LEGACY ARCHIVES
The following excerpt is a tribute written about Coach Lione by a sportswriter whose life was touched by his life.
Lione's legacy still makes presence felt
Reprinted with permission from The Connecticut Post, July 31, 2002
Stamford -The victories never much mattered to Mickey Lione. Even as the wins piled up by the hundreds, year after year, sport after sport, they were simply numbers. And, in the big picture, numbers never mean anything. What did mean something were the kids who got those numbers.
Were they good kids? Did they stay on the straight and narrow? Did they understand things such as honesty and integrity and learning more from a loss than a win? If they did, then Lione had done his job.
For 29 years, Lione did his job, molding kids into champions, on and off the field. He coached baseball and ice hockey at Trinity Catholic, chalking up an incredible 731 victories. Six times his teams won state titles. He also was an assistant football coach at Catholic (and later at New Canaan High School) and tacked on three more state championships.
But talk to his friends and those accomplishments didn't amount to a hill of beans. What his players did was a whole lot more important.
Kids. They were Mickey Lione's life. And, because of that, Mets manager Bobby Valentine decided a couple of years ago not to let that commitment fade away. On Monday at the Country Club of Darien, Valentine hosted his second annual Bobby V's Summer Classic for the benefit of the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund for Youth Excellence.
This year the fund will grant six $5,000 scholarships to six students in the Stamford-area that best meet the qualities that Lione embodied during his many years either behind the bench or in the dugout. And, as the Summer Classic grows, Valentine hopes that the fund will expand and grow with it.
"We're many scholarships into it now, and we're looking to expand the (number of) scholarships and expand into the areas that Mickey coached against, in Fairfield County, and the idea is going to be having the scholarships go to the 10th graders who walk the walk and talk the talk," Valentine said. "And, as they go through their high school years and if they continue to display the things that Mickey stood for…make good decisions, be the right person, then they'll get that scholarship when they graduate."
Lione was so much more than a coach. He was a mentor. A friend. He didn't just teach kids finer points of sports, he taught them the finer points of life. It was those battles that he wanted to prepare his kids for. And he used sports to get his message across.
"The reason he was able to motivate people was that he lived what he taught. If you wanted to understand what he stood for, just watch how he lived his live. That really, is the essence of it," said Mickey's cousin, Jerry Lione. "He taught life on the field so you could go live life off the field. Winning a state championship wasn't about winning a state championship. It was about what you learned in the process. As much as Mickey loved to win, he understood that you really do learn as much from losing as you do from winning."
"Mickey was so special because he took the man and put it into the coach," said long-time NBA referee Bennett Salvatore, who grew up in Stamford playing and coaching with Lione. "The first thing that comes to mind is his honesty. With Mickey, you always knew where you stood. It wasn't all flowers, especially if he thought you had the potential to be good. He felt that the worst crime in the world was to waste potential. He was my best friend. He was a wonderful, lovable family guy. He never had a wife and kids of his own, but he had hundreds of kids that he considered to be his own."
Lione was just 59 when he died three years ago. Valentine can still remember the days when Mickey was slipping slowly away, and how he would come to Shea and sit in his office for hours, picking Valentine's brain about baseball. Even then, Lione was looking for an edge.
"He was dedicated to the kids of the community, to the kids he was coaching," Valentine said. "He was always committed to excellence. He was loving. He knew that the more love you give, the more love you get. This whole thing is to not only to perpetuate his name but all the wonderful things he stood for."
Honesty. Integrity. Those were the things that Mickey Lione stood for.
"We just got to know each other at a pretty young age, and I just fell in love with him because of the way he approached not only life, but the game," Salvatore said. "He was one of the most honest people I've ever known and he brought that honesty into the game. There were never any excuses with Mickey. He was there to make you a better ballplayer."
And, a better person.
Sports columnist Chris Elsberry can be reached at 330-6210 or via e-mail at celsberry@ctpost.com
