This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
05/23/2018 12:00 AMLegendary East Haven High School coach Frank Crisafi passed away at age 95 on May 19. Crisafi coached the Yellowjackets’ football, boys’ basketball, baseball, and golf teams for a combined 84 seasons from the 1940s through the 1980s, recording hundreds of victories during that time. He passed away at Yale-New Haven Hospital following a battle with a heart and kidney condition.
Crisafi won 525 games and six state titles in his 33-season tenure as head coach of the East Haven boys’ basketball team. With his 525 victories, Crisafi is in eighth place on the state’s all-time win list. In the mid-1950s, Crisafi guided the Yellowjackets on a 77-game winning streak, which was the longest in state history at the time. During that stretch, East Haven won Class M state championships in 1954 and 1955.
East Haven’s other state titles with Crisafi as coach came in 1957, 1960, 1963, and his final year in 1980. That season, Crisafi was named the National High School Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year. The Easties also played in three other state finals during Crisafi’s tenure, in addition to winning the New England Class B Invitational title in 1954.
Crisafi recorded 181 wins as head coach of the East Haven football team, leading the Yellowjackets to an undefeated season in 1952. He won 66 games as head coach of the East Haven baseball team.
Crisafi also spent 20 years as the athletic director at East Haven High School, where the football field is named in his honor. Crisafi is a member of the Connecticut High School Hall of Fame, the New Haven Tap-Off Club Hall of Fame, and the New England Sports Hall of Fame.
Crisafi’s son, Ed Crisafi, has been the head coach of the Yellowjackets’ softball team since 1994 and has also coached the boys’ basketball teams at East Haven and North Haven.
–Chris Piccirillo