Four decades of excellence: D'Aloisio's coaching career defined by triumph, lasting bonds
Andrew Legare
Elmira Star-Gazette
There is a moment, captured in a photograph, during Elmira Notre Dame's run to a Class B intersectional championship in 1990. Head coach Mike D'Aloisio is grinning broadly as he hugs standout running back Mike Bennett after a win over Binghamton Seton Catholic Central in a Section 4 Bowl Game.
Move ahead 35 years and D'Aloisio's Crusaders have just beaten a Thomas A. Edison team coached by Bennett, 46-12, to open the 2015 season. Again, coach and his now former player hugged on the field.
"It sort of made everything come full circle with my career, just to shake hands at the end of that game from coach to coach and give that hug," said Bennett, adding he could have coached the best game of his life and still not have outcoached D'Aloisio. "Coach D is one of the most emotional people I've ever met. It's the same hug that we used to give each other after games when I was his player."
There is no way to briefly summarize the impact D'Aloisio made during more than 40 years as a football, boys basketball, girls basketball, golf, tennis and softball coach at Notre Dame, where he also was a teacher and administrator from 1976 to 2014. But the hugs are a good place to start.
D'Aloisio, 69, has coached his final game at Notre Dame. He submitted his retirement letter as football coach in January because of physical issues related to multiple knee surgeries and a condition that left him unable to easily lift his foot. He coached the last several seasons through pain, using a cane and golf cart to get around much of the time. A new coach at Notre Dame has not been finalized, with the season now set to start March 1 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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In late July he was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), an often life-shortening disease of the nervous system that can cause loss of muscle control and speech impairment.
ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, named for the all-time New York Yankees great who died of the disease in 1939. D'Aloisio, known for his sense of humor, joked he wasn't even that good a hitter in high school. A quick dip into the archives shows he was in fact a very good hitter for Elmira Free Academy, where he also played football and basketball before focusing on football at SUNY Cortland.
Beyond the victories
Winning is an undeniable part of his legacy at Notre Dame. D'Aloisio's cumulative football record was 244-103 from 1981 to 2019 and included five Section 4 titles, intersectional championships in 1990 and 2018, and a state runner-up finish in 1998.
He had a combined 301-157 mark in basketball, guiding the boys to three sectional crowns and a state final four appearance in 2006. His golf team was a three-time sectional champion and he even coached the Crusaders to a Section 4 title in tennis in 1997.
Above being the guiding force for 12 sectional championship seasons were relationships like the one he built with Bennett and so many athletes who came through the private Catholic school just over the Elmira border in Southport. D'Aloisio reinforced to former players they were always welcome on the sidelines or in the locker room — pregame, halftime or postgame.
"I just loved the camaraderie and the family-type atmosphere being around the kids and the other coaches," D'Aloisio said. "We'd laugh, we'd cry, we'd have good times, or the other times that I may lose it a little but. But that's all part of it and that's real life."
Players would visit his house for hours at a time to talk about football and life in general and many of those same players have come over to the house in recent years to reminisce and perhaps share a meal.
Several assistants who played key roles in Notre Dame's football success are among D'Aloisio's closest friends. Those assistants kept coming back to coach at Notre Dame because of D'Aloisio, and he kept coaching for so long largely because of them.
Being there for each other has become a way of life for the Notre Dame football family led by D'Aloisio, with championship seasons intermingled with a number of tragedies.
"All of us are just a phone call away," D'Aloisio said. "If you need anybody that's in the program you can call us, especially me. I'm going to be there for you if I can."
A winning combination
Mike D'Aloisio's wife of 31 years, Jayne, comes from a large, sports-focused family. Her sister, Marge Tremaine, coached Corning West to the Class B state championship in girls basketball in 1995.
D'Aloisio jokes that he married up, to which Jayne quickly responds that isn't true.
High school athletics are understandably a significant part of their marriage.
"It was our life. It was our world," Jayne said. "I wouldn't change it for a minute. I loved every minute of it."
Nobody was a bigger supporter of Coach D'Aloisio than his wife.
"She was always there through the ups and downs," he said. "She always defended me in the stands if somebody was saying something bad. There were times at basketball games if somebody said something or the official made a bad call, I'd have to turn around and say, 'Sit down, Jayne, sit down. Take it easy.'"
Losses of a more significant kind
D'Aloisio counts close to 20 deaths of athletes he coached, including many who died in the years shortly after graduating from high school.
Three-sport star Joel Stephens died of colon cancer in 1998 at age 22 and D'Aloisio wrote a book about Stephens entitled "5C Hero: The Joel Stephens Story." D'Aloisio and the Stephens family created the Joel Stephens 5C Award to honor a football player from the region who lives up to the example set by Stephens. D'Aloisio is writing a second book focused on Stephens' continuing impact.
Brad Polk, a first-team all-state player who was extremely close with Stephens, died in Florida in 1999 at age 21 of a heroin overdose. A woman pleaded no contest to manslaughter charges for injecting Polk with the drug.
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Rick Shaw, a 1991 Notre Dame graduate who played basketball for D'Aloisio, died suddenly at age 27 in 2000 in Alaska. The next year D'Aloisio took a one-year break from coaching football, with longtime assistant Dick Craft taking over the program.
