Читать книгу A Legacy Unrivaled. The Story of John Gagliardi онлайн

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I walked in the side door of the Palaestra and ascended the stairs. As I walked down the drab hallway, I found it to be oddly quiet. Several coaches were already in their offices, but they were keeping to themselves, almost deliberately so. As I approached the final office on the right, I saw that the door was open, as it usually was.

I gently knocked twice and, much more softly than usual, announced my presence. “Good morning, John. How are you?”

I was met with a tired expression and a soft voice. “I’m okay.”

“Did you talk to Frank yet?” I inquired.

“Yeah. I just sent him an e-mail.”

I hesitated and then asked, “Did you tell him your decision?”

The decision. It was one that all coaches face at some point: retire or come back to coach another year. But with John Gagliardi, the stakes were even higher.

He had been a head football coach for seventy years. For the last 64 of them, he had coached at the collegiate level, 638 college games in all. His 489 victories were an incredible 80 more than any other college coach, ever, regardless of division. His teams had earned 30 conference championships and four national championships. His players had earned 114 All-American awards, and along with Florida State’s Bobby Bowden, John was the first active coach to be enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. The Division III equivalent of the Heisman Trophy was named after him.