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Peabody High football coach Mark Bettencourt has been named head coach for the Agganis North football all-star team.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — Mark Bettencourt of Peabody High and Lou Cicatelli of Revere will coach this year’s 55th Agganis All-Star Football Game, to be played Thursday, June 30 at Manning Field.
The Agganis football game is played in memory of Lynn Classical graduate Harry Agganis, who was named the greatest athlete in Lynn history in a poll of local experts at the end of the last century.
Agganis, after playing for Classical, was a star quarterback for Boston University who ultimately played for the Boston Red Sox. He died on June 27, 1955, at the age of 26 from a pulmonary embolism. At the time, he was batting .315 and starting at first base for the Red Sox.
The football game represents the conclusion of a week’s worth of games dedicated to Agganis’ memory. The games serve as the principal fundraiser for the Agganis Foundation, which has awarded almost $1.7 million ($1,688,000) to 911 student-athletes, pending the announcement of this year’s recipients.
The week begins Sunday, June 26 with an awards ceremony at Manning, (10 a.m.) followed by the softball (noon) and baseball (2 p.m.) games at neighboring Fraser Field. Boys and girls basketball games will be played Monday at Lynn Classical, followed by boys and girls lacrosse boys and girls soccer Wednesday and concluding with the football game Thursday.
In addition, five new members of the Agganis Hall of Fame, honored for their contributions either to the foundation, the games, or youth sports in general, will be announced at Sunday’s awards breakfast.
Among other coaches already named for this year’s games are Kevin Canty (Bishop Fenwick) and Dave Wilbur (Beverly) in baseball; Stan McKeen (Peabody) and Katelyn Leonard (Swampscott) in girls basketball; and Dave Born (Swampscott) and Alan LaRoche (Ipswich) in boys basketball.
In girls soccer, Ken Leeder (Swampscott) and Tim Phelan (Austin Prep) are on board with two others still to be named. Boys soccer and softball are still to be determined.
Cicatelli relishes the opportunity to coach the elite players of the area.
“There’s nothing like meeting different kids from different areas,” he said. “You get a chance to coach some of the best kids from the area. It’s a coach’s dream, and it sounds very exciting.”
Cicatelli is also eager to showcase the newly-refurbished Della Russo Stadium, where the Agganis South team will practice beginning next week.
“We really want to show it off,” he said. “Also, we had a really nice season last fall, and we have a good group of all-stars ourselves.”
Even though he says Jim DelGaizo has to be considered the city’s best athlete ever (he played for Syracuse and the Miami Dolphins), he heard plenty about Agganis growing up.
“My God,” he said, “my father and my neighbor, all they talked about was Harry Agganis. It’s hard to believe the stuff the guy accomplished. He was quite the athlete and quite the person.
Wilbur is a football guy and a baseball guy, having coached at Salem High with Ken Perrone. As a kid growing up in Newburyport, he knew all about the Agganis legacy.
“When I was a kid, the Agganis game was the biggest football all-star game in the state,” he said. “Every great player in Eastern Mass., north and south of Boston, played in that game. There was always a big crowd. That’s the type of honor it was.”
Agganis, he said, “had that kind of a mystique, a lot like Tony Conigliaro — a guy whose promising career was cut short. He had a great life, but it was certainly short-lived.”
Wilbur said he agreed to coach the baseball game even though his son, Tom, is turning 20 on the same day.
