Vito
Capizzo
January 21, 1940 – May 17, 2018
Funeral
services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 9 at St. Mary’s Our Lady of
Isle on Federal Street.
Vito Capizzo, legendary Nantucket High football coach,
dies at 78
STAN GROSSFELD/GLOBE STAFF/FILE
Former Nantucket
football coach Vito Capizzo retired with the third most wins in state history.
Above: Capizzo on the
golf course in 2009.
By Marvin Pave GLOBE
CORRESPONDENT MAY 22, 2018
Only 17 boys showed up to the first football practice Vito Capizzo
held at Nantucket High School in 1964, and after enduring a winless season, the
coach wasn’t sure he’d stay much longer.
“I told the School Committee, ‘Give me three years. If I’m not
successful, I’ll resign. You won’t have to fire me,’ ”
Mr. Capizzo recalled in a 2009 Globe interview. He also told his wife, Barbara,
to be in no hurry to unpack.
His third season, however, turned everything around. Nantucket was
8-0 and Mr. Capizzo was there to stay — a total of 45 seasons in which he
recorded 293 victories and nine Division 5 Super Bowl appearances, including
three championships.
“You play Nantucket and you’re not just playing 11 guys on the
field,” Joe Dawe, a former Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High
football coach, told Sports Illustrated for a 1996 feature on Mr. Capizzo. “You’re up against
mystique and a tradition. You’re battling a town, a community, a whole island.”
Mr. Capizzo, who also had been a physical education teacher and
athletic director at Nantucket High, died Friday in Massachusetts General
Hospital, after choking while dining out on Nantucket. He was 78 and spent
winters in Siesta Key, Fla.
Inducted into the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches
Association Hall of Fame in 1996, Mr. Capizzo
retired as Nantucket’s football coach in 2008. He ranks sixth in career wins in
the state and was 17-13 in the Island Bowl game against archrival Martha’s
Vineyard.
Prior to the 2009 season, the high school football stadium was
renamed in his honor, and Mr. Capizzo and his wife were given a trip to Italy
and Mr. Capizzo’s native Sicily.
Beau Almodobar, a star tailback and
captain on Mr. Capizzo’s 1980 team that won the
program’s first Super Bowl, was later an assistant coach on his staff.
“My dad was away most of
the year with the Merchant Marine and my mom worked two jobs, so when I was
applying for college, coach Capizzo drove me to four or five colleges,” said Almodobar, an All-American player at Norwich University and
now a middle school physical education teacher in Nantucket.
“I still cherish our conversations in the car,” Almodobar said. “He told me, ‘Always be yourself and do
your best because you can’t control what other people are like.’ ”
A founder of the Mayflower League, Mr. Capizzo was named the 1985
Massachusetts Athletic Director of the Year, and he faced numerous logistical
issues when Nantucket teams played off-island opponents.
When return ferry trips were canceled, the team slept over at
Massachusetts Maritime Academy, and even on the floor of a synagogue in
Hyannis.
And when the Blue Hills Regional football team couldn’t return to
the mainland because of foul weather, Mr. Capizzo got out the pots and pans and
made garlic bread and spaghetti sauce for 70 students — and breakfast the next
morning.
Mr. Capizzo’s son, Scott, played on his
Mayflower League championship team in 1986 and still provides music at home
games as DJ.
‘I knew [Vito Capizzo] for over 20 years and have so much
respect for him as a man and as a coach.’
— Bill Belichick, Patriots coach
“He had an instinctive, competitive fire, but always told us to
win with class and lose with class, respect our opponent and never quit,” said
Scott, who honored his father by running in this year’s Boston Marathon for
Team End Alzheimer’s and raising $10,000. He named his son Vito. The boy was
born two days before Mr. Capizzo died.
Scott wasn’t immune to his father’s rule that if you missed
practice you’d be held accountable. “He never played favorites,” Scott
recalled, “and when I skipped practice to paint someone’s house, he benched me
and I had to earn my position back.”
