Matt Kiggins

My father was, by far, the most influential man in my life. Let me tell you about No. 2 on the list, my high school football coach, Tom Caito, who died last week at the age of 86. Like all the truly great ones, Caito was much more than a coach. He was a teacher, a mentor, a motivator and a friend for more than 40 years. I owe him everything. I met Coach on my first day in high school and his first day on the job. He walked in the weight room to introduce himself to the team. His first words: "I know there was hazing in the past. That ends today. There will be no more hazing, no more bullying." For a nervous 14-year-old kid who had heard the horror stories about the sick ritual at our school and many others back then, those were glorious words. I would have rammed my head into a brick wall for him that day. For the next three years, that's sort of what I did. Coach Caito won 140 games and three Super Bowls in 18 years at Chelmsford High. He won another 132 with other high schools. He won everywhere he went. It often seemed like his teams won as soon as they got off the bus because he dressed more than a hundred players, at least half of whom appeared to weigh 270 pounds. What do they feed them in Chelmsford? But it wasn't the food; it was the coach who could often be found wandering the halls at the junior high, looking for that big, awkward outcast who never played a sport. "You wanna play football?" The next day, the kid would be in the weight room learning how to bench press. Four years later, he'd be a ferocious pulling guard, pile-driving defensive ends and opening letters from college coaches. A stocky, nails-tough Italian from Federal Hill in Providence, he was old school in many ways. We said the Our Father before games and Hail Mary after. God help you if he saw you talk back to a teacher or a ref or your mother. But he didn't have an ounce of meanness in him. When his teams were dominant, he would often pull his starters at halftime. He spent as much time and energy on the last kid on the roster, or even the team manager, as he did on the stars. Sometimes it was a special needs kid who just wanted to hang on the sidelines and feel like part of the team. Those were Coach Caito's favorites. Coach helped me and so many others to get into college. He helped me get my first job in journalism, at the Lowell Sun. I covered his teams and failed miserably to remain objective. I loved the guy. We all did. We said goodbye to Coach yesterday in a scene right out of some hokey Disney movie. Friends and former players flew in from all over the country and spilled out of the side doors of St. Mary's Church. There was a lot of gray hair and bald heads, a lot of laughs, a lot of gratitude and a few Super Bowl trophies right there on the casket. A good coach has an impact on your life for two or three years. The truly great ones make a difference for 40 or 50 years. Tom Caito was the best. I was lucky to know him.