close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

    • Gerry Faust, former Notre Dame and Moeller football coach, has died at the age of 89
    news

    Gerry Faust, former Notre Dame and Moeller football coach, has died at the age of 89

    Vaseline Posted on

    play

    The man who built a small school football program on Montgomery Road into a national high school powerhouse in the mid-1970s has died. Gerry Faust was the first head coach of Moeller High School. He was so successful that in the fall of 1980 he made the unprecedented step of going straight from high school to the University of Notre Dame.

    Although the call-up from the Golden Dome was a dream come true for the devout Catholic, Faust ended his five-year contract with a record of 30-26-1, never winning more than seven games. “If I had the chance to do it again and knew the results would be the same, I would still do it,” Faust told a Sports Illustrated reporter in 2001.

    With his profile still strong at Ohio State, he was hired as head coach of the University of Akron in 1986, where he stayed for nine seasons and later became a fundraiser.

    Faust most recently lived in Akron, but made frequent visits to other parts of Ohio, including Cincinnati, stopping at Moeller as a motivational speaker. “People listen to me because I’m not all about success,” Faust said in the 2001 Sports Illustrated interview. “They will listen to someone who has failed, because most people fail at something in life.”

    He returned in 2015 for a lengthy celebration of his undefeated 1965 Moeller team and was honored in 2008 with a statue at the top of the steps of Moeller’s athletic fields behind the school. In 2004, Faust was inducted into the National Federation of State High School Associations Hall of Fame.

    Always an obliging and delightful quote, those wishing to contact Faust were directed to his only connection to modern technology, the flip phone.

    “Gerry does not use e-mail, but sits on his hip with his mobile phone connected,” former Moeller archivist Dick Beerman once said.

    That accessibility allowed him to coach and advise former players, sons of former players, grandsons of former players and anyone who needed a five-minute pep talk from a man who spent every day above ground on a mission.

    “I get a lot of calls,” Faust told The Enquirer in 2015. “I stopped at a pay booth at every rest stop and called when I was recruiting at Notre Dame.”

    Beerman’s historical compilation, ‘We Are The Big Moe’, perfectly describes the school’s beloved pioneer.

    “He is Moeller High School,” he wrote. “His boundless energy and enthusiasm for this school and everything related to it has become the standard by which teachers, coaches and staff are measured. The vibrant and dedicated daily efforts of every individual who has served or serves this school can be traced back to the example of this man.”

    Although Faust had hoped to fill his father’s shoes when he resigned as head coach at Chaminade High School in Dayton, he took the job at Moeller because “I wanted to know where these kids came from,” he said in a 2014 speech at a church in Massillon, Ohio.

    “Some were workers, farmers, middle class, upper middle class, wealthy,” Faust said in a report by the Massillon Independent. Moeller, he said, would show these children what life would be like because “life is about knowing everyone, living with everyone, and getting along with everyone.”

    The former Dayton Flyer quarterback started the Fighting Crusaders in 1960 with 44 enthusiastic freshmen who went a modest 4-4. Two years later, they competed in their first varsity season without seniors.

    In 1963 Moeller was 9-1 and in 1965 they had their first undefeated campaign. Ten years later, Moeller had won their first Ohio state title. For the next six seasons, Faust and the Crusaders were state champions (’75, ’76, ’77, ’79, ’80). In four of those seasons (’75, ’76, ’79, ’80) they were crowned national high school champions.

    During his time at Moeller, Faust was 178-23-2 as head coach. They were Greater Catholic League champions in 1964, 1965, 1968, 1970 and from ’72 to ’80 under his watch.

    Many Crusaders went on to fruitful college careers with diverse followings or later attended Notre Dame with Faust. Bob Cable and Tony Hunter both had long NFL careers after going from Moeller to South Bend. Tim Koegel, Mark Brooks and Mike Larkin also followed to Notre Dame, with Hiawatha and D’Juan Francisco joining later.

    Despite Moeller’s reinforcements, Faust couldn’t recreate the magic at the college level.

    The Irish were briefly voted No. 1 in the polls during his tenure, but faced an uphill climb after a 5-6 debut in 1981. In 1982, Faust was able to defeat Michigan and Pitt, led by Hall of Famer Then, to dethrone. Marino. The Irish also defeated Boston College in the 1983 Liberty Bowl and appeared in the 1984 Aloha Bowl. At 5-5 entering his final game against Jimmy Johnson’s Miami Hurricanes, Faust announced his resignation effective at the end of the season . He was succeeded by Lou Holtz.

