Rusty Regalbuto has taught here at Abington Friends for almost 30 years. He is impossible not to know, always offering a smile or a good word to everyone in the Upper School. Most people know him as a teacher, but I first met him somewhere different—the baseball field. Regalbuto was a coach for AFS Baseball for 27 years. Whether it was head coach or assistant, he was always helping our baseball players get better, until he officially retired in 2022.
(Sam Calandra-Jayne ‘26)
Did you want to become a coach? Did you talk to the school about it or did it just happen?
No, it just happened. When I came here, it was a big deal that you were able to coach and not just teach. I became the assistant coach and then a couple of years later I took over the team, and I was head coach for a number of years before I walked away.
How did you motivate yourself when the team might have had a bad year or a bad stretch of years?
As a coach, you can never show your team that you’re demoralized. You have to believe in them. When you believe in people and they know that you believe in them, sometimes they come through in ways that you can never imagine. One of the great gifts of coaching for me was always not the win-loss record, but my ability to see kids in a different setting, how they respond to external stimuli, [and] how they overcome that. We don’t often see that aspect of some kids in the classroom.
Did you have a favorite year or a favorite stretch of years?
Yeah, there were a couple of really good years. One of my early years, we had been in the playoffs a couple of times, and we had this kid that pitched and played shortstop. His name was Mike Haberman, and Mike was a really good soccer player. If he had put half the time into baseball that he had put into soccer, he could have played D1 baseball. He was one of those kids that he came up, and you just knew he was going to deliver.
How did you make the decision to retire from official coaching?
Well, I retired at two different times. When I was the head coach, I walked away after my oldest son graduated because he just wore me out as a coach. My youngest son was playing baseball, so I stopped coaching AFS baseball and started coaching Little League baseball with him. And actually that was really enjoyable. Then when he got into high school, I had really no desire to come back to coaching. Brian Cassady was that coach at the time, and the team was going to Florida for spring break. He asked me if I’d jump in, and I did.
Do you plan to stay involved in the future with the program, and if so, how?
To the extent that I can. I still enjoy hitting. I can spot things that are wrong in swings, and if Jeff [Bond] asks, I’ll help out. I can’t make long-term commitments these days. My mom is not well, so I have to run and take care of her at times. But when I can, I would jump in and help.
