'Wakely Flyers' Rally Behind One of Their Own

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — To the winner of the Masters each spring goes the iconic green jacket. The MVP of another annual golf tournament receives a similarly coveted prize: an orange jacket.

Paul French was one of the first recipients. “I actually wear it sometimes,” he said, laughing. “It’s orange, so I like it, right?”

French, who was an All-ACC attackman, played lacrosse for head coach Jim “Ace” Adams at the University of Virginia, whose colors, of course, are blue and orange. His fellow alumni of Adams’ program include Chris Wakely, who’s the focal point of the events held every fall at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pa., near Lehigh University.

A 1990 graduate of Virginia, Wakely was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003, early in his tenure as head men’s lacrosse coach at Lehigh.

MS is a chronic neurological disorder. Wakely didn’t share that news publicly until 2007, his final year in coaching. Kevin Cassese, who now leads the UVA program, succeeded Wakely as Lehigh’s head coach, and they’ve remained close.

“He's a warrior, he's a champion, and he's as tough as they come,” Cassese said.

In the fall of 2007, former Lehigh lacrosse player Scott Youmans called Wakely and said he’d like to honor him by taking part in Bike MS: City to Shore, a ride that starts in Cherry Hill, N.J., and ends in Ocean City, N.J.

In the years that followed, others who knew and loved Wakely followed suit. They gave themselves a name, the Wakely Flyers, and they steadily grew “bigger and bigger and bigger,” Wakely said. “A bunch of Virginia guys jumped on board, and bunch of guys that played for me, played with me, over the course of my lifetime.”

The bike ride “was awesome, and we all loved it,” said John Begier, one of Wakely’s former UVA teammates. “None of us were professional bike riders, but guys were grinding away on the bike. You knew you were playing for Wakes.”

Eventually, though, “everyone got to the point where they sort of aged out of biking that far,” Wakely said.

The bike ride remains an option for those who are interested, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, golf has become the centerpiece of a weekend devoted to raising money for two objectives: finding a cure for MS and helping support Wakely and his family. Over the years, the Wakely Flyers have raised more than $600,000.

Wakely has been involved with lacrosse in one capacity or another since 1981, and the annual fundraiser brings together people with whom he’s connected over those 45 years.

Begier, who overlapped with Wakely for one year at UVA, later had a legendary career as head boys lacrosse coach at Radnor High School in the Philadelphia area.

“Sometimes people get caught up in winning championships,” Begier said. “Having coached, I've always said that it's about the experience, it’s about the journey, and then many years from now, you'll be defined by the friends that you all have made by playing this game. And when I look at the Virginia group, we all have terrific friendships that continue to get reinforced today, and I love that we have guys that come in from UVA who didn't even play with Wakes. But then they get involved with this, and they’re like, ‘I know Chris Wakely now, and I love him.’ ”

The initiative, Wakely said, showcases the values Adams instilled in his players at UVA. Adams, whom Dom Starsia succeeded as head coach after the 1992 season, passed away in 2019.

“Ace was a man of character, a man of honor, a man of integrity,” Wakely said. “You do the right thing at the right time. You stand up. And that's kind of the theme of what's going on with this event. There's no bravado. There's no talk. People just show up. It’s amazingly supportive for me, but it's also reflective of what Ace was, and he didn't even preach it. He just did it.”

With Adams, there “were no shortcuts,” said Begier, who was a standout long-stick midfielder for the Wahoos. “He was a guy of great integrity and sportsmanship and class. Those are the things that would resonate for me about him, and he would be about honoring or doing all the right things for one of the guys that's part of the brotherhood.”

French said: “Ace wanted us all to be gentlemen and act the right way in life. Not that we're honoring Ace at this event. It's really to honor Chris. I'm not trying to be too sentimental, but certainly you get the feeling that Ace might be looking over us a little bit.”

This year’s golf outing is Saturday at Saucon Valley, and 18 foursomes have signed up to play. Then comes a dinner at which the winning foursome gets to pick its MVP, with the presentation of the orange jacket to follow.

