
The Herzlich family at the Senior Bowl.
When asked about his strongest football memory from his playing days at Wesleyan, Sandy Herzlich ’81 came up with a 20-7 win at Amherst in 1979. “We beat Amherst up there in just a great game,” Sandy recounted. “Kosty [defensive coordinator Peter Kostacopoulos] put in a wild game plan and we were shuttling personnel in and out, and it worked. I remember that as being a very satisfying win.” Head Coach Bill Macdermott called it “one of the best defensive games I’ve ever seen Wesleyan play.” Mac was in his ninth season at the helm.
Sandy’s memory of his first date with Barb Martin ’81 on Saturday, Oct. 8, 1977, is a bit more sketchy, very sketchy, actually. “I don’t remember the date at all. I just don’t remember any of it,” remarked the 1980 Wesleyan football team co-captain about the first time he went out with his future wife. It’s not that his mind was clouded with the passion of the moment. Sandy had started the first game of his outstanding Cardinal gridiron career at Coast Guard, a 24-7 Cardinal victory, that afternoon and got his bell rung, but good, from his spot along the defensive line. “I was really woozy that night,” he said.
Fortunately for the couple, Barb didn’t hold it against him and six years later, they wed in her hometown of Rowayton, Conn., not far from Sandy’s own native West Hartford. That was after each finished a stellar athletic career at Wesleyan, one that earned Barb a spot in the Wesleyan Athletics Hall of Fame as a member of the first class inducted in 2008. Barb was a school record-holder in both field hockey and lacrosse as well as a top squash player. Sandy was a standout on defense in both football and lacrosse.
Not surprisingly, the couple’s two sons, Mark and Bradley, were both football and lacrosse stars in high school but each abandoned lacrosse, unlike their father, once they got to college. For Mark, the decision has certainly paid off, but not without some serious drama along the way.
Enrolled at Boston College, Mark made an immediate impact for the Eagles as a linebacker. During his junior year in 2008, Mark
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