Bob DeMayo was the baseball coach at North Haven High School in North Haven, Conn. for 63 years.

Yes indeed – 63 years.

When he retired at age 89, he had accumulated 937 wins, five state championships, and 19 league titles. His all-time legendary coaching career impacted so many. Before he passed this last July, his former players came together to share and celebrate the stories and lessons he gave them in a book titled Bob DeMayo: Coach for a Season, Teacher for Life, compiled by Nancy Shohet West.

One of those former players he had an immense influence on was Frank LaMonaca. While Frank would go on to play college baseball, as well as find great success in business traveling the world, he always comes back to remember the impact that Coach DeMayo had on him. Here is an excerpt Frank contributed to the book:

“In many ways, coaching athletes and teaching students have much in common — you impart information, you look for a response, you provide feedback, repeat. But for the best coaches and the best teachers…the ones who leave a mark, the ones you never forget…it’s more.” (Michael Lewis, Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life).

The best coaches, as with the best teachers, don’t pull their punches in giving you feedback – that tough feedback you need to get better. They tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. They don’t just say, “Hey, kick it up a notch” – they make you… uncomfortable.
This isn’t a job parents are made for – a parent is too close to the subject, there’s too much at stake, they’re too vested in their child to make them… uncomfortable.

I can only speak for myself on the value of honest feedback from a coach, so I’ll tell you one story:

It’s spring 1975, senior year, and Coach DeMayo decides it’s time to make me… uncomfortable.
After a dismal pre-season, where I had gone “0 for March,” Bob put his arm around me and walked me up to home plate and I thought, here it comes, the Coach DeMayo pep talk. Well, there was no pep talk — just a calm, whispered, direct, honest, wake-up call — “No one has a job yet… you earn your spot, every day, every year.” And that was the last thought he left with me as I stepped into the batter’s box.

Two pitches later, after finally getting my first hit, angrily staring in from second base, I can see the smile, and see the nod, and hear the words — “That’s more like it!”

After three years together as player and coach, Bob knew I had a tendency to become complacent from time-to-time — what teenager doesn’t. He also knew I took pride in results, and that perhaps what was needed at that moment wasn’t a gentle pep talk from a benevolent dictator, but rather a swift kick in the pants from someone who cares.

What Coach had done, quietly and effectively, was remind me that when I put on that uniform, I had an obligation: to the team, to him, to myself. All he ever asked was “know your job, do your job.” It worked, I was back, and I was no longer… uncomfortable… and I went on to lead the league in hitting.

As with Michael Lewis (speaking of his coach), I never asked Bob if he’d read the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goeth, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had, but the words fit: “If you treat a man as he is, he will remain as he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”

I am not where I am today without Bob DeMayo coaching me — in the game that I loved and in the life I envisioned. He taught me self-respect, sacrifice, endurance, courage – and that whether we like it or not, personal growth comes with being, at times… uncomfortable. And for that I am forever grateful.

Frank LaMonaca (North Haven HS Varsity Baseball, ’73-’75)