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October 20, 2008

DeVito to receive Wellington Mara award

By Bob Greeney
Staff Writer, The Advocate

STAMFORD - It is perfectly fitting for several reasons that Billy DeVito is this year's recipient of the Wellington Mara Youth Coaching Award given out by the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund.

It is appropriate, first and foremost, because it is deserved.

DeVito began coaching 20 years ago in the National-Lione Little League, and he has given so many hours to so many youngsters since then.

The Lione Foundation will donate $2,500 to the National-Lione Little League on behalf of DeVito.

"It makes me feel good," DeVito said. "Sometimes (the coaching) gets tedious and it can be a drag. To get recognized for this means somebody is out there saying you're doing a good job. I was having a bad day when I heard about. When I heard about it I said: ‘OK, somebody does recognize this.' It was nice. It gets you through the day and it makes you feel good.

"It's great for our league," DeVito added. "The league is in good shape. I would like to do something special for the kids instead of just throwing it in the fund. Down the road we can figure that out."

The connection with the award being named in honor of the late Wellington Mara, the former owner of the New York Giants, is coincidental because it was 52 years ago when Mara made one of his best trades ever, obtaining Andy Robustelli from the Los Angeles Rams.

Robustelli is "Uncle Bud" to DeVito and his siblings. DeVito's deceased mother, Edith, was Robustelli's younger sister.

Mara's grandchildren, Ryan and Rory Durkin, played in the National-Lione Little League. Their mother, Sheila Mara, was a huge help to DeVito as the league president for several years.

Yet another appropriate coincidence is that DeVito played for teams coached by Lione, who happened to initiate DeVito into coaching.

Sheila Mara will be on hand with Tom Chiappetta, the executive director of Mickey Lione Jr. Fund, to present the check to DeVito Tuesday night.

"Any time we have these types of awards, and it's kind of the same with scholarship winners, there's no loser, but you have to pick a winner out of the outstanding candidates," Chiappetta said. "They all give an incredible amount of time to the youth organizations and the kids in town. Billy has established himself for more than a decade in terms of helping revive the National-Lione Little League. Billy is there at the forefront with his ability, in general, to handle all the responsibilities a coach needs to.

"And he comes from good stock," Chiappetta added. "He was a very successful athlete in town. All those things make him a successful role model for the kids. And you add to it that he coached under Mickey. He was under Mickey's tutelage. When you combine those things, Billy is just a very, very excellent candidate for this award."

DeVito was one of the best players for the Stamford Catholic High School football and baseball teams in the mid-1970s, with Lione his coach in baseball, and he also helped lead Stamford to the Senior Babe Ruth World Series in 1976.

Lione had the knack for being a very successful coach in any sport.

Many associate Lione with his successes as a head coach at Stamford/Trinity Catholic in baseball and football.

But Lione was also successful as an assistant football coach and as a CYO basketball coach.

"My first remembrance of Mickey was when I was in the third grade," DeVito recalled. "I used to go with my brother A.J. to the Sacred Heart (C.Y.O. basketball) practices and Mickey used to let me play defense. Then I remember going to ask if I can help him coach. He said: ‘Sure, I can't pay you but you can come help me coach the defensive backs.' And he took me under his wing. When he coached me as a player it was one way. And when he coached with me as a coach it was a different kind of role. It was nice. The fear of him was kind of gone."

Lione was among many strong mentors DeVito had, in addition to his brothers, his cousins and other coaches, such as Trinity Catholic's former head football coach, Rich Albonizio, who DeVito succeeded when Albonizio took over at Greenwich.
But the biggest influence on DeVito was the foundation established by his parents, Edith and Tony, who have passed away but still have their legacy of being positive role models in the community being carried on by their children.

Edith and Tony DeVito never missed any of their children's or grandchildren's games.
The Trinity Catholic football contests in the late-1990s were extra special because they got to watch their son send plays in to their grandson, star quarterback Brien Magee.
"For me, it was always special to look up and see them during the national anthem," DeVito recalled. "That was kind of my moment with them. To see them standing there was nice."

- Staff Writer Bob Greeney can be reached at bob.greeney@scni.com or at 964-2275.
©2008 Southern Conn. Newspapers, Inc.

