DeFrancesco proves you can go home again

The journey back home is never a straight or logical path. From time to time, a hole may open up some daylight charting your diagramed route, but it can close just as quickly into a distorted mess. No one knows this better than long-time high school football coach Carmen DeFrancesco.

Coaching has been more than a part-time job for the 57 year-old Mount Carmel native. It's been his identity, his vocation. He's been a head coach for nearly two decades, patrolling the sidelines in three state districts with four successful programs.

In a recent interview, DeFrancesco said it was never his intent to move around. His first coaching gig was at his alma mater, Mount Carmel Area, as an assistant to Jazz Diminick, his mentor and Pennsylvania Hall of Famer. But when Diminick was callously ushered out the door, any designs DeFrancesco had of being the heir apparent went with him.

DeFrancesco, an admitted homebody, knows in his chosen profession that rarely do you get the opportunity to write your own script. He has always been cast, perhaps involuntarily, as high school football's St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Yet, his success speaks for itself. His teams have produced winners both on and off the field. But don't kid yourself, we wouldn't know him if he didn't win Friday nights.

His turnaround of the Cardinal Brennan program led to a wildly successful run in Danville. Even after his heralded return to the Coal Region at Shamokin Area, those most familiar with his coaching résumé knew his true calling rested nine miles due east. But no matter where his playbook and whistle has taken him, dedication, success and an unbridled passion for the game and his players have always followed.

During his tenure at Shamokin Area, DeFrancesco put his signature on the program by adding to the school's football legacy, playing for two District Four titles. Introspective about his time there, his one regret is not winning the annual Coal Bucket game. No one wanted that game more than DeFrancesco.

Once while filling up the family guzzler, the coach was topping off his BMW next to me. It was early summer and the conversation quickly morphed into then Week Four of the season. This wasn't by happenstance, as with any accomplished coach, the victories are quickly put away, but the defeats cling to life and loiter like a shadow that never fades.

His most recent stop at Upper Dauphin saw the team improve from 1-9 to 10-2 in a span of three seasons.

If there is such an animal as a high school football soap opera, it may have concluded last Thursday night when the Mount Carmel Area School Board made the fading dream a reality when it introduced DeFrancesco as the new coach of the Red Tornadoes. Through the years as a casual observer, I wondered if the opportunity would one day ever come to fruition. I didn't believe it would. Fate, however, can be unforeseen, even forgotten at times, but it is always omnipresent and waiting to strike. You could say it enjoys being tempted, like a linebacker given the green light on a corner blitz.

DeFrancesco replaces another long-time head coach, Bob Chesney, who was unceremoniously let go after one brief, yet successful, 7-5 season that included an AA Eastern Conference championship. The barometer on any Red Tornado season has always been a lofty one, as DeFrancesco knows all too well. and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Like any aging small town, Mount Carmel has become a place where local churches preside over more funerals than baptisms; a place of departure rather than a destination - apart from those Friday nights in the Silver Bowl. However, ask anyone in town who the football coach is and they'll know. Not all may be familiar or care who serves on the school board, past mayors, town council members or who the retiring Bob Belfanti endorsed for his state House seat. But, try stumping anyone on who were the last three or four football coaches and you'll quickly get a sense of pride, for you now tread on the hollowed ground of Pennsylvania's most successful high school football program. As distinguished as the victory count is atop the Silver Bowl press box, it is the head football coach who, for good or bad, is remembered.

There are legions among us who, for a variety of compelling reasons, accept as truth that you can't go home again. Carmen DeFrancesco is not one of them. It took nearly two decades and three steadfast interviews, but he is finally getting the opportunity and. best of all. his octogenarian parents and Jazz Diminick will be able to see it.

The journey may have been an arduous and certainly uncharted one, but according to the coach, well worth it. He believes he is hitting his stride when fate finally intercepted in his two-decade head coaching odyssey.

After all, the New Orleans Saints are Super Bowl Champions. I suppose that's what makes it all special.

Perhaps these are some lessons we can all learn from the coach. But something tells me that's not the lessons he is now in Mount Carmel to teach.

(Maresca, a local freelance writer, composes "Talking Points" for each Sunday edition.)