Al Angelo:
Friends meant a lot

On the Sidelines
By Joe Mason

Making a living as a sportswriter isn’t such a bad gig.
It beats the heck out of working.
If you like sports, you like getting a tan, and if you enjoy meeting interesting people, it’s probably the best job there is.
For the most part, anyway. There are other times that the job flat-out stinks.
Take April 19, a Saturday, when I found out that Frankford High School football legend and overall great man Al Angelo had succumbed to pancreatic cancer.
Any time you hear about a death, you get bummed. But I was particularly sad to hear about Angelo’s death because of his legacy.
Al Angelo was a fixture on the Pioneers’ sideline from 1965 to 1984, and again during the 1987 season, so his coaching days were before my days as a sportswriter.
But I grew up in Oxford Circle, so I certainly heard his name spoken long before I attended my first football game. I knew he was a great coach.
I also knew that my dad, a Father Judge guy who loved the Catholic League and didn’t care too much about the Public League, always had great things to say about Al Angelo, though they’d never met. That’s pretty much all I knew.
Then, when I became a sportswriter and I started to cover Frankford football games and I started to hear the stories, I started to appreciate why Angelo was so revered.
Like me, there’s a good chance you think “Mr. Angelo” is remembered for his football success. He did, after all, win 10 Public League championships and 184 football games for his school.
Titles are nice and you know how Frankford loves its football, but that’s not what Angelo was loved for.
Al Angelo loved to talk football, but more than that, he loved to talk.
He and his family had moved to the Jersey Shore after his retirement, but he would use any excuse to make it back to Frankford to catch up.
When George Washington High School coach Ron Cohen broke Angelo’s record for wins, guess who was front and center to congratulate the new record-holder? I think Angelo’s smile was bigger than Cohen’s that day.
When I started working for the Northeast Times, I remember wanting to do an article on Angelo. Part of it was that I wanted to tell everyone what this great man was up to. But part of me wanted to talk to him, wanted a chance to find out why he was so loved.
Minutes after I called him, I found out why.
You could tell that he loved life, he loved his family, he loved Frankford and he loved his players.
He told stories about his coaching days. He wasn’t bragging about championships or talking about great plays he called, but he was recalling funny stories and explaining why he had such love for his boys — his players.
It was also right after Frankford named Mike Capriotti as head coach, and that was a huge deal for Angelo.
Capriotti was a captain of Angelo’s first team, so when his guy took over his program, Angelo was especially proud. Roughly half of our hour or so conversation was devoted to talk about Capriotti. I didn’t know “Coach Cap” at the time, but I was enjoying Mr. Angelo’s stories just the same.
So last week, when I had to call Mike Capriotti about the passing of his mentor, I was dreading my job.
Minutes after he answered, I once again was happy.
Like Angelo, Capriotti handled himself with poise and grace. While he was hurting, he was doing more laughing than crying.
For those who really knew him, it’s hard to be sad when talking about Al Angelo. Sure, everybody wishes he was still around, to talk to, to be with, but how can you not be happy when thinking of his smile?
If anyone lived life to its fullest, it was Al Angelo.
He also did a great job of passing his values to those who played for him, who were friends with him or who studied under him at Frankford.
When talking to people about the legend, they say he was a friend first, a teacher second and a coach third.
I think that’s how Al Angelo would have wanted it to be. ••
Joe Mason can be reached at joemason70@hotmail.com