By Cary Shuman
The incredible run by the Winthrop High School football program from 1981 to 1983 may never be duplicated.
Three Northeastern Conference championships. Three consecutive unbeaten seasons. Two Super Bowl titles, a third crown in 1982 seemingly only denied by the ratings system.
Bob DeFelice, the architect, program-builder, and head football coach during what was a golden era in Winthrop High School football, died Sunday, Oct. 6, at the age of 82.
This town knew of his athletic and coaching greatness best, having watched proudly as he excelled at Winthrop High and Boston College, where he was the starting catcher for the Eagles’ 1961 College World Series team and an inductee in the BC Hall of Fame. He also played three seasons in the Boston Red Sox farm system, just missing out on a promotion to the Major Leagues for the 1967 Impossible Dream season.
At Bentley University, DeFelice served with distinction as the head baseball coach and director of athletics, transforming the school into an athletic powerhouse to match its equally excellent academic stature. The baseball field at Bentley is named in his honor.
Super memories
Oh, those Viking football memories when three-sport athletes like John Tiano, Chucky Sullivan, and Joe Giaquinto led Winthrop football on to an undefeated season and a Division 2 Super Bowl title under the leadership and motivational skills of Robert “Bob” DeFelice.
Gus Martucci was the starting center on the 1981 Super Bowl championship team. As much about strategy and winning football that Martucci and his teammates learned from Coach DeFelice, it was his impact on their lives beyond the field that is remembered so fondly.
“His life was dedicated to helping kids educationally and on the athletic field,” said Masucci, who played three seasons in the program. “The school’s first Super Bowl [in 1981], we had a great year. But he helped a lot of kids become great adults and great people. He mentored a lot of students and did a lot for them, not only in Winthrop but also at Bentley. He dedicated his life to education and athletics. I want to express my deepest sympathies to the DeFelice family.”
Two Hall of Fame
coaches on one staff
Tony Fucillo was an assistant coach on Bob DeFelice’s staff at Winthrop High and his eventual successor as head football coach. Perhaps nowhere else have two men successively put a football program on the map as well as these back-to-back Hall of Fame coaches accomplished in Winthrop, then as now the smallest school in the highly competitive Northeastern Conference.
“I’m devastated by the loss of a great man,” said Fucillo. “He was my mentor.”
Fucillo joined the Vikings’ staff after playing football and graduating from Xavier University of Ohio. He was an assistant coach for 15 years, including Winthrop’s three undefeated seasons.
“It was an unbelievable streak, and the players never wanted it to end,” said Fucillo. “It was an amazing run.”
Fucillo said his relationship with Mr. DeFelice goes back to when he left professional baseball in the Red Sox organization and became a teacher and coach at Winthrop Junior High School.
“He was my junior high baseball coach,” said Fucillo. “He taught us how to dress in uniform, how to act. But the greatest thing was the discipline that he taught us toward the game.”
Fucillo said Coach DeFelice had a tremendous work ethic and his dedication to the football program was top-notch.
“It was a privilege to know and work with Coach,” said Fucillo. “I know all the lives of all the young people with whom he came in contact and guided and inspired over the years, they will carry Bob DeFelice’s ideas and knowledge and especially his moral principles, through their lives.
“He was always in my corner,” added Fucillo. “He would sometimes come by my office with two coffees, and we would talk about what’s going on at Bentley and what’s going on at Winthrop. He attended as many Winthrop games as he could and stand under the goalpost. I’ve lost my mentor that I just really loved.”
From Winthrop to Lake Placid, Bob DeFelice’s impact was felt
Olympic hockey captain and gold medalist Mike Eruzione spoke of the positive influence that Bob DeFelice had in his life as a high school and college athlete and friend.
“Obviously, Bob DeFelice is one of the most influential persons in my life, not only from playing football under him, but his friendship,” said Eruzione.
Eruzione recalled how it was Mr. DeFelice who “encouraged” him to play high school football. “He grabbed me one day and pushed me against the locker, and he said, ‘You’re playing football’ and I went, ‘okay I’ll play.’ “But that was Defe.”
Eruzione said Mr. DeFelice traveled to Lake Placid in 1980 to view what became the ‘Miracle on Ice’, the greatest sports moment of the 20th century.
“He took care of my father while the Olympic Games were going on,” said Eruzione. “That was his job, making sure my father got to the events.”
Reflecting on their friendship, Eruzione added, “He was just a tremendous man, a huge influence in my life. Other than my mom and dad, clearly Bob DeFelice had a huge impact on the success that I’ve had – not just as an athlete but as a person. He had a tremendous influence on a lot of young men and women, not only at Winthrop High School, but Bentley University as well.”