March 24, 2008

Lione Foundation gives Rioux Scholarship a big boost

By Tom Renner
Staff Writer, The Advocate

Mickey Lione and Allyson Rioux were two pillars of the Stamford sports community who lived by the same basic ideals.

Now, they will be linked with their charitable organizations as well.

The Mickey Lione Foundation is providing $5,000 for the annual Allyson Rioux Scholarship, increasing the value of the award by $3,500 and raising its profile within the community.

"I think it's a perfect opportunity for us," said Cheryl Tiscia, Rioux's sister and a representative on the Rioux Memorial Scholarship Committee. "We're extremely excited. They're great people on the Mickey Lione Foundation who believe in the community and try to enhance it. We were absolutely thrilled to be approached to join with them."

Tom Chiappetta, executive director of the Lione Foundation, said his organization has been supportive of the Rioux Scholarship in the past, but wanted to raise its commitment.

"We're looking to help grow the development of the scholarship," Chiappetta said. "Some of the financial support we can add, but taking the first step to $5,000 was real important. We had been supporting them on a certain level, but it was time to raise that. We're looking to expand it in the years ahead."

The Lione Foundation, which is named after the former ice hockey and baseball coach at Trinity Catholic High School, supports a number of charitable causes throughout Stamford.

The Rioux Scholarship is named after the former Westhill High athlete who died in 1989 at the age of 27 of a brain tumor. She earned All-State honors in basketball, field hockey and softball, and became a second team All-American softball selection at the University of Massachusetts. The Rioux Award was started in 1989.

"The last three years the Mickey Lione Foundation has made a donation to our scholarship, and within the last year we talked about how we could expand it," Tiscia said. "We wanted to see how we could look to award possibly more girls.

That meshed perfectly with the Lione Foundation, which recognized the significance of the Rioux Award.

"We want to help, under the right circumstances for them," Chiappetta said. "Anything we can do for Allyson's name, we'll do. We all know female sports are exploding. It's something of a new phenomenon. When the Mickey Lione Foundation was put together, we evaluated what we need to do help the girls in town."

"Joining forces with the Allyson Rioux scholarship is a natural next step for the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund," said Bobby Valentine, a member of the Mickey Lione Fund board of directors. "Like Mickey's name and legacy, Allyson also needs to be remembered in the same light, particularly to every young girl growing up in Stamford. Providing further financial support to grow the value of the scholarship immediately is just the first step. Committing our resources to the Rioux scholarship will help keep Allyson's spirit alive, and also allow the Lione Fund to dedicate time, money and energy to assist the ever-growing number of female student-athletes in our community."

The partnership is a boost for the Rioux Award, but it's also helps raise awareness of how special Rioux was.

"We're excited about having this opportunity to join a prestigious foundation and to get Allyson's name rejuvenated," Tiscia said. "A lot of girls in Stamford might not know about her. Their mothers might know. I think it's important for past recipients to get involved with the committee to help perpetuate her name."

With the increased value of the award, Tiscia expects more girls will apply for the honor.

"The scholarship is much more significant now," Tiscia said. "For this year, the Mickey Lione Foundation will leave it up to our committee to decide on the winner. I think we'll get a tremendous number of applications."

Jillian Masi of Westhill won last year's award. There were two winners in 2005 (Dina Montefuscoli of Westhill and Melissa Giordano of Stamford) and in 2003 (Justine Kovacs, Stamford and Callie Kovacs, Westhill).

July 19, 2007

Lione's Legacy 3 receive foundation scholarship

By Emery Filmer
Staff Writer, The Advocate

The Mickey Lione Jr. Fund was created seven years ago and part of its mission statement was to award three scholarships for excellence and leadership to male students who embody the attributes of the former Stamford/Trinity Catholic High School coach. It has become an increasingly difficult responsibility as the competition for such recognition continues to grow.

Finding three students in need of scholarship money wasn't going to be too tricky. And finding three males who are good athletes and even better students didn't exactly whittle the field down much in a sports-crazed city that has become more determined to enhance its academic stature. But finding three student athletes who follow the ideals and beliefs of the late, great coach might ease the task some. Or so one would think.

It's a testament to Lione and his memory that there were so many qualified candidates for the Lione Foundation scholarship committee to consider. He left a legacy, no doubt, and the 2007 Mickey Lione Jr. Fund scholarship winners are expected to carry on that tradition. Westhill High School's Henry Graves, Trinity Catholic's Michael Keane Jr., and Michael Tiscia of Stamford High were deemed to best fit the bill this year. Each of the 2007 recipients received scholarships worth $7,500.

