Francis X. "Fran" Earley Sr., 81, of Glenside, PA., a retired postman and former track coach at schools including Cardinal Dougherty, Father Judge and William Tennent High Schools, died Sunday, Oct. 31st, 2004, at Abington Memorial Hospital of complications following surgery.

Mr. Earley began his coaching career when his son Francis Jr. was a student at St. Benedict School in West Oak Lane. He introduced elementary school students to track and field and remained in coaching for 35 years.

He guided athletes at city and suburban high schools, coaching hundreds to be disciplined and not to neglect their studies. At 5 feet, 6 inches tall, Mr. Earley was dwarfed by some of the athletes under his tutelage. He coached them in a style that was quiet yet firm, said his daughter Barbara Kelly.

"My father had a heart attack 15 years ago, when he was coaching at Judge," Kelly said. "Four of his boys came to the hospital after they ran a meet and gave him their medal."

Mr. Earley was a middle-distance runner as a teenager at North Catholic High School in Philadelphia and during two years at St. Joseph's University.

He served as a Navy radar specialist in the Pacific during World War II. When he returned, he and Mary E. O'Donnell were married, and he took his first job as a milkman for Sealtest Dairy. He later began working as a postman and retired after 40 years.

Mr. Earley also coached at Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote and St. Christopher School in Somerton. He most recently coached at Tennent in Warminster, joining the staff 12 years ago as a volunteer and being hired as the ninth-grade coach after five years.

His wife died in 1995. [Name not given in obit]

Services were at St. Luke the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, Easton Road and Fairhill Avenue, Glenside. Burial is in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheltenham.

Memorial donations may be made to the Francis X. Earley Sr. Track and Field Memorial Race, c/o Abington Bank, 101 Fort Washington Ave., Fort Washington, Pa. 19034.