Mike Langan survived critical injuries from a 1983 auto accident while on his way to baseball practice that left him confined to a wheelchair. Doctors initially held out little hope he would live. Langan has gone on in ensuing years to inspire with his presence at Notre Dame games.
"The biggest impact obviously was Joel Stephens, but we've had a lot of other ones that have touched me," D'Aloisio said. "That made me re-evaluate what's truly important in life."
Stephens died during Notre Dame's run to the Class C state final. The Crusaders lost, 28-27, to Edgemont in overtime after their extra point was blocked following a touchdown.
D'Aloisio told his players it would have been a Disney ending if they had won that game, then reminded them they had learned through Stephens that life doesn't always give you a happy ending, encouraging them to grow from the defeat.
That 1998 team holds a special spot in D'Aloisio's heart, both for its success and its connection with Stephens. That group was led by quarterback Mike Meck, who was shot in a hunting accident the previous December.
Notre Dame's 1990 intersectional championship team, which is considered a state champ by D'Aloisio because there was no state tournament then, was also special. They would routinely come over Sunday nights to watch film and eat pizza following D'Aloisio's six-hour meetings with his coaches.
A broken bus on the way to Kingston for the intersectional win over Saugerties became a chance for D'Aloisio to inspire.
"Coach spun it into the same thing happened back when he was on a state championship basketball team and they had a bus break down," Bennett said. "He turned a very stressful situation for all of us into a very positive experience and didn't let us get down because of that, when in actuality I don't think there ever was a bus breakdown for any basketball game."
During the 2008 season, D'Aloisio lost his mother, Josephine, three hours before kickoff against Candor. Her encouragement led him to coach that night and Notre Dame won the game, 36-7, on its way to a Section 4 title and a berth in the state semifinals. The players dedicated the season to Josephine.
Also noteworthy was the 2018 team, which improved dramatically as the season went on and won sectional and intersectional championships during the school's first season of eight-man football. Notre Dame remained successful the last several seasons despite having no modified or JV football at the school.
For regular-season moments, Notre Dame's 21-17 victory over Corning West in 1984 stands out. D'Aloisio's group was a decided underdog and trailed 17-0 before rallying, denying West coach Arnie Northrop his 100th career victory in front of more than 2,000 fans in Corning.
'Genius' at work
The ability of D'Aloisio to inspire and lead is one of his trademarks. But behind the often emotional speeches, and occasional blowups, was a coach who was constantly thinking three plays ahead.
D'Aloisio would run some plays knowing they wouldn't likely pick up much yardage to set up a big play later in the game. If you were on the sidelines and heard him say "touchdown" before a play, more often than not the end zone beckoned.
Geoff Woodworth, a running back on that 1990 intersectional team, said D'Aloisio would call a timeout, design a play on the spot in the huddle, then add it to the playbook the next week if it was successful.
The Rev. Vincent McDonough, retired as a teacher from Notre Dame, called D'Aloisio "a brilliant man" and marveled at how he would take in everything during a game and come up with game-changing plays in the blink of an eye.
Erik Charnetski, a two-time all-state quarterback at Notre Dame in 2018 and 2019, used the word "genius" to describe D'Aloisio's offensive mind.
Mike Johnston Sr. was defensive coordinator for D'Aloisio the last four seasons and had no problem if Notre Dame went for a first down on fourth down because he had so much confidence in D'Aloisio's play calls. Johnston, who was Notre Dame's head football and boys basketball coach before D'Aloisio, marveled at D'Aloisio's ability to win running or throwing.
"I think he's the most creative offensive mind in the game," Johnston said. "Just the way he knows how to deal with every type of athlete, I watch in awe and see how he handles each person, where they are. ... As John Wooden said back in the day, we learned to disagree without being disagreeable. We both have our ways of looking at things and quite honestly a lot of times it was different, but I just had great respect for his mind and knowledge of the game. How could you not?"
D'Aloisio's basketball teams were largely noted for their strong fundamentals and defensive pressure, which helped produce a combined seven division titles between the boys and girls teams. His final season coaching basketball was 2017-18, his third as coach of the girls.
Helping to shape lives
A long list of doctors, lawyers, educators, police and correctional officers, and others who have made significant contributions to their communities played for D'Aloisio.
Sometimes he runs into former players in interesting situations. Last year, after a road win over Trumansburg, there was concern D'Aloisio was having a heart attack and he was taken to Schuyler Hospital in Montour Falls. A doctor asked him how he was doing.
"I said, 'You look familiar. Do I know you?'" D'Aloisio recalled, cracking a smile. "He goes, 'I played for you in 1983. Joe Blood.' I go, 'Joe, please don't hold anything I did to you in '83 against me."
D'Aloisio stressed to his athletes the importance of striving for excellence and never settling, messages they have carried in their lives beyond Notre Dame.
Bennett is an athletic director and dean of students at Elmira Heights' Thomas A. Edison High School. He also is one of the most successful baseball coaches in Section 4 history. Bennett credited D'Aloisio's influence with leading him into both the educational and coaching fields.
