Diedrich Stolte – Coach
Diedrich Stolte is among the greatest of all BHS/BUHS coaches. He lived in an era largely forgotten but we are reminded of his excellence every time we set foot on the BUHS property’s athletic fields. We have become acclimated to Natowich (football) Field, Tenney (baseball) Field, Freeman Track, and Sawyer (softball) Field. But throughout the 1940s and beyond the entire complex at BUHS was named Stolte. Athletes played on Stolte baseball, football, and track facilities – all named after Diedrich Stolte. The most prestigious athletic award at BUHS bears Stolte’s name. Stolte coached Brattleboro to six interscholastic state championships in track (1913,1914,1919, 1920, 1921, 1922) and one state football championship (1917).
Diedrich Stolte was an enthusiastic bicycle rider and captured trophies here and elsewhere. His most notable successes are coaching BHS high school track and football teams. He brought state championships to the school repeatedly and developed athletes who won laurels in other states. There is an array of trophies in the BUHS trophy case offering testimony to his efficiency as an athletic coach.
Among Coach Stolte’s strengths was the ability to create the strongest of ties through personal friendships between him and the boys and girls with whom he labored. Coach Stolte was described as “clean in his own life. He inspired students to live and play clean, to fight fairly without regard to the results of the contests, and his quiet encouragement to his boys and girls in the stress of closely contested events helped add many points to his teams’ totals.”
In 1907 Mr. Stolte was engaged to devote a part of his time to coaching the Brattleboro high school baseball team and to giving physical instruction to the pupils in the grades of the incorporated school district. It was announced in the Brattleboro Reformer on 11 October 1907 in the “High School Notes – The school directors have consented to employ Diedrich Stolte as a coach for the athletic teams. He will meet members of the various teams twice a week.”
In 1912 the Prudential Committee engaged him as a regular member of the faculty, placing in his hands the physical instruction of all the pupils in the district, both boys and girls.
Upon the dedication of Stolte Athletic Field in 1939, the Brattleboro Reformer reported, “It goes without saying that Brattleboro, as a town which has always been proud of its high school and the school’s athletic teams, will readily supply the money to complete the new athletic plant at the fairgrounds. If any added incentive is needed, graduates of bygone years, particularly those who participated in athletics, will find it in the fact that the field is to be a memorial to Diedrich Stolte.”