thedrifter
05-03-07, 07:49 AM
Disciplined approach
Outgoing Rutgers wresting coach Sacchi learned in the Marines
Home News Tribune Online 05/3/07
By PAUL FRANKLIN
STAFF WRITER
paulf@thnt.com
John Sacchi loved listening to the big hits on his transistor radio — songs like "Maybellene," "Heartbreak Hotel," "At The Hop" and "Wake Up, Little Susie." So he grew up thinking he might be a disc jockey.
Then he joined the Marines and he really grew up.
"The Marines had a great influence on my life. That's where I found myself," he said Wednesday afternoon. "Two of the main things I learned was that you had to have discipline in your life and you had to take care of your troops."
Those lessons served him long and well as a wrestling coach the past 40 years. He passed along that discipline and took care of his troops, the past 17 years as head coach at Rutgers University.
After wrestling with the decision over the winter, the 67-year-old will retire as of July 1. The official announcement was made Wednesday.
Steve Bonsall, a 1971 graduate of Franklin Township High School, was a junior college national champion for Sacchi. He went on to wrestle for Rutgers (class of '76). Now living in Westfield, he is a vice president of corporate sales in the data processing industry.
"I've known coach Sacchi close to 30 years and I honestly feel he's an old-school coach. By that I mean he teaches discipline, values and sportsmanship. And that's one of the things that's kind of missing in sports today. He stood up for discipline; you act on the mat as you would act in life," Bonsall said. "Coach Sacchi consistently set an example of high ethical standards, lived up to those principles and imparted them to us."
Wrestling coach or Marine tank commander, Sacchi remained consistent in his approach.
"When I began to get my stripes, I had a duty assignment where I had to instruct younger Marines. I said: "Wow, this is fun. Teaching is nice.' Wrestling had never left my blood," he said about his high school career in Ithaca, N.Y. "I knew I wanted to teach, and couple it with coaching and make a life out of it."
He left the Marines after three years and four years later had a degree from Ithaca College in health and physical education.
One year later he was in New Jersey for the rest of his life.
The winningest coach in Rutgers history (167-102-5), Sacchi spent 23 seasons at Middlesex County College before reaching his goal of becoming a Division I head coach at New Jersey's state university in 1990. He leaves with an overall record of 440-152-9, ranking him eighth all-time in college victories.
Forty years later he will now spend a little more time with his wife of 45 years and their five grandchildren. There will be more hours spent putting lures on a fishing line and he will probably return to teaching a couple of times a week at the county college in Edison. But don't discount a return to the mats, be it as a high school volunteer, clinician or camp counselor.
Why the passion?
"Why do you love your wife?" he asked rhetorically. "You don't fall in love because of just one thing. There are so many reasons, so many complexities. You can make the analogy. The only thing I can say is it's a love affair."
He never stopped loving the purity of the sport and it wasn't until midseason that he began to consider walking away.
"I started to feel the fatigue, the road trips," he explained. "You're up at 5:30 a.m., you're in the gym having weigh-ins by 7, you eat a bagel and wash it down with Gatorade, then you sit in a gym all day and yell your guts out, and then you're on the bus heading back to campus. And on Sunday you're comatose."
Sacchi won five junior college national championships at Middlesex and in just his second year at Rutgers his team set a school record with 17 wins. On that team was South Plainfield High School state champion Kevin McCann, who for the past few years has been among the most successful high school coaches in the state at his alma mater.
"He was a great coach," McCann said. "To this day I still see him at clinics. He's always on top of new things that are going on. He's always receptive to me; he's great that way. Whenever I get together with some of the Rutgers guys from then we always tell the stories about Coach. People don't get to see the human side of him, but he's a funny guy to be around.
"When I got into coaching I tried to be like certain coaches. Coach (Mike) Buggey and coach (Bill) Pavlac were a big influence on who I am now," MaCann said about his high school mentors. "Coach Sacchi was a huge influence on me. He turned that program around and I was just glad to be part of that, and to know him."
Mike Leta knew Sacchi informally as a high school coach at defunct Bridgewater-Raritan West. Leta wound up assisting him at Rutgers for 10 seasons before retiring himself two years ago.
"John was great to work for. He listened to suggestions and was very open-minded, which is a nice way to run a business," Leta said from his home in Somerville. "He really made you feel part of it. I had a great experience with him and it developed into a nice relationship along the way.
"He did a great job, the best he could do," Leta added. "He got the optimum out of what he had to work with."
Which is to say he had a few good men.
"I loved working with the kids. It kept me young," Sacchi said. "Coaching was like being an artist. You take a lump of clay, you pound it and shape it and then look at it and say, "Hey, that's pretty good,' and you know you had a hand in that and it felt good. Obviously the talent of a youngster would be the equivalent of the quality of the artist's material.
"Obviously you can't paint a Mona Lisa with a crayon and a piece of toilet paper," he said. "If you have good materials and the artist has the skill, you can create some works of art."
Sacchi was committed as well as intrigued by the process. Although the Rutgers program never made the commitment to lure the state's high level of scholastic wrestlers, Sacchi does not look back.
"No regrets," he said. "When you look at the track record, when I made a commitment I made a commitment. I've been married 45 years — some people call my wife St. Joan for all she's put up with — I was at Middlesex 23 years and Rutgers 17.
"When I make a commitment," he said, "I make a commitment."