"Each year we continue to have a difficult time in selecting one winner at each school from a group of outstanding candidates," Mickey Lione Jr. Fund Executive Director Tom Chiappetta said. "It is gratifying to see there are so many young men in Stamford who are achieving so much in all aspects of their lives. The two Michaels and Henry are ideal additions to the already long list of accomplished Lione Award winners who have created a tradition of excellence in our community."

The three sophomores were chosen because they all displayed a "commitment to personal excellence and leadership." That principal is what the former baseball and hockey coach tried to instill in his players for decades. It's a philosophy the Lione Foundation hopes will continue to linger even with Lione's passing in 1999 at age 59.

There have been 27 boys who have received Lione scholarships - nine each from the three high schools in Stamford - since the foundation was started in 2000. There have now been three classes of scholarship winners that have graduated from college, with Lione Fund scholarship money helping achieve that goal.

The program also funds youth sports such as Babe Ruth baseball, the Stamford Youth Foundation football program, and Stamford Youth Tennis, as well the Wellington Mara Coaching Award and other Youth Excellence awards while also supporting the Allyson Rioux Award.

The Lione Fund scholarships are given at the end of a student's sophomore year to encourage two more years of high standards as they finish high school before entering college. The criteria Lione Fund members use in choosing award winners are excellence and leadership in academics, athletics and community service, the tenants and values Lione stood for.

June 28, 2006

LIONE WINNERS ANNOUNCED
COMMITTEE NAMES THREE SOPHOMORES

By Emery Filmer
Staff Writer, The Advocate

It was perhaps 15 years ago - on the ball field of course - and Mickey Lione was engrossed in a conversation about his second favorite pastime, hockey, when someone asked the legendary baseball/hockey coach if he had ever played hockey in his life.

Lione wasn't taken aback by the question. He had heard it plenty of times before and without hesitation proudly responded with a "No. "And you know what?" he added, "I've never even been on skates." The obvious question soon followed. "So," someone asked, "how can you coach hockey if you've never even been on skates before?" Lione cracked that subtle smile of his and offered an immediate explanation. "A coach is a coach," he said. "If you're a good coach, you can coach any sport . . . as long as you have kids who are willing to learn and who want to get better."

Today, more than seven years after Lione's passing, his legacy lives on. Youngsters who are willing to learn and who want to get better are still benefiting from the ideals put forth by The Mick. The Mickey Lione Jr. Foundation announced it has selected three more student-athletes who had fulfilled the Foundation's criteria of not only athletic and academic achievements, but also the student-athlete's involvement in the community, and the pursuit of personal excellence, both on and off the field, and in and out of the classroom.

The Foundation, including Chairman of the Board Jerry Lione, Mickey's cousin, and Executive Director Tom Chiappetta, completed a lengthy process last week and chose one sophomore student athlete from each of the three high schools in Stamford as the 2006 recipients of the prestigious Mickey Lione Jr. Award for Excellence.

The winners: Brian Freilich of Westhill, Trinity Catholic's Michael Boyton and Billy Jaroszynski of Stamford. "These young men are what Mickey epitomized and all three are outstanding candidates for this award," Chiappetta said. If the student-athletes meet the criteria and standards set over the next two years they will receive the financial part of the scholarship ($7,500) when they graduate Chiappetta said.

The new selections bring to 24 the number of award winners, eight from each school, since the Foundation was formed in 1999. Lione, a lifelong Stamford resident and long time head baseball and hockey coach at Stamford/Trinity Catholic, died in February, 1999 at the age of 59.

Freilich, a straight-A student with a 4.0 Grade Point Average, also owns an impressive record out of the classroom.

As a freshman and sophomore Freilich was on the varsity cross country team in the fall, ran varsity indoor track in the winter and played varsity golf in the spring. He qualified for the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference cross country meet was also a FCIAC qualifier in indoor track each of the last two seasons. Freilich also earned track gold and bronze medals at the 2005 Maccubi Games.