“It’s a great day honoring Wakes, and when you look at him, he's doing well,” Begier said. “He's got the fighting spirit. He may walk with the cane, but to me, over the last few years, he's never looked better. It's obviously an emotional day for him, but he knows there's that spirit of, ‘We're all playing for you, and this means the world to us.’ ”

At the dinner, Begier said, every foursome stands up and talks about “what it means to play for Wakes. You look back at playing lacrosse in college, and I think the sign of any good team is that you're playing for each other, and we've just carried that spirit all the way through here for Wakes.”

Lehigh’s colors are brown and white, and Wakely said he makes sure to point out that as much as the event “is driven by Virginia grads, it's not exclusively a Virginia thing. So I explain to everyone every year that the jacket is orange because that’s the color of the National MS Society.”

Capping the weekend’s festivities will be a scrimmage between UVA and Lehigh on Sunday afternoon at Banko Field in Bethlehem. Wakely couldn’t script a match-up that means more to him.

“I think Chris bleeds Virginia, and he bleeds Lehigh as well,” said French, whose son Colin plays for the Mountain Hawks.

“They’ve got an excellent culture at Lehigh. It's very similar to Virginia. Initially it started with Chris. Chris might still be the coach there if he didn't get sick.”

Cassese and the Cavaliers’ captains will attend the dinner Saturday evening, as will Lehigh head coach Will Scudder and his captains.

“This weekend is just an incredible celebration of both UVA and Lehigh lacrosse history and tradition,” Cassese said. “It’s amazing that Chris is at the forefront of that. He doesn't want to be, but he is, and it's appropriate that he is. We’ve talked  about what it means to be a Lehigh Lacrosse man over the years and now what it means to be a UVA Lacrosse man, and nobody embodies that more than Chris Wakely.”

After stepping down as head coach in 2007, Wakely worked in athletic administration at Lehigh until he retired in 2024. He was on the committee that hired Cassese.

“I learned a lot from Chris over the years,” said Cassese, who left Lehigh in 2023 to become associate head coach at UVA. “He was my sport administrator for my entire time at Lehigh. So we spoke daily about everything under the sun: lacrosse schematics, culture, other programs.”

Wakely grew up on Long Island, N.Y., and starred in football and lacrosse at Ward Melville High School. He played in the midfield in college, and he helped the Hoos advance to the NCAA tournament’s final four in 1988.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history, Wakely said, his plan was to pursue a career in law, and he took a job as a paralegal on Long Island. His plan eventually changed.

“I applied to law schools and they didn't seem to want me as much as I wanted them,” Wakely said, smiling, “so I had to pivot.”

He launched his coaching career in 1991 on the boys JV team at Hauppauge High School on Long Island, and then became an assistant coach at Villanova University in 1992. In 1994, he became head coach at Widener University. A stint as head coach at Elizabethtown College followed, and in 2001 he took the head job at Lehigh.

Wakely and his wife, Danielle, who live in Bethlehem, have three children: sons Jack and Mickey and daughter Katherine. Wakely said his health is excellent and has improved since he retired in 2023.

“Stress has a lot to do with exacerbating the condition,” he said, “so once I'd left my quote-unquote full-time job, full-time working, it allowed me to manage my stress, my symptoms, my days, which is critically important for anyone that has a chronic health condition. As much as I can't stand the fact that I need to be in that mindset, it is what it is.”

He rides a Peloton daily to stay in shape and relieve stress, and he serves as the analyst on radio broadcasts of Lehigh men’s lacrosse games.

“I’m the Doug Tarring of Lehigh,” Wakely said, laughing.

On a more serious note, Wakely said he’s touched by the outpouring of support he receives from friends and family every year.

“During the outing, I am gritting my teeth most of the weekend, trying not to get emotional,” Wakely said.

“But when I step back from how humbling it is, it's really not that surprising either,” he said. “If you look at the percentage of guys that have been involved in this, either as bikers or as golfers, many of them have been team captains or they're leaders in industry right now as adults. I don't think you can get to the level of being a team captain or a leader in industry if you're not always thinking of others and not always thinking of ways you can do for others. So it doesn't surprise me, but it does absolutely give me juice to get through the next year.”

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