Perhaps even more important than Super Bowl victories was who won
the Island Cup. Despite the rivalry, “Vito and I were close friends,” said
former Martha’s Vineyard head coach Don Herman.
“I admired his honesty and transparency,” Herman said, noting he
and Mr. Capizzo spent “a lifetime planning how to beat one another, which made
us better coaches.”
Mr. Capizzo was the son of Vincenzo Capizzo and the former
Josephine Romano. With his mother, Mr. Capizzo emigrated to the United States
in 1950 from Salemi, Sicily, and settled in Natick.
The following year, his father and brothers, Gus and Frank, joined them. The
siblings were all sports stars at Natick High.
Gus, a former hockey goaltender for Northeastern University, is an
insurance executive who lives in Mattapoisett. Frank, a retired cardiologist,
was a high-scoring forward on the University of Connecticut hockey team and
resides in Barrington, R.I.
“Vito was our pathfinder,” said Gus. “He showed us the way through
his example.”
A 160-pound linebacker, Mr. Capizzo walked on to the football team
at the University of Alabama and made the scout (practice squad) team.
While there, according to the website rollbamaroll.com, Mr.
Capizzo was asked by Alabama head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant to room with an
incoming freshman who “needed a little bit of mentoring.” The freshman was
future New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath.
Mr. Capizzo was a high school teacher-coach in Green Cove Springs,
Fla., when he met Barbara Hendrickson, who also taught there. They married in
1964, the year he heard about a coaching opportunity that he believed was in Nantasket, but turned out to be Nantucket.
He held a variety of jobs, especially in the summertime, and with
his wife ran the Capizzo rental cottages. Barbara was a classroom teacher and
taught art in the Nantucket Public Schools, ran her own art gallery, and
conducts workshops for the local art association.
Mr. Capizzo shared a mutual respect with New England Patriots head
coach Bill Belichick, who has a home on Nantucket. In a 2005 Cape Cod Times
interview, Belichick said that “as I’ve told Vito, I’d love to have his
record.”
In an e-mail, Belichick said the job Mr. Capizzo “did coaching at
Nantucket High School was incredible. I knew him for over 20 years and have so
much respect for him as a man and as a coach.”
Sandy Beach, radio announcer for Nantucket High football, admired
Mr. Capizzo’s selflessness. “He always said the same
thing — that he never won a game. The kids won them,” Beach said.
A service will be announced for Mr. Capizzo, who in addition to
his wife, son, and brothers leaves two grandchildren.
Nantucket High athletic director Chris Maury, a longtime friend
who was coached by Mr. Capizzo, said that “Vito was intense and had a work-hard
attitude that he instilled in us as players, but the flip side was his
compassion and great heart.”
Barbara Capizzo said that during their 2009 trip to Sicily, Mr.
Capizzo “ran into some friends of his aunt and they conversed in
Italian-Sicilian. The language came back to Vito as if he never left. It was
like magic.”
Marvin Pave can be reached at marvin.pave@rcn.com.
Long-time Nantucket football coach Vito
Capizzo, gone at 79
May 18 at 8:54 AM
Vito Capizzo at the Nantucket football
stadium that now bears his name.
Nicole Harnishfeger/I&M
Photo
By Joshua Balling
I&M Staff Writer
Posted
May 18, 2018 at 8:43 AMUpdated
May 18, 2018 at 8:54 AM
Retired
Nantucket High School football coach Vito Capizzo, one of the most successful in
state history, died peacefully Thursday, May 17, his son Scott announced on
social media Friday morning. He was 79.
Capizzo
coached at Nantucket High School for 45 years, racking up 293 wins, third most
in state history at the time of his retirement after the 2008 season. The man
simply called “Coach” by many also served for more than a decade as the
school’s athletic director.
Under
Capizzo’s tenure, the Whalers earned three Super Bowl
victories in nine appearances, and finished atop the
Mayflower Large division 16 times since he helped create the league in 1970. He
also had two undefeated seasons in 1966 and 1980, and the advantage over
Martha’s Vineyard in the coveted Island Cup rivalry, 17-13.