One of the few, one of the proud.
Ellie
Outgoing Rutgers wresting coach Sacchi learned in the Marines
Home News Tribune Online 05/3/07
By PAUL FRANKLIN
STAFF WRITER
paulf@thnt.com
John Sacchi loved listening to the big hits on his transistor radio — songs like "Maybellene," "Heartbreak Hotel," "At The Hop" and "Wake Up, Little Susie." So he grew up thinking he might be a disc jockey.
Then he joined the Marines and he really grew up.
"The Marines had a great influence on my life. That's where I found myself," he said Wednesday afternoon. "Two of the main things I learned was that you had to have discipline in your life and you had to take care of your troops."
Those lessons served him long and well as a wrestling coach the past 40 years. He passed along that discipline and took care of his troops, the past 17 years as head coach at Rutgers University.
After wrestling with the decision over the winter, the 67-year-old will retire as of July 1. The official announcement was made Wednesday.
Steve Bonsall, a 1971 graduate of Franklin Township High School, was a junior college national champion for Sacchi. He went on to wrestle for Rutgers (class of '76). Now living in Westfield, he is a vice president of corporate sales in the data processing industry.
"I've known coach Sacchi close to 30 years and I honestly feel he's an old-school coach. By that I mean he teaches discipline, values and sportsmanship. And that's one of the things that's kind of missing in sports today. He stood up for discipline; you act on the mat as you would act in life," Bonsall said. "Coach Sacchi consistently set an example of high ethical standards, lived up to those principles and imparted them to us."
Wrestling coach or Marine tank commander, Sacchi remained consistent in his approach.
"When I began to get my stripes, I had a duty assignment where I had to instruct younger Marines. I said: "Wow, this is fun. Teaching is nice.' Wrestling had never left my blood," he said about his high school career in Ithaca, N.Y. "I knew I wanted to teach, and couple it with coaching and make a life out of it."
He left the Marines after three years and four years later had a degree from Ithaca College in health and physical education.
One year later he was in New Jersey for the rest of his life.
The winningest coach in Rutgers history (167-102-5), Sacchi spent 23 seasons at Middlesex County College before reaching his goal of becoming a Division I head coach at New Jersey's state university in 1990. He leaves with an overall record of 440-152-9, ranking him eighth all-time in college victories.
Forty years later he will now spend a little more time with his wife of 45 years and their five grandchildren. There will be more hours spent putting lures on a fishing line and he will probably return to teaching a couple of times a week at the county college in Edison. But don't discount a return to the mats, be it as a high school volunteer, clinician or camp counselor.
Why the passion?
"Why do you love your wife?" he asked rhetorically. "You don't fall in love because of just one thing. There are so many reasons, so many complexities. You can make the analogy. The only thing I can say is it's a love affair."
He never stopped loving the purity of the sport and it wasn't until midseason that he began to consider walking away.
"I started to feel the fatigue, the road trips," he explained. "You're up at 5:30 a.m., you're in the gym having weigh-ins by 7, you eat a bagel and wash it down with Gatorade, then you sit in a gym all day and yell your guts out, and then you're on the bus heading back to campus. And on Sunday you're comatose."
Sacchi won five junior college national championships at Middlesex and in just his second year at Rutgers his team set a school record with 17 wins. On that team was South Plainfield High School state champion Kevin McCann, who for the past few years has been among the most successful high school coaches in the state at his alma mater.
"He was a great coach," McCann said. "To this day I still see him at clinics. He's always on top of new things that are going on. He's always receptive to me; he's great that way. Whenever I get together with some of the Rutgers guys from then we always tell the stories about Coach. People don't get to see the human side of him, but he's a funny guy to be around.
"When I got into coaching I tried to be like certain coaches. Coach (Mike) Buggey and coach (Bill) Pavlac were a big influence on who I am now," MaCann said about his high school mentors. "Coach Sacchi was a huge influence on me. He turned that program around and I was just glad to be part of that, and to know him."
Mike Leta knew Sacchi informally as a high school coach at defunct Bridgewater-Raritan West. Leta wound up assisting him at Rutgers for 10 seasons before retiring himself two years ago.
"John was great to work for. He listened to suggestions and was very open-minded, which is a nice way to run a business," Leta said from his home in Somerville. "He really made you feel part of it. I had a great experience with him and it developed into a nice relationship along the way.
"He did a great job, the best he could do," Leta added. "He got the optimum out of what he had to work with."
Which is to say he had a few good men.
"I loved working with the kids. It kept me young," Sacchi said. "Coaching was like being an artist. You take a lump of clay, you pound it and shape it and then look at it and say, "Hey, that's pretty good,' and you know you had a hand in that and it felt good. Obviously the talent of a youngster would be the equivalent of the quality of the artist's material.
"Obviously you can't paint a Mona Lisa with a crayon and a piece of toilet paper," he said. "If you have good materials and the artist has the skill, you can create some works of art."
Sacchi was committed as well as intrigued by the process. Although the Rutgers program never made the commitment to lure the state's high level of scholastic wrestlers, Sacchi does not look back.
"No regrets," he said. "When you look at the track record, when I made a commitment I made a commitment. I've been married 45 years — some people call my wife St. Joan for all she's put up with — I was at Middlesex 23 years and Rutgers 17.
"When I make a commitment," he said, "I make a commitment."
One of the few, one of the proud.
Ellie