Although Ed Lange died last year, it sure seemed as if the beloved teacher and coach was at Fletcher High School last week.
Certainly, Lange’s legacy as a kindhearted and gifted educator with an entrenched passion for the law was present.
His name surfaced time and time again as the state champion Fletcher mock trial team prepared last week for the upcoming national meet in Boise, Idaho.
Last June, four days after being honored at a retirement celebration, Lange succumbed to a heart attack. He was 64.
“Look around. Lange did this. He built everything in this room,” senior Devon Roddel said during a break from practicing in a makeshift courtroom at the Neptune Beach school. “He is the reason for all of this.”
That’s what the students who loved him called him: “Lange.”
Trial team member Cory Gann never met Lange. He’s just a freshman. Still, he counts Lange among his heroes.
“He did so much for the team and the school and the students, that I feel like I knew him,” Gann said.
The seven-member Fletcher team also includes seniors Emily Shapiro, Marissa Abry and Luke Kasbarian; junior Kaylee Hoffman; and sophomore Sarah McWilliams.
Most of the trial team members, including Roddel, want to be lawyers.
“For me, being on the trial team was kind of a fluke but kind of meant to be,” Roddel said. “When I was a sophomore, a friend of mine told me, ‘Hey, Lange is retiring next year, and if you take his class, it will change your life.’ And it did.”
Jacksonville attorney Jay Howell, who has volunteered to help coach the Fletcher trial team since Day 1, said he can’t imagine a teacher having a greater impact on students than Lange.
“One person can really make a difference. Ed demonstrated that every day of his life — not just at school but at home and out in the community, too,” said Howell, who gave the eulogy at Lange’s funeral.
Lange was a standout Albany, N.Y., prep baseball and basketball player who attended the University of Notre Dame.
He taught at his high school alma mater before moving to Jacksonville and teaching history and law courses for 32 years at Fletcher.
Lange founded the Fletcher mock trial program in 1991, building the courtroom in a classroom with his money and — with the help of volunteers — his hands. He also developed the school’s legal studies curriculum.
The Florida Law Related Education Association said the purpose of the trial competition is to encourage better understanding of and participation in the legal system by providing students with the opportunity to take part in the process.
Trial competition rules require teams to be fully prepared to argue either side of the case and for students to serve as the case’s attorneys and witnesses. The scoring judges serve as the jury.
More than 150 of Lange’s students are lawyers. One of them, Amber Rumancik, has helped coach the team since graduating in 2000.
Rumancik said continuing Fletcher’s mock trial program and preparing for the state competition in March without Lange has been challenging — and often overwhelming.
“But with every challenge, came a special motivation,” she said. “We were competing for more than just a trophy, we were competing to honor Ed’s legacy.”
The Fletcher squad won all five rounds of the three-day Florida Mock Trial Championships in Orlando.
The competition centered around a fictitious criminal case involving a high school student charged with aggravated cyberstalking and photo cyber harassment.
The May 12-14 national competition is based on a fictitious civil case involving an allegation of livestock trespassing.
“It comes down to who fits each role the best,” said Roddel, who served as a team attorney in the state competition and will again in the national meet.
“When witness statements (are published), the coaches read over them and match up the team members’ personalities with what needs to be done,” she said.
To prepare for the national competition, the students are practicing four hours a day, three days a week.
“These kids have worked harder than any group than I’ve ever seen,” said Fletcher math teacher and former attorney Bruce Wouters, who serves as the team’s adviser.
“They’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of hours of their time to continue Mr. Lange’s and the team’s legacy of excellence,” he said.
Winning a state championship wasn’t on the coaches’ radar when the school year began.
“It wasn’t because we didn’t have talented students, because we did,” Rumancik said. “It was because winning the state competition is extremely difficult.”
But with each round of competition at the state meet, “it felt like it was Fletcher’s destiny to win it all,” she said.
Then came the announcement that Fletcher won.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Rumancik said. “Even our competitors appreciated how special this win was for Fletcher … They were professional, poised and I know they made Ed Lange proud.”
The Fletcher team also won state titles in 1997 and 2014, when it placed 11th nationally. In 2012, the team placed 10th at the Empire World Championships in New York City.
A plaque hangs outside classroom B-2, which Lange transformed into not just a courtroom but a love-filled learning lab.
It reads: “This room is dedicated to Edward Lange, Mock Trial Coach, Teacher & Mentor.”
Lange didn’t necessarily set out to recruit Fletcher’s top students to be on the trial team and attend his classes.
Rather, Howell said, he often sought out students who were struggling.
“Some of the kids in mock trial are stars, but none of them were before Ed reached out to them,” he said. “Many were kids who were on the edge and could have easily dropped out of school without Ed reaching out to them.”
Wouters said he is continuing Lange’s legacy of ensuring the students don’t have to dig into their pockets to pay for competition travel expenses.
“He built this program with his bare hands. I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to pick up the ball and run with it,” Wouters said.
To make donations to help pay the students’ expenses, contact Wouters at (904) 247-5905.