Princeton University Athletics
Phyllis Chase
September 17, 2001 | General
The first impression you get of Phyllis Chase is that she is a pleasant, friendly woman with a good sense of humor.
It is also a lasting impression.
Chase has the perfect temperament for her job as Princeton's team support coordinator. The position involves finding transportation and hotel space for all 38 varsity teams when they go on the road, arranging for their meals when the school closes for the holidays and paying the tab for everything that she sets up.
"It can get a little hectic," Chase says. "It's basically keeping all the balls in the air at the same time, hoping nothing falls through the cracks, and averting disaster."
It is the kind of job that can turn a normal person into a cranky one and a cranky person into a raging maniac. But Chase couples an easygoing Midwestern personality with great patience to get the job done year-in and year-out. She is the behind-the-scenes woman that few athletes know personally, but they can be thankful she is there.
Chase attended Muskingum College in her home state of Ohio, the same school that produced astronaut John Glenn. She eventually earned a degree in sociology from Douglas College at Rutgers and began working part time in the Princeton ticket office in 1983. That same year she married Bryce Chase, a volunteer assistant for the Tigers men's lacrosse team. The two met on a blind date three years earlier.
"Some mutual friends set us up," Phyllis says. "I know it sounds hokey, but I knew right away."
The two are regulars at football, basketball and lacrosse games, and they try and take in other events as well. In marrying Bryce, who is an area attorney, Phyllis gained two stepchildren to a family that included three sons from a previous marriage. The five children have produced a total of eight grandchildren as well as a reason to travel. One son lives in Boulder, Colo., and another in Marysville, Calif. Phyllis recently returned from a trip to visit her children and family in Ohio.
As if her job and family do not keep her busy enough, Chase has entered the entrepreneurial world as well. She and two tennis playing partners have opened the One of a Kind Consignment Gallery of Princeton, located in the Princeton Shopping Center. The store opened two months ago and offers people the chance to bring in "gently used" furniture or household items that the gallery will sell, then turn back a percentage to the original owner.
"It doesn't have to be an antique," she says. "It's stuff that's too good for a garage sale, but nobody in your family wants it."
While Chase is excited about her new venture, she still loves what she does at Princeton, including the coaches with whom she deals.
"They really are a good bunch," she says. "They care so much about their teams, everything they do is for the kids. It's such an odd occupation. It's not a job, it's a lifestyle. Where else would you work where your whole record just hangs out for everyone to see. I don't have to put out how many mistakes I've made."
But if she did, rest assured there wouldn't be too many.
by Rich Fisher