"The main thing was the excellence that he expected from us and would accept nothing less," Bennett said. "That really is something I bought into not just as an athlete, but as a person. There was an expectation from coach and he lived up to that expectation. How he could raise you up spiritually and athletically as an athlete and a person just was something that drew me to wanting to do the same thing for youth when I became an adult."
All along the constant was D'Aloisio cared a great deal about his players, their families and their futures. When his wife asked him if he was going to miss coaching, he replied to her he was sad in some ways but thankful he was allowed to coach for so long because of the friendships he built over the years.
"The winning was important, but watching the kids grow up and mature and become good contributors to our school, to our community and to the world is the most important thing for me," D'Aloisio said.
As a senior at EFA, D'Aloisio received a sportsmanship award, and teams he coached won numerous awards for sportsmanship. He was highly averse to running up the score, with 40-point halftime leads often turning into 40-point victory margins.
Among D'Aloisio's guiding principles were "faith, family and friends." McDonough said Mass wasn't the favorite form of devotion for many students, but D'Aloisio got them to pay attention every week while sprawled out in the small chapel at the high school.
"As important as football was to him, he was interested in them being good young men and good Catholics, although many of them weren't Catholic," McDonough said. "Just being very good people."
Players have told D'Aloisio he is like a father figure to them and he jokes he's more like a brother, a nod to his age. But there is truth in his ability to both lead ahead and stand alongside his players. Bennett said in some ways D'Aloisio was more friend than coach.
"He was the type of guy that could relate to us as high school football players, but also be the kind of figure that taught us a lot of life lessons," Woodworth said. "Work ethic, determination, never give up and all that stuff. At the same time he got it across to us in a way high school kids would listen to him."
Damian Saks, the athletic director at Corning-Painted Post High School and former varsity football coach at Horseheads, came up from Allentown, Pennsylvania, before his junior year and met D'Aloisio and Craft before heading over to Elmira College to join other players lifting weights. He credits the welcoming atmosphere of the football team with helping ease his transition to a new school, with D'Aloisio's concern for players' families shared by Saks with the players he coached.
"He's just a guy you can't help fall in love with because of his personality," Saks said. "He wants to engage you in the conversation, he wants to know how you're doing and he genuinely lets you know he cares about you, your whole family. It was never just as a football player. He wants to know how your family is doing and how your kids are doing."
Legacy of helping others
Stephens set an area career rushing record his senior year in 1994, but the Crusaders lost big to Tioga that day. As McDonough recalls, D'Aloisio was "destroyed" over the loss. Stephens was dealing with a hip injury and wasn't at full strength that day.
"About 10 o'clock that night, there's a knock on Mike's door and there's Joel Stephens with a pizza for him," McDonough said. "That's the way they loved him that they would do that kind of thing."
As D'Aloisio moves forward with his fight against ALS, a boatload of trophies, accolades and records are a reminder of what his teams accomplished. That pales in comparison to the influence he had on their lives.
"His legacy I think is about being selfless, about recognizing the strengths of others and promoting them and not taking a lot of credit for really what he has done and how he has turned good athletes or average athletes into outstanding young men or young women," Johnston said.
One of the lasting memories for Charnetski was looking toward the sideline after coming up with the game-clinching first down in the intersectional title game in 2018. Charnetski was a bit annoyed after tensions got high in a 38-36 win over Tri-Valley, then looked to the sideline and saw his coach.
"He kind of gave me this big smile and at that point I realized it was over and we had won the game," Charnetski said. "We just shared this moment together that after three years we had finally done what we could to win everything. That moment is always going to stay with me."
Said D'Aloisio: "I hope I gave the kids from my coaching the world's two great commodities: my time and myself. I tried to do that and I tried to be a friend. If I did that the majority of the time or most of the time, I can live with what I hopefully gave to others."
Bennett is counting on his former teammates, and those still in high school who played for D'Aloisio, to rally around the coach who has always been there for them.
"Coach taught us never to turn away in a crisis. He taught us to take everything head on, not only on the athletic field but also in life," Bennett said. "That's a message that I've always taken with me. His pregame speeches, and the way he could raise the emotion and the mentality of a team before they would go into a battle, is something that I'm hoping we can return to him at this point."
D'Aloisio's Coaching Highlights
Compiled a 244-103 record as Notre Dame's football coach over 38 seasons from 1981 to 2019, with one year off in 2001. During his tenure the Crusaders won 19 division titles, five Section 4 championships, two intersectional crowns and another regional title on the way to a state runner-up finish in 1998.
Cumulative record of 301-157 coaching boys and girls basketball. He coached the Notre Dame boys to a 258-140 mark from 1988 to 2007, along with three Section 4 championships and two sectional runner-up finishes. From 2015-16 to 2017-18 he led the Crusaders girls to a 43-17 record, highlighted by the IAC Large School championship in 2016.
Coached the Notre Dame golf team to three Section 4 titles in 2013, 2015 and 2016, his final season. During that stretch the Crusaders won 72 consecutive dual meets.
The Notre Dame tennis team finished with a 9-5 record and won a Section 4 title under D'Aloisio in 1997.
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