By Kim J. Harmon

L

indell Hertberg has taken great joy in teaching young girls the rudiments of basketball and – judging from the letters, the pictures, the neat little scrapbooks that have been cobbled together over the years – that joy has indeed been reciprocated by those players.

Sitting down with Lin is like sitting down with some great memories of Newtown sports – memories of players like Laura Oberstadt (inducted this year in the Sports Hall of Fame), Kasey Keating, April Ertl and Sarah Kenyon.

And that’s just to name a few, of course.

There have been so many others.

Over the past 25 years or so, Lin – through softball or basketball or the way he has of pitching in and helping out the community (like helping the first Newtown High girls’ soccer team gets its uniforms) – has had an immeasurable impact on some of the finest female athletes Newtown has ever known and it’s in that spirit that we honor him with induction into the Newtown Sports Hall of Fame.

Getting Started

Lin was a graduate of Richmond Hill High School in Queens, New York, and of Hofstra University on Long Island. Growing up a stickball player, Lin started three years at third base for the Hofstra baseball team.

In Newtown, he founded Hertberg Associates, a financial planning company that specialized in tax-sheltered annuities for teachers.

He became involved in coaching because of – why not? – his three daughters . . . Ann (now 36), Bonnie (now 34) and Holly (now 30). It was Ann who started it all back in 1975, as a fifth-grader, playing softball and having her daddy getting his first coaching experience.

In 1976, he took the sixth-grade softball team and coached them through 1978.

All of this led up to 1985, when he coached the Newtown Chiropractic Health Center (ages 13 to 15) to a second-place finish in the state tournament and a third-place finish in the New England Regionals with such players as Kim Pelletreau, April Ertl, Laura Oberstadt, Joy Liggins, Jenny Woycik and Kasey Keating.

Laura (Oberstadt) Boardman, now a systems analyst at Output Technology Solutions in South Windsor, remembered her years under Lin’s tutelage, saying, “He was great, an excellent coach. He was so excited about it – I think he got into it more than we did.”

When it comes to softball, the 1985 season was, in essence, Lin’s swan song . . . but only for 15 years. This year he joined the Newtown High School softball team as an assistant coach, under Paul LaFrancesca, and helped lead the Nighthawks into the CIAC state tournament while watching the school’s most prolific strikeout pitcher ever, Cathy Byrne, mow down one batter after another.

Of course, when it comes to softball Lin was not just a coach. Besides sponsored both A and B division teams in the Sunday Slo-Pitch Softball League for several years, he played second base with the B division Pedagogues (which means teachers) alongside current Newtown principal Bill Manfredonia, former Newtown High boys’ basketball coach Kevin O’Sullivan, cross country coach Rich Pesce, and Newtown High teacher Bob McHugh.

But Lin will, perhaps, be better remembered for his coaching in the Parks and Recreation youth basketball program.

DDRRPST

It looks almost like a cryptic anagram – DDRRPST – but all it really translates to is a simple approach to the game of basketball . . . Dribbling, Defense, Rebounding, Running, Passing, Shooting, Team Concept.

That philosophy has served him well ever since he began coaching youth hoops back in 1980. In the winter of 1987-88, after three years out of coaching, Lin took up a team with his daughter, Holly, who was a high school senior at the time. For the next three years he had the good fortune to coach players who went on to become some of the great female basketball players in the history of Newtown High.

After some time off when his wife became ill in 1990, Lin returned to coaching in the winter of 1992-93 (joining with a new generation of great basketball players) and has been on the floor ever since.

“It’s been lovely,” said Lin. “The wins and losses – those are just personal things. But the most important thing is the kids who show their appreciation at the end of the season. That means the most to me.”

In the winter of 1994-95, Lin took over the Suns in the Intermediate Girls division of the in-town rec basketball league and turned it into a veritable dynasty. But Lin says it’s never about the victories – those are a byproduct of DDRRPST and the effort of getting his girls to have an enjoyable and worthwhile experience, to improve their skills, to build a positive self image, and to always do their best.

“The biggest thing is to do their best,” said Lin, “under any circumstances. You can always control how hard you try, but not always who wins and loses. Rewarding the effort is much more important than winning.”

In rewarding the effort, Lin used to sponsor a Player of the Week award for the Newtown High School girls’ basketball team back when Joe Fazio was the coach. For the last four years, he sponsored a Standard of Excellence award for the girls’ basketball team, which was won by Alison Giannini, Nikki Streegan, Carissa Rotas and Kate Ryan. This past spring, he included a Standard of Excellence award for the softball team at Newtown High, which was won by Lauren McCusker.

And in the summers of 1997 and 1998, he engineered a 3-on-3 basketball tournament for girls at Treadwell Park.

It sounds like so much, but Lin still has a lot more to give. He will continue coaching basketball and continue assisting coach LaFrancesca with the high school softball team and continue having an impact on the lives of young, female athletes.

“It’s been very pleasant,” said Lin.