, and Denis Murphy, an English teacher. Then, Hellemeyer and Ceasar, both former students, joined the fray.

"I find myself upset, crying and the next second I start laughing because I want to tell him something funny that happened during the day," Alfalla said. "I wish I could just go tell him."

Solosky was their "stopper," Benintendi said. "[It's] when they stop you from going off the deep end. He was that guy."

He was also the guy who came up with Solosky's Words of Wisdom - advice he would impart to the senior class on their trip. He gave those speeches and preached the mantra of never giving up - yes, even if the other team was bigger, or better or stronger.

And after he spoke, Alfalla said, laughing, "he'd turn around and go, 'How did I do?' "

Based on the response Wednesday, not too bad at all.