Coach Al Fracassa leads his team in warmups before a game earlier this season.Don Horkey | Special to The Michigan Catholic
Bloomfield Hills — Retire? If you’re Al Fracassa, put that idea on hold.
“I’m too busy right now,” he said at the desk in his cramped, closet-sized office at Brother Rice, where he coached the Warriors for 45 years and won 10 state titles, 20 Catholic League championships, and ended a 53-year career with 430 victories, the most in the state, seventh best in the nation.
On this wintry, road-slicked morning, after graciously allowing 45 minutes for a chat, he had a half-dozen athletes waiting in the hallway to talk about their college futures, and was expecting coaches from Ball State, Bowling Green and Indiana in the afternoon.
“I’m working to get my kids into college,” he said. “I’ve got about a dozen or so lined up for this year so far.”
Al Fracassa, left, shares a moment with Warren De La Salle football coach Paul Verska earlier this season. As a gesture of goodwill, De La Salle offered the retiring Warriors coach a plaque honoring his achievements in the Catholic League.He paused: “Have you ever heard of Notre Dame — in Ohio?”
In his five decades on the sidelines, he scoffed at the suggestion that about 300 of his players have moved on to college-level football. “Oh, a lot more than that,” he said.
How many to the pro ranks? “Maybe 15 or 20.”
Lineman Mike Lodish is one of those former Warriors who, after his graduation in 1985, played college ball at UCLA and 11 years in the pros with Buffalo and Denver. He is the only player in NFL history to have played in six Super Bowls: four in a row — all losses with Buffalo — and two, both victories, with Denver.
About Fracassa, Lodish says: “He was a guy of morals and God and discipline and work hard and work ethic. Those are the qualities I utilized in my life to persevere to the next level, both academically and athletically. These are virtues that were extremely impressionable on me as a youth.”
The 2013 state championship medal earned by Al Fracassa and the Brother Rice Warriors, who went undefeated in the coach’s last season.There isn’t an inch of space on his office walls that isn’t covered with photographs, plaques and other memorabilia. “A lot of stories here,” Fracassa said.
Jerome Malczewski, a 1981 Rice grad and 1985 West Point alum living in Boston, is preserving some of those stories for posterity in a pair of books about Fracassa he is hoping to publish this year.
“He had a knack of making every player on the team feel he was the most important,” Malczewski said. “He is a simple guy who loves his family and loves his players.”
The thought of retirement, Fracassa said, will “hit me” when the football season rolls around. In the meantime, he laughs at all the notoriety he’s been getting since his last game. “So many nice things are being said about me. I don’t know if I can live with myself,” he said. We all hope for that 15 minutes of fame. Fracassa has far exceeded that limit. He deserves it.
Oh, by the way, Notre Dame College of Ohio is in South Euclid, 10 miles east of Cleveland. The Blue Falcons are an NCAA Division II school.
Don Horkey is a freelance writer residing in Shelby Township. He may be reached at [email protected].
Al Fracassa at a glance:
Coaching: Brief stints as an assistant football coach at Flint Mandeville High School and Rochester High School. Head football coach at Royal Oak Shrine from 1960-68 (record 44-19-5), then at Brother Rice 1969-2013 (386-98-2). His combined record of 430 victories is the best all time among high school coaches in Michigan and seventh best in the nation.
Coaching Achievements: The state mythical championship in 1974 and nine state championships in the MHSAA playoffs, including the last three years in a row ... The Warriors won 20 championships in the Catholic League Prep Bowl ... Four nationally ranked teams in USA Today.
Awards & Honors: 2013 Coach of the Year of the All American High School Football team selected by USA Today … National High School Coach of the Year (2002, 2011), NFL High School Coach of the Year (1977), Michigan High School Coach of the Year (four times), Michigan Sports Hall of Fame (1999), Catholic League Hall of Fame (1980), Brother Rice Hall of Fame (2009), Detroit News “Michiganian of the Year” (2007), Detroit News Coach of the Year (five times), Jim Crowley Award (2004) by the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association ...MSU Duffy Daugherty Memorial Award (2005), Detroit Public Schools Athlete of the (1950s) Decade (Northeastern High School, lettered in football, basketball and baseball).
