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06/21/2020 12:00 AMSteve Filippone thought that his days of coaching football were done. In 2016, Filippone retired as head coach of the Hand football squad following a 27-year run in which he recorded 223 victories and guided the Tigers to seven state championships. However, three years later, Filippone is back on the gridiron with the football team at Daniel Hand High School.
Following the resignation of Dave Mastroianni amid controversy, administrators in the Madison school system reached out to Filippone to see if he was interested in returning to his position as head coach. While Filippone never expected to come back, it was an offer that he simply could not turn down.
“It’s exciting to be back coaching at Hand, but not under the circumstances that I’m doing it. It’s an interesting position to be in,” said Filippone, 64, who was also assistant coach with the Tigers for 10 seasons. “I coached at Hand for 37 years and knew when the time to retire came. I knew it was the right time. There was no trepidation, no looking back, wishing I could have stayed. I was reveling in the success of the program through Coach Mastroianni. I was just excited to watch Hand play.”
Even though he hasn’t been on the Tigers’ sidelines for a few years, Filippone’s passion for football is as strong as it’s ever been. That’s one of the biggest factors behind his return to the team.
“Things happen. When they do, you have to modify and adjust,” Filippone said. “The [outgoing] superintendent [Thomas Scarice], principal [Anthony Salutari], and athletic director [Craig Semple] asked if I would come back to help sustain the program through what might be a difficult time. In consultation with people I really respect, I felt somewhat obligated to say yes. You throw almost 40 years of your life into something, it needs your help. You just don’t say no.”
The workload of a head coach is one of the reasons why Filippone decided to retire after the 2016 season, and he immediately realized how much he would have on his plate when he came back. On top of that, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, that made it all the more difficult for Filippone to keep in contact with his athletes and fellow coaches.
“I quickly realized how much work it is, and the reason why I retired to begin with. And then COVID came. That changed everything,” said Filippone “We have no access to our players. All our workouts are done virtually. We can only count on the players putting in the work. All of our coaches’ meetings are all virtual now, as well, so it’s made it difficult.”
Filippone knows that it’s going to be a grind this year—provided that the campaign takes place in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic—and that there will be plenty of kinks to work through. Still, Filippone feels excited to once again be coaching at Hand and, ultimately, he just wants to see the Tigers continue their storied tradition of success.
“I’m totally excited. It’s in my blood,” he said. “I thought I could get away from coaching, but couldn’t. I coached at Wesleyan, but that was just a little bit too much. If you said to me in January would I be coaching at Hand, there is no way I would say I’d be coaching there right now.”
Filippone has converted part of his condominium into a makeshift football office. He’s been conducting meetings with his team through the Zoom platform in recent weeks.
“Honestly, we took to it immediately. We Zoom once, if not twice a week. I put out an agenda early in the week. I transformed our kitchen into a football office. My wife isn’t too happy about it, but we’re making it work,” Filippone joked. “Zoom itself has a whiteboard function. We’ve learned that 10 of us can’t talk at the same time. We’ve been able to make some big decisions about the program all over Zoom.”
Those decisions included an extensive process to select Hand’s team captains for the 2020 season. Seniors Will Flanagan and Ryan Bordiere were both unanimous choices to lead the team as captains this fall. Flanagan is a wide receiver, and Bordiere plays center.
“We had a long process. We asked all the seniors who were interested in being captain, and they had to write an essay answering all these questions about why they wanted to be captain,” Filippone said. “We ended up setting up a survey and came out with two guys. It worked out really well, but nothing is going to replace looking a young man in the eyes and having a heart-to-heart conversation with him.”
As Connecticut’s COVID-19 numbers continue trending in the right direction, Coach Filippone is remaining cautiously optimistic about the prospects of playing a season. Filippone is a diabetic who has blood pressure issues, and that would put him at a higher risk if he were to get the virus. While Filippone is hopeful that his team will get to compete this year, he knows that safety of everyone comes first and foremost.
“I have three guys on our staff that are 75 years old, and two of them had to flat-out tell me they cannot coach,” Filippone said. “My simple answer is, if we’re social distancing in school at all, we cannot play football. You can’t social distance in football. It’s a contact sport. If they’re mitigating things all over the school, then how can they not mitigate on the football field?”
Hand is scheduled to kick off the 2020 season with a road game against Fairfield Prep on Friday, Sept. 11. The Tigers are coming off a 2019 campaign that saw them post a record of 12-1 and advance to the championship game of the Class L State Playoffs. However, Hand lost several excellent players to graduation and is only returning 3 of its 11 starters on defense.
“We just graduated a class that might have been one of the best classes we’ve ever had,” said Filippone. “We have had well over a dozen college football players in the last two years. The work that those kids did was tremendous. That’s all done now. We return a great offensive line, all except for Ben Corniello. But the other four linemen are returning. Aidan McCabe will be replacing Ben.”
Junior Patch Flanagan will step under center for the Tigers following the graduation of quarterback Phoenix Billings. Flanagan started every game at the JV level last year and was a backup QB for the varsity squad. Flanagan will be distributing the ball to guys like junior running back Ethan O’Brien and junior wide receiver Seth Sweitzer.
“Patch Flanagan is a great young quarterback,” Filippone said. “We feel like we’ve got a great running back in Ethan O’Brien. He doesn’t have a lot of experience, but he’s been terrific. Our receiving corps is young, but I’m excited to see what Seth Sweitzer will do. We are going to be a predominantly spread team, but we play with two backs and three wide receivers.”
Other key returning players for the Tigers include senior safeties Colin Telford and Connor Quinn, along with fellow senior Tommy Bambrick, a two-way lineman.
2020 Hand Tigers Football Schedule
All home games at Surf Club
Friday, Sept. 11: at Fairfield Prep at Rafferty Stadium, Fairfield University at 6 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 17: vs. Sheehan at 6 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 25: vs. New Canaan at 7 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 2: at Masuk at 7 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 16: at Shelton at 7 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 23: at Bloomfield at 7 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 30: vs. Bunnell at 7 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 6: vs. North Haven at 7 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 20: at Notre Dame-West Haven at Veterans Field at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 25: vs. Guilford at 7 p.m.