Charles A. Field Jr., a longtime Towson University educator and coach known for his gentlemanly manner on and off the field, died of congestive heart failure March 9 at Gilchrist Center Towson. The former Cockeysville resident was 90.
“Charles was a tactician who spoke lightly and brought out the best in everybody and was interested in you as a person,” said Joe McGowen, a catcher on the baseball team from 1975 to 1977. He was very cordial with other coaches, had an eye for talent, and was just a really good guy to play for.”
Jim Thompson, a designated hitter, played for Mr. Field his senior year.
“Coach was very caring about his players and while he loved to compete, he was more interested in how his players were doing,” Mr. Thompson said.
“I had blown out my arm when I was at [another school] and when I came to Towson, he said, ‘I’m going to make you our Lee May,’ who was the Orioles designated hitter.”
Charles Albert Field Jr., son of Charles A. Field Sr., an insurance man, and Charlotte Field, a homemaker, was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina.
An athlete who played baseball, basketball and football and ran track, he was a graduate of the old Cathedral Latin High School in Raleigh.
In 1955, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, and a master’s degree in 1956 in physical education from West Virginia University in Morgantown.
From 1956 to 1958, he served as a private with an Army Supply Corps unit.
After being discharged, he taught physical education and coached at Annapolis High School from 1958 to 1966, and subsequently held a similar position at Anne Arundel Community College.
In 1966, he joined the faculty of what was then Towson State College in its physical education department.
Mr. Field was assistant basketball coach under Vince Angotti and head baseball coach from 1974 to 1977.
“On my first day on campus, he came to my dorm and I was walking in with a case of beer, and in his Southern accent said, ‘You’ve got to stay away from the brown water,'” Mr. McGowen said with a laugh.
“He was a gentleman to the umpires, so when I would get hot under my mask over something, he would talk to them diplomatically,” he said.
“Coach was a very unassuming man who was not a loudmouth coach. He was not a screamer and very much a gentleman,” Mr. Thompson said.
“When Bob Pedlow [a Towson outfielder who died in 2013] lost his cool with an umpire, Charlie said his conduct was ‘Unacceptable.’ You’re not going to act like that in front of families and our fans,’ so he benched him,” Mr. Thompson said.
“He left his mark on the players he coached on the Towson baseball teams in the mid-1970s,” Jack McDonough, a player, wrote in an email.
“His gentle smile and affable personality reflected his kind inner spirit. We really got to know Coach best on long road trips when conversations would extend beyond baseball to life challenges of that day and those lying ahead.
“I suspect he knew that was his true purpose and mission, to provide guidance to young people becoming men.
“To this day, whenever our former teammates gather, the conversation always leads back to Charlie as we fondly retell old stories,” he wrote.
After retiring from Towson in 1991, Mr. Field sold insurance for American General Life and held sports camps and conducted clinics at Warren Elementary School, which was just behind his home in the Springdale neighborhood, and St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church and the Police Athletic League fields in Cockeysville.
“I lived up the block from Charlie and cut his grass,” said Patrick Norris, who as a kid attended Mr. Field’s basketball camp.
“He always welcomed kids with open arms and he was always willing to put as much into working out with them as he wanted to help them improve their skills,” Mr. Norris said.
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“If you wanted to shoot baskets at 8 a.m. on a Saturday, Charlie was there,” he said. “I received a new basketball for Christmas and there he was shooting jump shots with me on Christmas Day,” he said.
“His affinity for children and helping them improve their skills, self-confidence, respect for themselves and others and overall attitude, kept him working with them until he was 82,” wrote Charles H. “Chuck” Field, his son who lives in Catonsville, in a biographical profile of his father.
Mr. Field said his father had survived two bouts with cancer and had been given the last rites when he was ill at 17.
He said his father’s creed was, “God first, others second, myself third.”
“His hobby was sports, and he was an Orioles, Ravens and a Baltimore Colts fan,” his son said.
Since 2018, Mr. Field had been living at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. His wife of 54 years, Elizabeth Finch “Libby” Field, a homemaker, died in 2019.
Mr. Field was an active communicant of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church at 101 Church Lane in Cockeysville, where a funeral Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. Friday.
In addition to his son, he is survived by a daughter, Catherine F. Woods, of Cockeysville; a brother, Shep Field, of Raleigh; a sister, Helen George, of Raleigh; and four grandchildren.
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