![Coach Dan Catignani (left) poses with longtime friend and coach Chuck Curran (right) and former Christ the King student Jack McLaughlin in 2014.]()
Coach Dan Catignani (left) poses with longtime friend and coach Chuck Curran (right) and former Christ the King student Jack McLaughlin in 2014.
Dan Catignani brought a crumpled diagram of the play to practice Thursday, just in case Dustin Timmons had forgotten it — “The Belmont Bomb,” the schematic pride of Catignani’s youth coaching days, a play first scrawled on paper in the 1980s.
Timmons, head coach of the Christ the King 7th/8th grade football team, hadn’t run it all year. Maybe it would make the difference in Saturday’s Parochial League championship game against St. Joseph, Catignani suggested with a smile.
“I just kind of rolled my eyes,” Timmons recalled, and they had a laugh, and then Catignani went back to coaching the defense.
It was like all his other days as a coach, a mix of wisecracks and nicknames and discipline, the balance that has helped hundreds of kids over 34 years of guiding them in football and boys and girls basketball. No one knew it at the time, but it would be his last day as a coach.
One week later, Coach Cat will be laid to rest after his funeral at Christ the King Church. A life of 61 years has ended suddenly. The outpouring for a man who spent more than half of it serving without pay or recognition continues.
Those of us who played youth sports and were lucky enough to have coaches who cared can relate, and probably wish we would have done more to say thanks.
“There was a prayer service for Dan at the school Monday, and about 30 kids got up and talked about him,” said Chuck Curran, a longtime friend who coached basketball with Coach Cat for many years. “You could just see how much he mattered to them. He dedicated his life to them.”
And that meant really hard practices — fun was for games. It meant no inspirational speeches, no bluster, certainly no taunting or showboating. It meant equal treatment, for the standout athletes, for the unskilled kids trying to learn and for his daughter, Britton, whom he coached in basketball.
“Whether they were a superstar athlete or just a run of the mill participant, they were all the same to Dan,” said Steve Francescon, who grew up with Catignani near Belmont Boulevard and coached football with him for many years. “As long as every kid showed up in practice and tried, gave the effort, every kid played in the game.”
It meant winning. And kids care about winning. There are no stats to verify, but Coach Cat’s friends swear he never had a losing season in any sport, and that he had a four-year run with 5th/6th-grade football teams featuring one loss.
“He loved to scout other teams, loved coming up with wrinkles and different plays,” Timmons said. “But in reality, all that stuff didn’t matter. His teams were tougher than the other teams, and they were tougher because of him.”
And that, of course, meant tough love. Coach Cat “had a way that not too many people in today’s time would get away with, it’s old school,” said his cousin Drew Smith, yet Coach Cat would keep the kids in his corner. And he’d nickname them, monikers such as “Skillet” and “Hippy” and “Bacon Head,” and a kid named Seamus became “Shamrock.”
Curran’s daughter Kelly was “Library” because she rarely talked. Nicknamed or not, they were drawn to him because they knew he gave a rip. Because kids actually want to be disciplined.
“This has been a shock to all of us, and the hardest thing about Dan passing was my 15-year-old granddaughter who he coached, all she could do was grab and hug me, at a total loss for words,” Francescon said. “That’s how much he meant to these kids.”
Does this sound familiar? In 2016 we have lost Pat Summitt and Ed Temple, Tennesseans who were national coaching icons, whose approach and impact have a similar feel.
And Coach Cat was a giant in the Nashville Catholic community, a Christ the King and Father Ryan grad, a standout linebacker, an accountant by trade. He started coaching football at St. Edward in 1982 before moving to his alma mater, all well before Britton was born.
“This is like one big family going way back, my grandfather did the marble floors, helped build the (Christ the King) Church,” Francescon said. “It was so important to Dan to carry on the tradition of the neighborhood, of the family.”
He was the one who organized the tailgate before Saturday’s championship game. But he didn’t show up, and that was not like him.
Timmons, who sought Catignani’s coaching counsel 15 years ago and who convinced him this season to help with the 7th/8th grade team, called and texted several times. Two days earlier, they had joked at practice about “The Belmont Bomb,” a play Coach Cat’s teams had sprung on teams for years.
Two days before that, on Catignani’s 61st birthday, he had told Timmons that 2017 would be his last year of coaching. He was getting up there — he had an upcoming medical appointment to check out his heart after some recent dizzy spells — and he would see these 7th-graders through their final year at Christ the King.
“I didn’t believe him,” Timmons said.
On Saturday he just wanted to find him, and a parent who hadn’t yet come to the game was called to go check on him. She saw the leaf blower in the driveway. She found Catignani on the floor of his kitchen.
When Curran got there, police and paramedics had arrived. Coach Cat was gone. Timmons was calling Curran and asking him what he should do.
“Dustin, you have to play this game,” Curran told him. “He would want you to play it, to win it. And you can’t tell the kids. After the game, you will know what to say.”
Timmons told the kids Coach Cat had some family issues and might not make it. Assistant coach Hunter Ellen, who played for Coach Cat in the ‘90s, took over at defensive coordinator. The Raiders trailed 12-8 with 1:28 left and needed to go the length of the field to win.
Timmons called for “The Belmont Bomb,” a timing play in which the receiver fakes an out pattern and goes deep. It’s a double move with a quarterback pump fake, seen often at higher levels of football but difficult for kids this age to execute without extensive practice.
Adam McWright made the move. Dylan Timmons, Dustin’s son, delivered the pump fake and the perfect throw. The bomb got the Raiders to the St. Joseph 5-yard line. Michael Hartz punched it in for the winning touchdown.
After the euphoria and the trophy ceremony, Timmons gathered his team in an end zone and told them to take a knee. He looked them over and took a deep breath.
“We had an angel with us on that drive,” he told them. “Coach Cat died today. And he would have been proud of your attitude and effort.”
It was one last lesson from Coach Cat on precious life and how fast it can change.
“It hit them very, very hard,” Timmons said. “I had to tell 27 boys they lost their hero.”
Celebration turned to crying. But it’s OK now to resume the celebration, of Coach Cat and all those like him.
Follow Joe Rexrode on Twitter @joerexrode.
MOST POPULAR STORIES
Comcast sues Metro over Google Fiber-backed pole ordinance
WWE in negotiations to buy insolvent TNA wrestling, according to Billy Corgan lawsuit
One man killed in shooting near Midtown
Nashville mother struggles to breathe after transgender child’s murder
What 2 million traffic stops show about race and policing in Nashville