On the golf team Freilich has been a two-year starter with a best score of a 37 (nine holes). "I enjoy all three sports but cross country may be the one I enjoy the most because I like the outdoors and the longer races," Freilich said. Freilich, like the other winners, was only 9 when Lione died, but he is well aware of the coach's legacy and what the award stands for. "I was pleased at first upon hearing I had won the award, and then very honored," Freilich said. "I've heard about all Mickey Lione has done for the community and his reputation as a coach and as a person." Besides playing three sports and being in the 99th and 98th percentile in reading and match in PSAT testing, Freilich found time for community involvement.

He has been heavily involved in J-Serve, a Stamford Jewish Community Center community service project throughout Fairfield County. He has spent the last few Christmas Eves working for the Temple Beth El program Beth El Cares serving dinner at a homeless shelter. Freilich has also been a frequent volunteer at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center and has worked as a page at the Ferguson Library Harry Bennett Branch. Needless to say, Freilich spends most of his time following the Lione credo. "I always try to improve, not only in athletics and academics but in any other aspect of life," Freilich said. "The key is you have to stay focused and work hard."

As a Trinity Catholic student, Boyton probably knows a little more about the man the award is named after than his fellow honorees. Lione coached at the school for more than 30 years before his death in 1999."It's an honor to be chosen for such a prestigious award because Mickey was such a great man," Boyton said. "I have heard he was a great person who demanded the most from his players."

Boyton likely would have been a Lione favorite. Besides being a National Honor Society nominee and earning high honors throughout his freshman and sophomore years at Trinity with a 3.7 GPA, Boyton has tried to establish himself as a baseball and basketball player at a school rich in tradition in both.

"At a school such as Trinity (three state basketball championships this decade), I probably have a better chance in baseball," said Boyton who was a member of the Stamford Babe Ruth 14-year-old all-star team that reached the World Series last summer. "I just hustle and play as hard as I could." Boyton was on the freshman baseball team and the junior varsity squad last season. He can pitch, play the outfield and the infield, but sees himself mostly as a middle infielder.

Boyton played freshman basketball and JV ball last season. He is a three-time Hot Shoot Shooting Contest state champion and was the Knights of Columbus Free Throw Shooting state champion in 2004.

Boyton's resume also includes countless hours of extracurricular and community activities. He has been a coach in the Stamford Youth Basketball and Young Timers basketball programs, a Little League umpire and a St. Cecilia's summer camp assistant. In addition, Boyton has been a research volunteer at the Stamford Historical Society for the last two years. Boyton figures to spend the next several years of his life the same way he has spent these last few: concentrating on school work, sports and working in his community. "I want to be well-rounded, I know that's something the (Lione Foundation) committee was looking for," Boyton said. "I like writing so maybe I'll major in English in college and I definitely want to play sports, so I'll probably go to a small school. I just have to work hard, play hard and hope for the best."

Jaroszynski is as well-rounded as the other award winners, but he admits his interest in one area is strongest. "Golf is by far my favorite," Jaroszynski said. "I've been playing it since I was 6 years old." Jarozynski, who also plays basketball and runs cross country, made the varsity golf team at SHS as a freshman and has put together two terrific seasons with the Black Knights. His best nine-hole round was a 37 and his best score for 18 holes was a 72.

Jaroszynski participated in the Metropolitan Junior Golf tournaments the last two summers and placed third in one event last summer. He will be playing again this summer. "I think I can go far in golf," Jaroszynski said. "I play almost every day in the summer. It's such a challenging sport. It takes a lot of patience ... especially on a bad day."

Jaroszynski ran varsity cross country for two years and freshman basketball in 2004-05. This past season he was on the SHS JV team and also saw time with the varsity. "I run cross country just to get in shape for basketball, and I play basketball just for fun because I'm not an all-star or anything," he said. "Golf is my sport."

In addition Jaroszynski was involved in the Debate Club in school as well as several community activities. He has helped young children as a volunteer for Building with Books and has also helped out with Meals on Wheels. Jaroszynski has spent time at soup kitchens and hospitals and was involved in a project that helped clean up garbage in Riverside Park in New York. "It feels good inside to see others benefit from our help," Jaroszynski said. "Someone's got to do it." Such a mentality would make the man whose name Jaroszynski's award is named after quite proud. "Mickey dedicated his life to kids as a coach," Jaroszynski said. "He gave all his time to them. He cared more about kids than himself."

*2006 Southern CT Newspapers, Inc.