Service
information is not yet available.
Former Nantucket football coach Vito Capizzo dies at
79
Vito Capizzo led
Nantucket to nine Super Bowls during his tenure.
By Dan McLoone GLOBE
CORRESPONDENT MAY 18, 2018
Former Nantucket football coach Vito Capizzo died peacefully on
Thursday at age 79, according to social media posts from his son, Scott, on
Friday morning.
One of the most successful coaches in Massachusetts history,
Capizzo patrolled the sidelines for the Whalers for 45 seasons until his
retirement in 2008. His 293 wins are fifth-most all time. Capizzo led Nantucket
to nine Super Bowls during his tenure, including championships in 1980, 1995
and 1996 and undefeated seasons in 1966 and 1980.
A protege of legendary University of Alabama football coach Paul
“Bear” Bryant, walking on to the Crimson Tide squad as a linebacker in 1959,
Capizzo also served as athletic director at Nantucket for more than a decade.
He helped create the Mayflower League in 1970, and the Whalers
finished atop the Mayflower Large 16 times under his tutelage and held a 17-13
advantage over Martha’s Vineyard in the Island Cup rivalry. Nantucket renamed
its football field to Vito Capizzo Stadium in 2009 to honor the coach after his
retirement.
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL: Former Nantucket coaching legend Vito
Capizzo passes away - Dan Ventura Friday, May 18, 2018
Longtime high school coaching Vito Capizzo of Nantucket passed
away this morning at the age of 79.
Capizzo coached at Nantucket from 1964-2008, amassing an overall
record of 293-140-8 with nine Super Bowl appearance. The 293 wins rank sixth on
the all-time list, trailing Ken LaChapelle (354),
Armond Colombo (316), John DiBiaso (304), Bill Broderick
(303) and Tom Lopez (294).
Capizzo played football at Natick where he graduated in 1959. He
went to study at the University of Alabama before arriving on Nantucket in
1964, beginning a legacy matched by a select few.
Former Martha's Vineyard coach Donald Herman waged many battles
with Capizzo over the years. While the school were bitter rivals on the field,
there was a lot of mutual respect away from the gridiron.
“We had some classics in our 21 years from 1988 to 2008,” Herman
said. “We have people on our island who were very much saddened over hearing
the news. They may have hated him when we played, but as they got older, they
grew to admire and respect him.”
VITO CAPIZZO BY THE NUMBERS
(Nantucket)
1964 – 0-4-2
1965 – 2-5-1
1966 – 8-0-0
1967 – 3-4-1
1968 – 6-2-0
1969 – 5-3-0
1970 – 5-2-1
1971 – 7-1-0
1972 – 6-2-1
1973 – 4-5-0
1974 – 4-6-0
1975 – 6-4-0
1976 – 4-5-1
1977 – 6-3-0
1978 – 5-4-0
1979 – 9-1-0
1980 – 11-0-0 (SB-W)
1981 – 7-3-0
1982 – 10-1-0 (SB-L)
1983 – 10-1-0 (SB-L)
1984 – 9-1-0
1985 – 6-4-0
1986 – 9-1-0
1987 – 6-4-0
1988 – 8-2-0
1989 – 7-3-0
1990 – 10-1-0 (SB-L)
1991 – 9-2-0
1992 – 8-2-0
1993 – 10-1-0 (SB-L)
1994 – 10-1-0 (SB-L)
1995 – 10-1-0 (SB-W)
1996 – 11-1-0 (SB-W)
1997 – 8-3-0
1998 – 9-1-1 (SB-L)
1999 – 5-5-0
2000 – 6-4-0
2001 – 5-5-0
2002 – 7-3-0
2003 – 7-3-0
2004 – 5-5-0
2005 – 1-9-0
2006 – 6-5-0
2007 – 3-6-0
2008 – 0-10-0
Totals: 293-140-8