The year was 1964. A group of 20-year-olds known as The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, the World’s Fair took over Queens, New York, and Post had just unveiled a rectangular pastry with sweet filling known as the “Pop-Tart.” It was a monumental time for the country, and even the world, but for one group of 18-year-olds from the hamlets of Maine and Endwell, 1964 holds an even deeper meaning. These “kids,” now approaching 80-years of age, will forever hold the distinct honor of calling themselves the second-ever graduating class from the newly created Maine-Endwell Senior High School, and the first group to go all the way through from freshmen to seniors. Herm Card, who joined the district in ninth grade, remembers entering his new high school for the very first time.
“I was a bit nervous, being “the new kid in town,” but I was accepted, made friends, and fit in pretty well. Being in high school, by itself, was a new experience and a potentially daunting one, but being in a high school that was new in itself was really different. The building was new, most of the faculty was new. It was the beginning of the 1960s and the world was new. High School was uncharted territory for all of us. We had no traditions to follow, no sense of what went before. There was only one class ahead of us, so we made our way through together. There was no sense of being part of something with any history. We started it…we became the history,” said Card.
Fast-forward to the year 2025, and this Class of 1964 Spartan has seemingly done it all, but he has no plans on stopping any time soon. From teaching at the high school and college levels, to serving as an Army Reserves member and recruiter for the National Guard, to photographing high-level sporting events, and even working as an umpire at the NCAA level, Herm Card is always looking for that next challenge. As the old expression states, ‘if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,’ and if you ask Herm, that couldn’t be more true, even if that first “love” wasn’t what he expected.
“I had three aunts, and three great aunts who were teachers, so it might seem destined that I became a teacher, but I didn't actually start out with that in mind. I intended to be either a professional baseball player or a lawyer and neither one of those worked out. I had played and then coached baseball at Syracuse University. When they dropped the program after the 1972 season, I spent some time in the military, much of it as an army recruiter for the National Guard in Syracuse. When that program ended, someone suggested to me that I might make some money as a substitute teacher, so I applied to a number of districts. The first phone call I got was from Marcellus Central Schools. I accepted the job, filling in as a substitute Phys. Ed. teacher, which I figured would be for a day,” said Card.
One day turned into thirty-two years.
Card would spend most of that tenure as an English teacher, later finding a love for, and teaching poetry. Years later, he’d publish several books in the genre. While teaching wasn’t his first goal, it soon became clear, he was doing what he was meant to do.
“Along the way, even though I hadn't intended to be a teacher, I realized that I was in the right place doing the right thing, and I fell in love with the idea of sharing knowledge and inspiring young people to be curious. In my mind, at least, that's the key to teaching. The goal of teachers should be to make students curious, and then help them satisfy that curiosity. I loved seeing the results of them satisfying their curiosity. You can’t measure that success on a graph like politicians want, but I have published two books of teacher-related poetry that make it pretty clear how to recognize it,” said Card.
But long before his teaching career began, Card’s dream of continuing his baseball career was becoming a reality…just not in the way he may have initially intended. At 19-years-old, fellow Spartan Dave Adams encouraged this 1964 grad to give umpiring a try. Making six bucks for two hours work? What else could you ask for in the mid-60s?
“That sounded pretty good at the time because six dollars went a long way when you were nineteen. So I got into umpiring. I realized eventually that I was not going to be a professional player. My mother had once said that if I didn't make it as a player (which I realized was unlikely, even then) there would still be a place for me in baseball. I had played and coached baseball at Syracuse University and played semi-pro baseball until I was thirty. Even while I was still playing, umpiring was actually my way to stay in the game. I umpired on many levels from Little League through high school, NCAA and International baseball. What I enjoyed about it was being in the game. A major league umpire named Harry Wendelstedt wrote a book about umpiring called The Best Seat in Baseball, but You Have to Stand, and that was true,” said Card.