January 12, 2006

By George Albano
New Canaan Advertiser

While the name Mickey Lione Jr. is synonymous with the city of Stamford, the town of New Canaan also reserved a special place in his heart. Lione, who passed away in 1999, coached at New Canaan High School in the early to mid ’90s, and still has family and a number of friends and fans in town. Which is why New Canaan will no doubt be well-represented when the fourth annual Bobby Valentine Celebrity Wine & Food Experience takes place at 7 p.m., Saturday, January 14 at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich.

“It’s become one of the biggest and most successful charity events in the area,” Tom Chiappetta, executive director of the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund, said. “It’s all top shelf. All the top restaurants and wineries participate.” Including the Bonne Nuit Restaurant of New Canaan. “We’ve been very fortunate that we’re very well-supported and have been able to raise money,” Chiappetta added.

In fact, the annual fundraiser, which attracts a number of sports and entertainment celebrities, has made it possible for the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund to award 21 scholarships to date, one per year to each of the three Stamford high schools. It was in Stamford where Lione, a lifelong resident for 59 years, made his mark in sports. A graduate of Stamford High School, where he played baseball and football, Lione played on three world championship teams, one in Little League in 1951 and two in Babe Ruth in 1953 and ’54. But it would be in coaching where he would make his biggest impact. During a 37-year coaching career — mostly as a head coach at Stamford Catholic, then Trinity Catholic — Lione won 731 games in baseball and hockey and led the Crusaders to six state championships.

A two-time Connecticut Coach of the Year, Lione won three more state titles as an assistant coach in football, including one with the 1993 New Canaan High School state champs.
“When he coached football at New Canaan, the kids there loved him,” said Jerry Lione, Mickey’s cousin who’s lived in New Canaan with his family for the past 22 years. “That was true everywhere he went. He just had the ability to connect with people. It just so happened most of his coaching took place within the borders of Stamford, but any town that got him as a coach was happy.” One of those people Lione “connected” with was Bo Hickey, the Rams’ head hockey coach and assistant football coach who was a childhood friend. “His house was just a few blocks from my house,” said Hickey, who was also born and raised in Stamford. “Mickey was a about six years older than me, but we knew each other through athletics, playing sandlot games and pickup games.

“We go back to the mid-50s, but it was around the mid-60s that became pretty tight. Then when we started coaching together at New Canaan High School, we would be out on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons scouting games. I also helped him coach baseball and before I became hockey coach at New Canaan I scouted for him at Stamford Catholic. Then we became rivals, but friendly rivals.” Hockey fans in New Canaan still talk about the 1998 state championship game when Lione and Trinity Catholic, which had lost to NCHS three previous times that season, upset Hickey and the Rams for the Division I crown. But more than all the victories and championships Lione won, his coaching career was about the thousands of young lives he touched. And not just in Stamford.

“I remember when Mickey was up at the hospital shortly before he died, an opposing hockey player came to see him,” Jerry Lione said. “His father told us his son just loved Mickey. He had that kind of effect on people.  “We were about five years apart growing up,” Lione added. “We grew up on the same street and he was a kid I looked up to. He was my hero, you can say.” “I played all-stars for him one year in Stamford and years later played against him in the Stamford softball league,” Chiappetta said. “We got to be good friends.”

You can also count Bobby Valentine himself among those who became good friends with Mickey Lione. “Bobby never played for him, but he played in a baseball league named after Mickey’s dad,” Jerry Lione said, referring to the Mickey Lione Little League. “But Bobby developed a friendship with Mickey over time and in the end they were the closest of associates.” Which is how the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund was started. “I recall standing around after Mickey’s funeral with a few people and Bobby Valentine said right there this man will not be forgotten,” Jerry Lione said. “He did not use the word ‘should.’ He said he will not be forgotten.” And he hasn’t. The scholarships the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund awards went up from $5,000 per recipient to $7,500 this past spring. In addition, the Lione Fund donates money to Babe Ruth Baseball in Stamford, where Mickey played and coached; to the Pop Warner Football program in Stamford, where the middle school division is named after Lione; to the Allyson Rioux Scholarship Fund, which recognizes the top scholar-athlete in Stamford each year; and is also involved with the Junior Tennis Program in Stamford.

