About a year before he decided to retire after a 40-year career teaching history at the Manhasset Secondary School, Bob Rule took a closer look at the staircases near his classroom.
There were impressions on the steps, worn down over time by thousands of students who left their footprints over those left by the students who came before them.
Rule used those same steps as a Manhasset student in the mid 1960s before going on to become the only player in Division I history to win national championships in lacrosse and hockey as a student at Cornell University and later returning to teach at his old stomping grounds.
After looking at those steps, Rule said, the time had finally come to walk away.
“People ask me, what is it like to retire, and I tell them to ask me again in September,” said Rule, who is also a Manhasset resident. “It’ll hit me on the first few days of school because I won’t be going to meetings and planning lessons and getting ready for the day.”
“It’s really hard to describe,” he said. “I’ve been in this building since 1965. It’s about as close to a second home for me as could be. I’ve spent more time in that building than at any other place.”
Rule may miss the stairs, but he’ll also miss stepping outside his classroom between periods and saying hello to his good friend and fellow history teacher Steve Gilroy, he said. He’ll miss the banter between teachers during faculty meetings.
He said he will also miss walking down the hallways during school hours and hearing students talk excitedly about class or sports or life. He’ll miss the inspiration he got from their zest.
“Schools like Manhasset allow kids to tap into their own resources, to find a niche for themselves,” Rule said. “You could see the kids have a chance to blossom here. There’s plenty of opportunity here at Manhasset, and that’s why I find this community to be so special.”
Rule graduated from Manhasset High School in 1967, tending goal for an Indians team that went undefeated that year and won a Long Island championship. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in economics from Cornell in 1971 and his state teaching certification in 1973 from Hofstra University.
After teaching for a year at Bethpage High School, Rule took an opportunity to return to the Manhasset Secondary School to teach history and coach boys lacrosse.
“Coming back to Manhasset was absolutely going back to the best school I could go back to, both academically and for lacrosse. I was in heaven,” Rule said. “I have never felt that I didn’t make the perfect choice. I loved what I did, and when you love what you do, it truly doesn’t feel like work.”
Rule’s Manhasset teams reached seven state championship games and won four titles, racking up several Nassau County and Long Island crowns along the way and a long list of players decorated as the best in the nation.
But Rule said he most appreciated the reputation his program had among top college coaches who he could call at a moment’s notice about recruiting Manhasset players who may not have reached the national spotlight.
“I was able to help a lot of kids get into schools they may not have gotten into otherwise,” Rule said. “As a lacrosse coach, that’s what I got the most satisfaction from.”
Rule said he taught history because of his love of current events issues and finding little ways they could relate to his students’ lives.
“Did you know the bloodiest battle, the bloodiest day of the Civil War [Antietam] was fought over three cigars? Did you know the Civil War battle with the most casualties [Gettysburg] was fought over a shoe factory?” he said. “History is full of these anecdotes, all these unusual things, and that’s how people remember things, by relating them to something unusual.”
In retirement, Rule said he wants to spend more time traveling and looks forward to spending the next year living at a house he owns on Block Island.
He said he also plans to continue his academic interests, analyzing diversity in the educational process and how standardized testing affects school districts with varying resources.
But Rule said he also looks forward to seeing how Manhasset will evolve in the next few years, seeing the next generation of families move into the community and raise children who will use the same school staircases he did.
“Manhasset is a lot like the Yankees – a first-class organization that goes out and gets the best people and then says, do the job,” he said. “I think most people, even if they don’t like Manhasset, they respect us for that.”