Card has since umpired thousands of games and still serves as a photographer and on-air radio analyst for the Syracuse Mets (AAA). For Card, it’s yet another way to stay close to the game – capturing once-in-a-lifetime moments every time he steps on the sidelines or on the diamond.
“My father and grandfather were both amateur photographers, so I picked it up from them, mostly photographing sports when I was in college. While I was teaching, I bought one of the early digital cameras and I used it as part of teaching poetry, to have students react to the photos. When I retired, my wife, Dolores, bought me a DSLR camera that was magic as far as I was concerned,” said Card.
Card wound up working for Eagle Newspapers in Syracuse as a news and sports photographer, and became a photographer for the then Syracuse Chiefs in 2006, where he still works today. Herm also photographs high school sports and wildlife, along with a number of veterans events. Despite living in Central New York, his photography comes full-circle each year Spartan football advances far enough in the state playoffs to play Syracuse-area teams in his coverage area.
“It’s an attachment to the school and a give-back thing to take game photos and contribute them to the school and parents. I covered the Maine-Endwell Little League championship team at Williamsport. I've photographed M-E in the state baseball playoffs. Really, it's a chance to stay connected to my alma mater,” said Card.
Despite being just the second graduating class from Maine-Endwell, Herm’s Spartan roots still run deep. As a member of the prestigious M-E Sports Hall of Fame, and a Graduate of Distinction, Card says his four years in Spartan Country left a major impact on his life.
“We tend to not realize just how much success in life relates to where we come from. It really sank in for me when I was inducted into the Maine-Endwell Sports Hall of Fame and soon after, I was honored as a Graduate of Distinction. It was not so much the honor of being recognized as it was by whom I was being recognized. I have received other awards for various things, but the ones that are most meaningful are those two because they reflect things that I gained from being a student Maine-Endwell. One is about the athletic-related successes I’ve had, and the other relates mostly to my life as an educator,” said Card.
He continued, “It was coaches and teachers at M-E that modeled the way I was able to carry myself as an athlete, sports official, and most important, as a teacher. I like to think that my genetics, my aunts and great-aunts, helped shape my becoming a teacher, but it really started at Maine-Endwell. Walt Luberecki, Phil Gibbons, Tom Brierley, Bill Phillips, Barb and Mike Maxian and others. They taught because they loved it, they taught because they were born to be teachers, and they somehow showed me that teaching was my destiny long before I ever stepped to the front of a classroom of my own,” said Card.
Today, Card continues educate and inspire the next generation. In 2015, he got a job at Syracuse University teaching a course on the relationship between visual imagery and sports writing at the prestigious Newhouse School at SU, where he still works today. He credits classmate and close friend John Nicholson (the founder of the program at the time) for bringing him back into the profession. As an author, teacher, and motivational speaker today, Card says the most important thing the next generation can do is respect the people who are trying to make them better, just as his teachers and coaches did for him.
“Regardless of whom you connect with, teacher, coach, staff member, administrator, these people are making you better through their devotion to enabling you to achieve the best possible outcome of your life. I'm pretty sure that I didn't understand that as a student, but as time went on, I realized that the things that were modeled for me, and the people that modeled them, provided the basis for any success I’ve enjoyed in the many years since,” said Card.
The following is a poem published by Herm Card in 1998:
What It's All About
"How'd I get here?"
I ask myself a lot
when I'm thinking about
things I could have done
with my life.
If I could have hit a curve,
for example,
and been a little taller
and a step faster
I could have been playin' ball on TV
and making the big money.
Or if
I had hung in there with law school,
I could
have been a judge by now
or a senator
or at least a partner in a firm
and making the big money.
But instead, I walked
into a school when I needed a job
and after I caught on
I could have been a principal or
maybe even a superintendent
and making the big money.
But, I'm in a classroom
with a hundred and twenty kids
passing through every day,
trying to give them something
that's not about making the big money.
It's about when a conversation begins
"I had this teacher once..."
From: The Poetry of Teaching
© Herm Card, 1998