Fucillo huge

The magic of Parents Weekend simply boils down to the emotional moment of seeing one's family, taking a day to share with relatives and merging the oft−contrasting worlds of home and college. No matter the volume of probing questions or parental advice, the experience is undeniably special. Only a few hours out of the entire year are specifically allocated to family time on the Hill. After that, students are free to retreat back into the Tufts bubble, assured that, for a few more weeks, they can again be independent. For Tony and Anthony Fucillo, father and son respectively, this ephemeral moment occurs every day, when the two converge on the football team's practice field, ready for another few hours together between the lines, just like the good old days. After all, while familial ties surpass all else, the Fucillos bleed football. On this day, like the others preceding it, they're all business on the gridiron. Back in 2006, the elder Fucillo retired after a decorated 35−year coaching career at Winthrop (Mass.) High School, one that was perfectly capped off by leading the Vikings to a Super Bowl Championship and an undefeated season. Following three seasons of traversing the country to watch his sons play, coach Fucillo jumped at the opportunity to return to the sidelines one last time to see senior tri−captain Anthony off in his final collegiate campaign and become Tufts' receivers coach. "It was a series of events that, if you looked back on it, there's no way that could happen," senior linebacker Matt Murray, who played under coach Fucillo for three years and alongside Anthony for one year at Winthrop, said. "It's unbelievable because they have such a special relationship, and a huge part of that is built around football. They're a huge football family, and everyone at Tufts and Winthrop knows that. It's the perfect ending to the football career for Anthony." In order to do so, though, he had to sacrifice seeing his son, James, play in his junior year at Catholic University, trading in pennants for clipboards and hours in the stands for hours in the film room. "It was a hard decision because he retired from coaching football to watch his sons play college football, and if he coached here, he wouldn't be able to see his other son play," Carolyn Fucillo, Anthony's mother and Tony's husband, said. "But James insisted that he take this job and be with Anthony for his senior year. I can't tell you how much it means to see them reunited again after all those years in high school and youth football." Before grasping the player−coach relationship shared by Anthony and Tony, it's important to understand the unbreakable

Father−son bond born out of the suburbs of Eastern Massachusetts. Long before Anthony even picked up a football — or was born, for that matter — coach Fucillo was building a legacy as one of the best coaches in the state. As a second−grader, Anthony became the water boy for Winthrop, working his way up to ball boy, statistician and, eventually, starting quarterback. "My father introduced me to the game as a kid, and I fell in love with it," Anthony said. "As a kid, it's something I always dreamed of, of playing for Winthrop High and playing for my father. And I think all of those dreams came true." Coach Fucillo, who finished his career with the Vikings with a 126−88−1 overall record, fondly recalls coming home from Winthrop late on Friday nights, weary after finishing preparations for Saturday's contest. There on the table would be a play, usually pass−oriented, drawn by Anthony, intended to help his father add yet another tweak to the Vikings' run−heavy playbook. "It's been wonderful that he's coached him for so many years, but yet they don't really bring it home," Carolyn said. "It is all football all the time, but they don't bring things home that happened during the day at the college or high school level. They just bond together as father and son watching and talking about football." The memories continued throughout Anthony's tenure at Winthrop, where in 2004 he helped lead the Vikings to a 9−2 record his senior year, setting the stage for the team's Northeastern Conference title in 2005 and its undefeated season in 2006. Anthony remembers the hot summer days when the 50−something father willingly stood on the receiving end of passes from the 18−year−old son with a bullet arm. "In the summer, it was just me and him," Anthony said with a smile. "He would put on his receiver's gloves and he would go out there with me, and when I was 18 years old I probably had the strongest arm at the time, and he's 50−something and still catching my passes." In Winthrop, a small town of just under 20,000 on the North Shore, the Fucillos have quickly become a household name. In addition to James, Anthony and Tony, Jenny Fucillo is a freshman on the Bates track and field team. In Anthony's senior year, five of the nine starters on the Vikings' baseball team were from within the family. "The whole family has just a huge presence in the town," Murray said. "Coach Fucillo wasn't just the football teacher or the gym teacher; he had a relationship with everyone. Everyone called him coach and he'd walk down the halls fist−pounding his students and players."

Stories frequently surface of football nepotism — of the coach vicariously living through his offspring's success and simultaneously being accused of favoring blood over talent. No such problem exists in Medford, however. Not only is Anthony one of the unquestioned leaders of the Jumbos, both on and off Zimman Field, but finding the perfect balance between football and family has become second nature to the Fucillos. After all, standardization organically occurs when a given act is practiced year after year. "It's easy because it's normalized," coach Fucillo said. "It's been that way since his freshman year in high school. I think that the father−son−coach thing can be difficult where you have a son who's competing with somebody else. And people will say, ‘No wonder he's playing, because his father's the coach.' I haven't really had that situation." That's not to say, however, that the shared emotions aren't heightened when family is thrown into the mix. Coaches ordinarily experience the same joys and pains as their players. An innate spiritual connection, one solely possible in the parent−child realm, only enhances such feelings. "The greatest piece will be being able to share his senior year in a very different capacity than just parent−fan, to be able to really go through his ups and his downs," coach Fucillo said. "It hurts a little bit more, and I'm sure it does for him, but the highs are a little bit higher, too." Anthony has thrived this season under Tufts' revamped offense, which has become a pass−first system built around a no−huddle, spread attack. He currently holds the program's single−game records for yards, attempts and completions, gaudy statistics which can be partially attributed to the stellar receiving corps his father leads. Four wideouts are currently averaging at least 48 yards per game and all four have double−digit receptions. Perhaps more importantly, coach Fucillo has brought the motivational skills developed at Winthrop to Medford. For instance, each receiver is given a piece of a detachable chain to keep throughout the week and then all the pieces are forged together on Saturday, a symbolic uniting of the group. "I laugh sometimes because you get the same quips and lines he had in high school," Anthony said. "But he always had sayings in high school that motivated us, and I think he's brought that here." As Anthony plays his final games in a Jumbos uniform, he excitedly looks to the future when he can follow in his father's footsteps and don a headset himself. When Anthony suffered a season−ending ankle injury in 2009, he honed his coaching skills. This time, upon graduation, he hopes to make a career out of it, just like his dad. "People laugh because