Saint Paul remembers coach Girardo
On game day when Fred Girardo and John Zeman coached junior football at Saint Paul, their players would come to school with their jerseys worn over a shirt and tie.
“It was always a point of pride for us coaches to see the kids represent the school that way,” Zeman said.
When Girardo passed away Feb. 12 at the age of 64, Zeman asked former players to recreate the tradition during visitation.
“Between championship football jackets and their jerseys, shirts and ties, it was an amazing tribute to Freddie,” Zeman said.
The outpouring of love for Girardo since his death has made it crystal clear how influential the lifetime educator and coach was to his former players and fellow coaches.
“He had a long-lasting impact on so many people and I really appreciated my time with him,” said former player Brian Fortier, who went on to play quarterback at York University. “I played five seasons for Fred and three of the five we won championships. But the biggest thing he was always worried about wasn’t the result but more to do with the fun that we had doing it.”
That style was atypical.
“Everybody is always worried about how they are going to be judged instead of how the kids are experiencing it and how much fun are they going to remember having.”
When his playing days were done, Fortier coached with the Saint Paul Patriots and with the Niagara Spears and he applied lessons learned from Girardo to his sideline endeavours.
“It was that fun aspect and the investment in people themselves. It was having an actual interest in people as individuals, their families and how they were doing,” Fortier said. “He always made the effort to connect with each and every person. That was very evident because they all wanted to go back and chat, visit with him and let him know how they were doing beyond football.”
Fortier played two seasons of minor football for Girardo, one season in Niagara Falls, N.Y., for a team that won a Western New York championship, and two years of junior with Saint Paul.
“He always had a smile on his face, he had a willingness to have fun and he was always present,” he said. “He was always in the moment with you.”
Zeman and Girardo coached junior football together for 20 years at Saint Paul but their gridiron friendship went back much further. The pair played flag football together in Grade 7 and 8.
“That was our first championship together in Grade 8,” Zeman said.
Girardo became a business teacher at Saint Paul in 1992 and joined the junior team coaching staff.
“When Freddie got to Saint Paul, our junior team had never won a game,” Zeman said. “At that point, I took over the offence, he took over the defence and we went on a two-and-a-half season unbeaten streak and won our first two championships.”
The two coaches guided their team to a total of five championships with the highlight being a berth in the Metro Bowl semifinals.
“All of our years together there never was a head coach of junior football at Saint Paul. I was the offensive coordinator and he was the defensive coordinator and everything that went on on and off the field we talked about together,” Zeman said. “He knew the defensive side of the ball inside and out and he knew how to put kids into the right place.”
Zeman and Girardo had a fun-loving coaching relationship.
“One of our former football players messaged me when Freddie passed away saying he remembered us being like an old married couple bickering on the sidelines,” Zeman said, with a laugh. “We usually did it during tense moments for the kids. I would say something like ‘Can you get the defence to stop somebody?’ and he would say something like ‘For sure. We could stop them if you could score some points.’ We would look each other and laugh, then the kids would laugh and the whole mood of the bench would change. It would loosen them up.”
It was all part of Girardo teaching the kids but trying to make it fun.
“At the end of practice when kids would hate to run, we would play British Bulldog or full-contact soccer. The kids didn’t realize they were running and it was our way of letting them know that football was a game,” Zeman said. “Don’t get me wrong. We always wanted to win but the game had to be fun.”
Girardo coached for another five years after Zeman retired. He then helped coach his older son, Michael, at Saint Mike’s, and his younger son, Carlo, when he was at Denis Morris.
