PHILADELPHIA — You just never know what life has in store.
Ask Tyler Vanderslice. The young Comcast technician was out on a routine service job at the apartment of a couple in Lower Gwynedd a few months ago.
"I was installing cable and internet for them," said Vanderslice, 30. "It was a normal install, a normal day."
He and customer John Pavlick started batting the breeze. Talk turned to the Eagles. Vanderslice asked Pavlick if he was a football fan.
"'I coached football for 40 years,'" Pavlick told him.
"Oh that's awesome," the young tech said. "Where did you coach?
Upper Dublin High School, Pavlick, 83, told him.
Right about then, a connection was made.
"You probably coached my dad then," Vanderslice said
Pavlick asked the tech his name. Then the older man's eyes lit up.
"We had a boy who played for us — Jack Vanderslice," Pavlick said.
That was in the late 1960s. That boy was Tyler Vanderslice's father.
But this is more than a tale of happy coincidence. Tyler was only three when his father died of cancer at age 42. His own memories of his dad are limited. Most of what he knows comes from the stories passed to him from family members.
Here, in the middle of a routine cable install, was his dad's football coach.
"There's a lot of kids to remember, but some kids did stand out," said Pavlick, who also taught biology. "There's certain people that you do remember."
Like Tyler's father Jack.
"He told me, 'You know, we didn't have the best record that season, but your dad was a great player. He was a joy to coach,'" said the technician, who has his dad's old football jersey.
Pavlick told him Jack Vanderslice was one his captains in 1969.
He was also a really good guy.
"I've talked to other people about this when this came up," the former coach added, "and they also remembered and commented what a great kid Jack Vanderslice was."
The serendipity of the chance meeting between the two men would have been enough if it ended there.
It didn't.
"After he left, my wife said, 'Why don't you look in your scrapbook and see if you have any pictures of his father,'" Pavlick said.
His wife Elaine had memories from those days, too. She was an English teacher at Upper Dublin.
Pavlick did find pictures of Jack, including the teenager in his football gear and another of him winning a civic award, accompanied by his coach, a young John Pavlick.
A couple weeks after their initial meeting, Vanderslice got a call from Pavlick to tell him he'd found some old photos of his dad and that he was welcome to have them.
"They were pictures I had never seen before or had anybody in my family, so it was really special to get them," said Vanderslice. "And there's not too many pictures of him from high school."
Meeting someone who knew his father as a youngster also meant a lot to Vanderslice, who went to Pennridge High School and played ice hockey. The son was especially touched by Pavlick's kindness.
"It was just something pretty special to feel that connection and his generosity," the younger man said.
People at work who heard about it were pretty blown away by the story. Some had had Pavlick as a teacher themselves.
Vanderslice thought about a way he might be able to thank Pavlick. During the winter holiday season, Comcast has a customer appreciation program called Xfinity Rewards. The tech nominated Pavlick.
Last week, Vanderslice and his supervisor showed up at the Pavlicks' apartment bearing gifts — a large, flat screen TV and a gift card — to thank them for their kindness
Vanderslice doesn't intend for that to be their last meeting.
"It's a very cool connection that we made and a kind of friendship I would call it now, which is pretty neat," he said.
When he's working in the neighborhood, he said he'll definitely stop by and say hello. "And obviously if he ever has any issues with his Comcast service, he knows who to reach out to."
Vanderslice said his father was the reason he ended up working for Comcast. His dad was a lineman for then-Bell Atlantic, now Verizon. The field helped him provide well for his family.
When Tyler was 20 and heard Comcast was hiring he applied, never knowing the job would one day lead him back to his dad. Or to a new friend who is very happy that his memories and his scrapbook were able to bring unexpected joy to the family of a boy he coached decades ago.
"You never know," Pavlick said. "You absolutely never know."