    At Akron, he helped lead the Zips to Division I-A, but faced a much smaller budget than Notre Dame. He is third on the school’s all-time wins list, finishing 43-53-3.

    Faust set the benchmark for future Moeller coaches.

    Ted Bacigalupo was his successor and won the GCL in 1981 before retiring after one season. He was succeeded by Steve Klonne, who won a state and national title in 1982 and another state title in 1985. Klonne can still be found around Moeller games.

    Former Faust player Bob Cable was next, hitting 49-29. He was followed by John Rodenberg, who won Moeller’s most recent state titles in 2012 and 2013 after a long layoff. Rodenberg resigned after an 80-41 career and has moved on to coach Lawrence Central in Indiana.

    Next in the shadow of Faust’s statue is former Moeller and University of Cincinnati offensive lineman Doug Rosfeld. He is only the sixth coach in school history and was not yet born when Faust led 44 ninth-graders onto the field in 1960.

    Faust’s periodic returns to Moeller were legendary. In 2002, he appeared at a pep rally and the Crusaders later ended a long Colerain winning streak. In 2015, at the 30th anniversary of Moeller’s first undefeated team, he greeted graying men not much younger than himself with countless stories. In 2017 he was the keynote speaker for the school’s Sports Stag.

    “Every place I have made friendships that will last a lifetime, not based on wins and losses,” Faust told his audience in Massillon in 2014. “I seized the day and there has never been a dark day, even in my darkest moments. I believe I have walked the path that God wanted me to follow.”

    Now, like the statue behind Moeller, he looks out at the fields.

    “Coach Faust embodied everything it means to be a Moeller Man,” Moeller interim president Carl Kremer said in a statement. “He inspired his players to be men of faith and character who pursued academic excellence and pushed each other to success. believed in that brotherhood, and he defined it in the way he lived.”

    During 18 years as the Crusaders’ head coach, Faust compiled an extraordinary record of 178-23-2, including 12 Greater Catholic League (GCL) championships, five Ohio state championships and four national titles during his final six years of coaching.

    “Moeller is a special place,” Faust told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2021. “It’s a family. I’ve always told coaches that the wins on the scoreboard keep their jobs, but the wins in the hearts of the young men you coach to become winners in life are the real wins. Boy, we got achieved many real victories.

    Former players speak with reverence and respect for ‘Fuzzy’, as he was affectionately known.

    “Coach Faust treated everyone with respect, from the lowest guy on the team to the best booster and best player,” said Steve Sylvester, a 1971 Moeller graduate who went on to play for Notre Dame and spent nine years in the NFL with Oakland . Robbers. “His unparalleled energy, deep Catholic faith, love of family, everyday work ethic and incredible optimism tell the story of a unique and incredible man. His shattered dream of a lifetime as Notre Dame coach taught everyone who knew him how to cope with personal adversity with class, courage and resilience. He taught us so much, more than just being football players.”

    Mike Suter, captain of the 1979 Crusaders, remembered Faust as a “larger-than-life figure, a big personality who filled a room.”

    Suter’s uncle, the late Phil Gigliotti, coached with Faust at Moeller, and Suter grew up admiring him. “As a kid, I went to Coach Faust’s summer camps and couldn’t wait to play for him.”

    Under Faust, team captains accompanied him before games on a pilgrimage to Mount Adams, where they prayed the rosary on the steps leading to the Immaculata Church. “He put us in his little car, stopped at Wendy’s, bought us dinner and then took us up the stairs to pray,” Suter recalled. “He said, ‘You are the leaders of this team, and we are going to pray the rosary together.’ I still pray the steps on Good Friday, and I always think of Gerry Faust.”

    Barrett Cohen, Moeller’s director of community engagement, said Coach Faust’s legacy will continue. “Many still associate Coach Faust with Moeller football and the school itself. His impact on Moeller is deep, lasting and will endure. People like Gerry Faust will never be forgotten.”

    In a 2013 interview, Faust expressed his deeply held faith: “We had a great coaching staff, great kids, great parents and an excellent school. The most important thing underlying all of this was the Catholic identity of the school. We were in Catholic first and everything else came from that.”

    Gerry Faust and the former Marlene Agruso are parents of three children and have six grandchildren.

    Vaseline
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like