“One of our past scholarship winners, he and his sister started that, so we support it,” Chiappetta said. “The Mickey Lione Jr. Fund is in two parts: one is what we call the youth excellence scholarships, and the other is participation of grants to help kids participate in sports who may otherwise would not have.” With Mickey Lione, that seems only appropriate.
“Mickey’s coaching was always about the kids,” Hickey said. “This event is a great time and it’s well-deserved and it raises money for kids, and Mickey was for kids.”
“It’s a big success because of all the work the board members put in,” Jerry Lione, who serves as chairman of the foundation, said. “And all the board members are friends and family, and people Mickey coached who later became friends of his. He just had a way of working with people and developing that kind of relationship.”

Lione’s Legacy Held Dear in New Canaan

By Mark Dwyer
New Canaan News Review
mdwyer@bcnnew.com

What is a “Mickey moment?”
Those connected to the high school sports scene in the Stamford area have undoubtedly had more than a few. Mickey Lione Jr. lived and breathed coaching, but he did not restrict his services to the playing field. For those that have coached or played for New Canaan High School, all can attest to memories of several encounters with Lione before he died in 1999. While his legacy’s epicenter lies in Stamford, his memory and impact are deeply embedded in New Canaan.

Lione coached for 37 years in Stamford, most notably as a hockey and baseball coach at Trinity Catholic High School (Stamford Catholic prior to 1991). He also coached two Senior Babe Ruth World Championship teams (1968 and 1971) and won six state titles in his career while compiling a 731-413 record. Lione also served on New Canaan’s football coaching staff in the 1980s and ’90s and taught at Saxe Middle School.

This Saturday, Lione will be remembered once again at the 4th Annual Bobby Valentine Celebrity Wine & Food Experience at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Greenwich. The event benefits the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund and features the participation of top restaurants and wineries.

Rich Bulan, now the head coach of the New Canaan girls’ hockey team, remembers Lione all too well. He had a cousin who played on the 1951 Little League World Championship team with Lione. Before he arrived in New Canaan, Bulan was a member of the Westhill boys’ hockey program from 1983 through 2001 and often looked across the ice at Lione but never defeated him in 11 years as a head coach.

Lione knew Bulan did painting on the side and asked him to lend his services to a house he was touching up. As Bulan finished up and the two rested on the back deck overlooking a pond, Lione turned to him and uttered words that he would never forget.

“He said, ‘You’re doing it right. Don’t ever change your approach.’” Bulan said.
Bulan thought at first he was talking about the paint job, so he modestly thanked him. But it wasn’t the paint.

Maybe he was alluding to his coaching progress at Westhill. It wasn’t that either.
Lione referred to Bulan’s ability to successfully balance the responsibilities of being a father and a family man with his coaching. Bulan, in fact, left the New Canaan head coaching post last year to coach at Masuk High School, where his children would soon be coming up through ranks. That, Bulan said, is what mattered most to Lione.

“I said, ‘Jeez, here’s another Mickey moment I’m not going to forget.’ You talk to somebody like that who’s such an icon and it means a lot,” he said.

Lione died in 1999 at the age of 59. Doctors later diagnosed that it was a rare cancer-related illness that affected his blood vessels that caused his death.

Perhaps Lione’s biggest comrade in New Canaan was current hockey and assistant football coach Bo Hickey. Hickey had the pleasure of coaching with Lione during the football season and against him during hockey season. Hickey was a pallbearer at Lione’s funeral.
The two had mutual respect, and their respective teams knew each other well. The Crusaders and Rams often would share ice time in the preseason and scrimmage each other. All the players would see Lione at fall- or summer-league games. Hickey grew up only a few blocks from Lione in the 1950s and saw his innate coaching ability coaching against him while at Staples High School in the 1970s. He came to New Canaan in 1981 and Lione later joined him as the defensive backs coach. His skill on the sideline was something at which to marvel, Hickey said.

“Mickey wasn’t really an X-and-O guy,” he said. “Mickey gets you to play. Mickey had a feel of games, be it baseball or football or hockey, of when things should be done or when they shouldn’t be done. Those are things you can’t learn.

