Friends, former players honor St. John’s Prep’s O’Leary

PEABODY – Four years ago, on a Friday leading into Labor Day weekend, the St. John’s Prep football team was in the middle of a scrimmage with Lynn English when Eagles defensive back Jared Coppola went down awkwardly.He didn’t get up.”It was just one of those things,” said Jim OÕLeary, his coach. “There wasn’t much contact. It was just a typical football play.”But it had an atypical result. Coppola was paralyzed. And once he was stabilized, he was moved to a rehab facility in Georgia. And that”s when O’Leary sprang into action.”He came down a lot,” said Coppola, one of more than 200 people who showed up Saturday night to honor O’Leary for his 30 years as a coach at St. John’s (he stepped down last February, but remains the athletic director).”He made sure I got my jerseys and he made sure he stayed in touch with me. It meant a lot,” said Coppola, who has made enough progress in his rehab to be able to stand upright with the aid of crutches.Of course, you didn’t have to be seriously injured to matter to Jim O’Leary.”He didn’t care — you could be the star of the team, or you could be the last guy on the roster, and Jim cared about you the same way,” said Lynnfield native Kevin Dwan, who came to the Peabody Marriott all the way from Singapore, where he works in the finance industry. “He made sure everyone knew it wasn’t just a team, it was a family.”Dwan played on the 1991 St. John’s team that defeated Brockton at home in the regular season and then lost to the Boxers in the Super Bowl. And something O’Leary said once has always stood out to him.”I was with him once, and someone came up to him and asked him what he did, and he said, ‘I’m a Catholic educator.’ Imagine that. With all he’s accomplished, that’s how he described himself.”I ask myself what qualities I’d want in my kids — loyalty, commitment, an unwavering moral compass — and these are things I got from Jim O’Leary,” Dwan said.”I didn’t have those qualities when I got to The Prep, and I looked around and saw a lot of accomplished classmates at Harvard, and a lot of them didn’t have those qualities.”Dave McHenry of Peabody was one of O’Leary’s assistants for 29 years. Both of his sons played for O’Leary and ended up in Ivy League programs.”Through him, my sons were able to get wonderful educations,” he said.But when his wife, Terry, died, McHenry said O’Leary’s thoughtfulness in the wake of her death will never be forgotten.”Five busloads of students came to her funeral,” he said. “Members of the team — all of them in blue blazers — formed an honor guard. Jimmy did all that. I’ll never forget that.”When Paul Uva was let go after two seasons as Peabody’s head coach, one of the first calls he got came from O’Leary.”I couldn’t figure out what he wanted,” said Uva.He offered Uva a spot on his staff. “It was a godsend,” Uva said, “because we were at a point where we didn’t know what we were going to do. And thanks to him, my son was able to get a Prep education, and play for Jimmy.”O’Leary didn’t speak long when it was his turn to address the crowd, thanking everyone for coming (including Xaverian coach/athletic director Charlie Stevenson).”First I’d like to say I’m not retiring; I’m dead, and this isn’t a wake,” he said. “As to whether I’ll miss this, all I know is that today (during the BC High-Prep game when a BC High player returned a kickoff for a touchdown just before the half), when I saw that runback, I thought to myself, ‘Brian (St. Pierre, his successor), this is all yours, brother.'”