Winthrop’s Driscoll was a profile in courage

Sometimes, life takes center stage and places football on the back burner.That happened over the weekend, when Winthrop coach Sean Driscoll’s father died during the Vikings’ game with Saugus.It had been a tough week for Driscoll. He had two overwhelming obligations. The first was to his family, which was operating on shifts to care for his ailing father. And the second was to his team, or ? as he put it ? “my other family.”This is the trouble with life. It gets in the way. It takes everything you do and renders it insignificant and irrelevant with one little turn or twist.Perhaps John Lennon said it best: “Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans.”When tragedies such as death come, they don’t wait around for the right time ? because there is no right time. They invade our domains, cancel our vacations, and even interfere with our football games.But life also goes on. The world turns, even when you wish it would just stop for a few days and let you catch up and sort it all out.Driscoll coached Saturday’s game knowing that his father was going to die. He’d hoped that he could return to the hospital after the game and to be with his father one last time, but death had other plans. When he got back to Winthrop, his wife told him that John “Jack” Driscoll was already gone.Having gone through this just recently, I know how Sean Driscoll feels. But that’s only half the story.Here’s the other half of the story. Saturday, after Saugus defeated Winthrop, 14-7, Driscoll could barely speak. Already hurting, he hurt worse for his kids. He felt he’d let them down. Maybe, he felt, in retrospect, he would have been better off delegating some more of the load on his assistants. But he’s been a head coach for all of six games, and to have all this thrown at him too? That’s what happens when the world turns. It stops and waits for no one.He didn’t let those kids down. No, sir. Instead, he showed that stand-up people, when the road gets tough, stand up! That’s one heck of a lesson in courage.But Driscoll didn’t want to use any of this as an excuse. As hurt as he was, and as emotional as he was, he didn’t want his father’s death to detract from a great Saugus victory. He waited until I turned my little digital tape recorder off, and spoke from the heart about what he’d endured last week.But, he said, none of that diminished what Saugus had accomplished by winning its first game over Winthrop in almost a decade. He asked me, “please, don’t put any of this in the paper.”So I didn’t. After all, at this level of sports reporting, it’s entirely permissible to keep private matters private.But Driscoll also knew that he’d been so emotional Saturday that he’d given me absolutely nothing to work with. So he called the office Sunday night and provided us with a couple of quotes we could use in the game story.He didn’t have to do this. But that fact that he did ? and under these circumstances ? says a lot about the man. And all of it is exemplary.It’s possible that the stress Driscoll felt last week might have affected his team’s preparation, but if it did ? all that proves is that life is a much stronger force than anything we might use to fight it. Sometimes, it’s just too invasive.In the big picture, being upset by Saugus is not what these kids will remember 10 years from now. Perhaps they’ll remember that their coach looked upon them all as his family ? and perhaps they’ll also recall how, when he really needed his family, they were there for him.I’m betting this experience will make these boys stronger, and even more united, and that Swampscott had better watch out Friday night. Winning one for coach and his dad might be on the minds of the Vikings.uNext Friday should be a doubleheader for the ages. It starts at 3:45 when Tech entertains Greater Lawrence. If the Tigers get past 2-4 Greater Lowell Saturday, and if the Reggies aren’t totally stunned by winless Mystic Valley, this will be a battle of unbeatens.Immediately following, w