“You and I could take piano lessons for 30 years and we might be able to play a couple songs, but a person who is a musician can play music. In coaching, (for) the real good coaches, it’s not an acquired skill. It’s a gift. He’s one of the few that had the gift to coach.”
Lione’s last game as a coach could not have played out any better. Trinity Catholic and New Canaan met in the 1998 boys’ hockey Division I state championship at the New Haven Coliseum with the Crusaders as the definitive underdog. The Rams had crushed Trinity in three previous games, including a 9-1 drubbing in the FCIAC tournament two weeks earlier. The Rams won those three games by a combined score of 17-1.

Mickey’s cousin, Jerry Lione, grew up on the same street as him in Stamford. Jerry Lione, who has resided in New Canaan for 20 years, attended the game with the Tomaselli family, long-time hockey advocates in town, and visited Trinity’s locker room before the game. There, Lione wrote down the results of the past three games.

“He took out an eraser and ran a line through that,” Jerry Lione said. “I believe his quote was something like, ‘That’s history. You guys know how to play.’”
That night – March 14, 1998 – Trinity defeated the Rams, 3-1, for the state title in what would be his 731st and final win as a head coach.

“The way it broke, if I had to lose, that’s the guy I would lose to,” Hickey said.
Jerry Lione serves as chairman for the Mickey Lione Jr. Fund, which was established in 2000. He recalls the words of former Major League Baseball manager Bobby Valentine, a longtime friend of Lione’s, while at Mickey’s wake. Valentine is the manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines, the 2005 Japan Series champions.

“I remember Bobby saying ‘We will do something. This man will not be forgotten,’” Lione said. “Out of that sense of urgency to do something, I think we all took it on as a mission.”
Valentine, however, was quick to realize that the Lione lineage had run out.

“When we were together at his funeral, we realized collectively that Mickey had no sons and he had no brothers, so this essentially was the end of a wonderful family line of sports coaching and mentoring in our community,” said Valentine, who played Little League on a field named after Mickey’s father. “Jerry Lione carried the name as a cousin and has been the man behind the scenes to not only carry the name and the tradition of the Lione family, but has watched the books and given the direction that the foundation needs from a very educated perspective.”
The foundation has grown throughout its five years, increasing its scholarship amount from $5,000 to $7,500 this year. It has given 24 scholarships to high school students since its inception. Lione, who is retired from the construction and residential real estate business, and Valentine said that the scholarships are given to sophomores with the idea that the student will earn the reward after spending three more years in Stamford. The winners would receive the money after demonstrating a keen ability to give back to the community for which Lione held such an affinity.

“He came from a community and a family that understood the values of life,” Valentine said. “He understood the difference between right and wrong and he not only expected that, he demanded that from his players.”

“I think the bottom line is, if you develop a young person wonderfully but you don’t give them a sense of community, the need to share your skills with others, then you’ve kind of failed,” Lione said. “Giving back is a big part of what we’re about.”

Hickey said that when he sees former players come back to visit, they still talk about the days of playing for or against coach Lione. Jerry Lione remembered when the father and son of a former Ram hockey player visited Mickey in the hospital after he grew ill in the spring of 1998.
“The father’s quote to me when we were reminiscing a bit, was ‘Johnny didn’t like Mickey. He loved Mickey,’” Lione said. “That’s quite a statement to make about an opposing coach. That’s really the impact he had on lots of kids.”

Jay Egan, also a Stamford native, coached football with Lione before he became New Canaan’s athletic director in 2004. Some of his high school friends played on Lione’s successful Babe Ruth teams.

“Football here – the people that he coached really revered him. They played with a lot of confidence and pride with the association they had with them,” Egan said. “He commanded respect by respecting people. That’s kind of the way he operated.”

Lione also remembered another anecdote of a former football player. The defensive back, who was by no means a small guy, recalled a day in practice with Mickey.

“He said, ‘Boy, coach Lione is strong. I was standing there talking and not paying attention and I felt this hand on my pads. I think he lifted me off the ground!’ He said, ‘He sure got my attention.’”

Mickey, who Valentine said could talk your ear off for 12 hours at time, seemed to get everybody’s attention. Seven years after his death, his legacy remains richer than ever.

Media Relations

If you want to obtain information for articles or television/radio programming contact:

Jerry Lione
Mickey Lione, Jr. Fund
P.O. Box 17053
Stamford, CT 06907
Phone: 203 966-2973
Fax: 203 966-2973

media@mickeylionefund.org

Press packets are available. Permission must be secured for all photograph and video use.

 

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