Oh, how John D’Ambrosio loved his words. He could have been a brilliant journalist, really.
During our many visits over a beer or a few (well, wine for him) at the local Midlothian tap, he would always tell me how his Bremen running back that week gained a “plethora” of yards. Or how the game against Oak Forest the previous Friday was a real “imbroglio.”
Oh, yeah. He would have been a colorful writer.
As it was, “Coach D” was a wonderful English teacher, a great football, baseball, track and wrestling coach, and one really cool and colorful gentleman.
Learning of his passing on April 4 at age 76 was a real gut punch.
The world has lost someone special.
Before we hear from others, I should list the achievements.
During his 20 years as the head coach at Bremen, D’Ambrosio won 112 games. In 1988, he brought Bremen to the state playoffs for the first time in the program’s history.
Under his guidance, the Braves reached the playoffs 11 times, including six straight from 1994 through 2000. Three times they posted 9-0 regular-season records.
D’Ambrosio retired as a teacher and coach at Bremen in 2004, after which he contacted St. Xavier coach Mike Feminis. D’Ambrosio asked if the Cougars needed an assistant coach.
There was no hesitation.
“John came in and we talked and I was like, ‘Listen, I’ll absolutely have a spot for you,’” Feminis said. “It became apparent his passion was on the offensive side, and I didn’t have a quarterbacks coach.”
The contract?
“I told him, ‘You will be on our staff as long as you want to be,’” Feminis said.
With D’Ambrosio on board, St. Xavier reached the NAIA playoffs numerous times. In 2011, the Cougars were the NAIA national champions.
He stayed there to the end.
John D’Ambrosio reflected on his 50 years of coaching football before practice at St. Xavier on Monday, Oct. 29, 2018. (Tony Baranek / Daily Southtown)
“We had so many great times together here,” Feminis said. “There were so many great wins and so many fun times attached with them. He was a big part of it.
“John was an awesome guy. Everybody from the South Side to Midlothian and south suburbs knew it. Our players absolutely loved him. This is a huge loss for our football family.”
Oh, my goodness, the quotes.
Coach D had a real knack for injecting good, clean, entertaining humor into a situation — good or bad, easy or difficult.
I remember him telling me one time after a tough Bremen loss on a goal-line miscue late in the game, “We were right there. And then we fumbled, and the fat kid fell on the football.”
There also was this one time when five or so players were suspended for a game after being caught with a prohibited beverage. That week, Oak Forest was beating Bremen early in the fourth quarter when Bengals fans suddenly broke into the song, “99 bottles of beer on the wall …”
Well, Bremen staged a big rally to win the game. Afterward, when I asked D’Ambrosio about the taunting, he was — to use another one of his favorite words — pithy.
“All I know is, at the end of the game, the footballs weren’t dancing on the Malecky Scoreboard,” D’Ambrosio said with a smile.
He never lost his sense of humor.
And once he made them, he never lost friends. He and Tom Johnson coached baseball and football together at Bremen. They would be buddies for 54 years.
After they both retired from Bremen, they would meet regularly at that Midlo tap to debate sports. Their two favorite things to watch were Jeopardy and the Cubs.
“I loved him like a brother,” Johnson said. “He was a brash, young kid coming in (at Bremen). He had a lot of great ideas and was very enthusiastic. He worked very hard at his craft, and he was obviously very successful at it.”
Like many others. Few coaches, however, had his touch of Shakespeare.
“Haha … he used his words in the right spot at the right time,” Johnson said. “We as coaches all understood what he meant. Maybe some of the kids sometimes didn’t.”
But they understood his intentions.
“He would do anything to help a kid,” Johnson said. “He helped them get through difficult problems in their lives and lead them in the right direction.”
John and I met at St. Xavier one afternoon in 2018 to talk about his upcoming 50th year of coaching football. At one point, the subject turned to his legacy at Bremen.
He couldn’t have summed it up better.
“I think we made football fun,” D’Ambrosio said. “Winning is obviously more fun than losing. We had some 2-7 years in there, but for the most part, I think we made a little name, a little niche for ourselves in south suburban football.”
And for those kids, lifetimes of great memories they’ll never forget.
Magnifico, Coach D.
Tony Baranek is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
