Tom Paton, soccer coach & so much more

TOM PATON lived just a block from the Frankford High School athletic field.

One day in the late '80s, his grandson Tom Honeyman kicked an extra point for the Frankford High football team. It sailed over the fence and his grandfather caught it. He kicked it back.

Tom Paton knew something about kicking, but of the soccer variety. Most of his long life was devoted to soccer, playing it, coaching it and refereeing soccer matches, as well as managing teams and leagues.

But Tom was much more to the hundreds of young men he mentored on the athletic field. He was a guiding spirit and role model who gave them direction and inspiration in all aspects of their lives.

Thomas Paton, who well into his 80s was helping guide Frankford High's soccer team to 10 Public League championships as a volunteer assistant coach, died Tuesday. He was 96.

Tom was patient-account manager for Pennsylvania Hospital for 30 years, founder and director of a well-known singing group, a United Way volunteer and a lover of classic poetry who liked to recite Shakespeare and poems by Keats, Robert Burns and Words-worth.

In other words, a well-rounded, talented man who didn't know when to quit.

Tom was born in Glasgow, Scotland, where he got his early education and began playing soccer. He was the seventh Thomas Paton (pronounced Payton) in the family. His mother, Mary, was a suffragette and active in the Ladies Garment Union. She lived to be 99.

The family came to the United States in 1927 and settled in Philadelphia. In later years, Tom studied business and management at Penn State and at New York University.

Because he could speak German, he worked for a time for an import-export firm. He helped out in the family's grocery store at H and Tioga streets, and during World War II worked at the Cramp Shipyard, in Camden.

He was active with the International Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers and co-founded the Union Organization for Social Service, which helped underprivileged children and still exists.

Tom was fond of all music - from Scottish reels to the Beatles - and directed musical programs for local churches. He was a founder of the Philadelphia Scottish Choir, which performed locally for years.

After working briefly for Methodist Hospital, he went to work at Pennsylvania Hospital in 1952. He retired in 1979.

While at the hospital he organized the American Guild of Patient Account Management, which is still going strong.

Tom was a coach and assistant director of the Lighthouse Boys Club, where one of the boys he coached was Walter Bahr, who went on to become one of America's greatest soccer stars.

Tom played soccer in local leagues and was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Philadelphia Old-Timers Soccer Association in 1982.

He refereed soccer games for local leagues and colleges.

Tom started working with Bill Snyder, Frankford High soccer coach, after his grandson graduated in 1988. As well as helping create championship teams, he liked to supply oranges for the players at halftime.

Tom's enthusiasm for life and passion for keeping himself in good shape reminded his grandson of Pat Croce.

"He was Pat Croce before Pat Croce," Tom Honeyman said. "He was always upbeat. People called him the whistler because he was always whistling, whether he was happy or sad.

"When I was 10, he would spot me 10 yards and still beat me running. He was 70."

Soccer was not the only sport Tom enjoyed. He was a big fan of the old Philadelphia A's and the Phillies. "He was a Phillies nut," his grandson said.

Tom loved poetry and had memorized many classic poems. He liked to recite Polonius' advice to Laertes ("Neither borrower or lender be . . .") from Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

"He had amazing retention," his grandson said. "He had a library of poems in his head."

"He had a genius for writing poems and parodies for tributes and entertainment for special occasions," said his daughter Phyllis Beck, Tom Honeyman's mother.

"He could speak to any size group, and had friends from the very meek and lowly to the prestigious upper class.

"He was always positive and had a sense of humor and wit. He had a joke for every occasion and remembered them up to his hospitalization."

Tom was a member of the Juniata Park United Methodist Church, where he directed the choirs in Easter hymns and "The Messiah" at Christmas. He also directed Gilbert & Sullivan's "Trial By Jury" and "The Mikado" at the church. He also taught Sunday school.

After Tom retired from the hospital, he gave many hours to United Fund drives, taking the message to public schools.

He and his wife of 60 years, the former Margaret Watson, enjoyed the same music and loved to dance. She died in 2000.

Besides his daughter and grandson, he is survived by two other daughters, Margaret Penhallegon and Sheila Wallace; six other grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Services: 11 a.m. Wednesday at Frankford Methodist Church, Oakland and Oxford streets. Friends may call at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Robinson Funeral Home, 6157 Torresdale Ave., and at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the church. Burial will be in Sunset Memorial Park, Feasterville. *