Swampscott High Class of ’95 members cooking up success

Look on ESPN this time of the year, and keep watching into April, and you’re bound to see Todd McShay dispensing his vast array of knowledge about how today’s crop of college football players project as draft choices.Go out to eat at the Blue Ox in Lynn, and you’ll see Matt O’Neill – perhaps. He runs the place.You may have heard of Dave Portnoy, or, as he is also known, “El Presidente.” Portnoy is the editor of “Barstool Sports,” and he caught all kinds of flack last August for comments he made about a picture of Tom Brady’s baby son.Perhaps you’ve read some of Brendan Nolan’s pieces on ESPN regarding high school athletes, and maybe, some day, you’ll visit the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which is a client of Todd Kline’s company, AEG Entertainment.And you may have read elsewhere here that Peter Woodfork has absorbed some of the responsibilities that Joe Torre left behind Wednesday when he stepped down as executive vice president of Major League Baseball.There seem to be a lot of movers and shakers in that crowd, and they all have one thing in common. All of them graduated from Swampscott High School in 1995, they all played sports for either Frank DeFelice or Bill Bush (in some cases both), and they’ve remained close friends over the years.”We had a group of guys,” says O’Neill, “where we all ended up doing what we really wanted to do. We might not have known it back (when we were in high school). I didn’t know I wanted to be a chef back then. But as I got older, and in college, I used to do a lot of cooking.”I had the pleasure of growing up and playing sports with these guys,” said O’Neill, who was the captain of the 1994 football team that went 9-1 and lost a crucial late-season game to Salem that kept the Big Blue out of the Super Bowl.”We lost, 16-8,” jokes O’Neill, “Not that it haunts me much. I can tell you every play from that game.”O’Neill was a linebacker on that team, with McShay calling signals and Nolan a wide receiver. Also part of that group was Traeger DiPietro, a catcher on the baseball team, who has become a successful artist and lives in Martha’s Vineyard.”He’s done all the artwork at the Blue Ox,” says O’Neill. “He’s an incredible painter.”We’ve all stayed close ? every single one of us, over the years.”O’Neill says the group bonded when they were kids, in Little League.”We all had very competitive spirits,” O’Neill said, “and we hung around at each other’s houses, playing Nintendo. We were on good teams, and we were fortunate enough to go to the playoffs and have experiences that kids our age don’t always have. The opportunities don’t always present themselves. We became the best of friends, and we’ve been lucky enough to stay friends.”What I think is magical about the whole group is that people are doing what they want to do,” O’Neill said. “Portnoy. He’s one of a kind. He was talking about ‘Barstool Sports’ when he was in college. If you see him, he always has a laptop, because he’s always blogging.”And he’s changed the landscape of what you can and cannot write about. Whether you agree or not with him ? to each his own. I admire his work ethic, and he’s done it all himself.”If you do what you’re passionate about doing, and what you love, and have the work ethic and resources, you’re going to do it well,” O’Neill said.Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].