Colleagues in athletic
administration pay tribute
Robert “Barney” DeGregorio was an exceptional and pioneering director of athletics himself at Merrimack College when Bob DeFelice was leading the Bentley athletic program to national prominence as competing members of the Northeast-10. DeGregorio’s memories of Mr. DeFelice go back to their childhood in Winthrop.
“You’re taking about somebody that I lived with in the same house on Sargent Street as a young boy,” recalled DeGregorio. “I’ve known Bob and his brother, Frank, my entire life. He was just an absolute great friend. He was like an older brother. We were athletic directors together. We shared a lot of great meetings and experiences together. There was no one better. I also coached with him in Winthrop on his football staff. Hucky Larsen and I coached the freshman team. Talk about somebody so dedicated and loving. That was Bob DeFelice.”
DeGregorio said that when Mr. DeFelice first took over the baseball program at Bentley, “I used to throw batting practice for him every now and then. They didn’t have a field. They used to practice in Waltham, Watertown, Brandeis (University) until they got a field. He did a fantastic job at Bentley, but most importantly he was a great human being. He was always there for people when they needed him. This is a tremendous loss to his family, the town, and the college community.”
Curry College Director of Athletics Vinnie Eurzione, said of Bob DeFelice, “Words cannot capture the gratitude and thanks I owe to Bob. He was a true inspiration and role model my entire life. He will be sorely missed by not only me, but the entire extended Eruzione family.”
Courtney Finn, one of Winthrop High’s greatest athletes of all time, went on to become an All-American basketball player at Bentley, leading the Falcons to the national championship. Finn is the current associate athletic director at Bentley.
Said Finn of her esteemed colleague in Bentley’s athletic administration, “I was very fortunate to have Coach DeFelice in my life. I will never forget as a freshman at Bentley when I tore my ACL in my very first basketball practice. I thought everything was over, but he immediately told me to pick my head up because it was going to be the best thing that ever happened to me – boy, was he right. I wouldn’t have had an extra year and an opportunity to win a national championship if it weren’t for that day and that injury. That was the mindset he had, things would come at you in life, but you can’t let it set you back, find a way to let it make you better.”
“Coach also gave me the opportunity to start my career working in college athletics and I will be forever grateful to him for that. He opened a door and let me run. I got to learn so many great things from him while I was working under him at Bentley, things that will sit with me forever,” concluded Finn.
Local officials, coaches pay tribute
Town Council President Jim Letterie, an alumnus of Bentley College, said Mr. DeFelice’s passing was “a tremendous loss to the town.”
“Bob DeFelice is one of those iconic people that have done so much for the town as well as my alma mater, Bentley.” said Letterie. “He will be sorely missed.”
Mark DeGregorio, Mr. Barney DeGregorio’s nephew and the athletic director at Winthrop High School, recalled seeing Mr. DeFelice at the Winthrop Golf Club one day after being appointed the new Winthrop AD.
“I saw Mr. DeFelice almost every day this summer playing golf at the Winthrop Golf Club,” said Mark. “When he heard that I got the AD job, he had some very kind words for me. He was always kind to me.”
DeGregorio said the DeGregorio family and the DeFelice family were close.
“My father [Mark] my uncle [Paul] my cousin [Pat] – just about everyone I know played sports for Coach DeFelice, and my uncle [Barney] coached with him,” said DeGregorio. “Everyone spoke fondly of him. As a baseball player at Merrimack, I played against him when he was coaching Bentley. I coached his grandson, Nick Marchese (son of Nicole DeFelice) and Mr. DeFelice came to all our Winthrop games. He was a gentleman. Our family had a very good relationship with him. My father was very saddened when he heard the news about Bob DeFelice.”
DeGregorio said the Winthrop High School football program will pay tribute to Mr. DeFelice with a moment of silence before the Vikings’ home game versus Swampscott tonight (Thursday, Oct. 17).
Winthrop High head football coach Jon Cadigan said that Bob DeFelice was simply “a legend.”
“I’ve met him a few times. The first time I actually met him was at the Winthrop Hall of Fame ceremony when the [undefeated 2006 Super Bowl championship] team was inducted. I was in my first season as head coach, and I remember Mr. DeFelice giving me a pep talk. At the time, you didn’t realize that you needed it, but Coach DeFelice said to me, and I will always remember it, ‘He was about to say, good luck, but then he said, you know what – you don’t need luck, you’re working hard and you’re doing the right stuff, it will all work out for you. That just resonated with me, big time, because there’s a guy who won a lot of games and coached a bunch of different sports, and he’s done it well. That advice always stuck with me, and I always think about it when somebody says, good luck now – it’s all about putting the work in. That really gave me a boost of confidence at the time.”
Mr. DeFelice’s son, Michael DeFelice, has carried on the family’s outstanding coaching tradition very well in baseball and football, both in Winthrop and other high school programs. He was also the loving father of Christine DeFelice, Kimberly DeFelice Connor, and Nicole DeFelice.