ITEM FILE PHOTO
Matt Durgin
BY STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — Throughout the 61-year history of the Harry Agganis Scholarship Foundation, coaches and civic leaders have ensured that the men and women who participate in the week of games played in Agganis’ honor are well served.
It started right after Agganis, a three-sport star at Lynn Classical High School, who later played at Boston University and for the Boston Red Sox, died on June 27, 1955. It continues today with the people such as Matt Durgin, who played in the 1984 football game and is now its game director.
The 55th Agganis All-Star Football Game will be played tonight at 7 p.m. at Manning Field. Directing it has been a labor of love for Durgin, who is the head coach at St. Mary’s, since he was asked to take the responsibility on.
“I was surprised to be asked, but at the same time honored,” he said. “Because at the time, I was the Classical coach, and that’s where Agganis went to school.”
Durgin recalls being asked to play in the 1984 game.
“It was such an honor,” he said. “And it was a special personal honor for me, because I graduated from Classical. It was also an honor because I got to play for (Ken) Perrone, who coached the team that year. And Ed Nizwantowski (Peabody) was an assistant.”
Playing in the game is enough of an honor, Durgin said. But one player from the North and one from the South get the special honor of wearing No. 33, which Agganis wore while he was a star at Classical.
“I remember exactly who wore it the year I played,” Durgin said. “It was (Duke) St. Pierre of Danvers, a really good football player.”
Tonight, two players who were major award winners at last winter’s Item Football Banquet, Doug Santos of Peabody (North) and Daekwon Shepherd of Lynn English (South), will wear No. 33.
When he played in the game, he said he didn’t realize the length to which the community’s leaders joined to make the game a success.
“As I got older, and got more involved, I appreciated what everybody does a lot more,” he said. “A lot of hard work goes into this. There are a lot of people behind the scenes working to make this happen.”
Foundation chairman Attorney Thomas C. Demakis recognizes the effort volunteers make in ensuring the yearly success of the games.
“We would never be able to do what we do were it not for the many volunteers who step forward and help in our efforts to have these games,” he said.
After Agganis’ death, Demakis’ father, the late Lynn attorney Charles Demakis, got the ball rolling in establishing a scholarship foundation that honored athletic and academic advancement. It was Lynn’s Harold O. Zimman, and the city’s athletic director, Dr. Elmo Benedetto, who put the idea into action. Zimman helped establish the foundation, along with The Item and the Red Sox, and Benedetto established the Agganis All-Star Football Game, the first of which was played a year later. It remains the foundation’s principal fundraiser and it features the North Shore’s best graduating high school seniors.
Through the years, the game has featured a number of players who went on to the National Football League, including the late Tom Toner (1968), Billy Adams (’69), Howie Long (’74), Fred Smerlas and the late Dan Ross (’75), Steve DeOssie (’80), Mark Bavaro and the late Steve Trapilo (’82), David Bavaro (’85), Greg McMurtry and Ed Toner (’86); and 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey captain/hero Mike Eruzione (’72).
Since the Agganis Foundation was launched, there has been nearly $1.75 million in scholarships awarded to 927 scholar-athletes. Sixteen young men and women from the North Shore and the city of Boston were honored this year, 15 with four-year scholarships and one with a one-time Chairman’s award.
Four graduates won Yawkey Foundation scholarships, named for Thomas A. Yawkey, the late owner of the Red Sox, and his wife, Jean. Two more grants were funded by the Agganis family, one in the name of his nephew, Mike, and the other his grand-nephew, Gregory, who is on the board of trustees.
The foundation has a definite generational feel to it that goes beyond the Demakis and Agganis connection. The late Peter Gamage, who was The Item’s publisher, was an original member of the Board of Trustees and his son, Peter H. Gamage, later served on it.
When Agganis died, Edward H. Cahill was the sports editor at The Item. His son, Edward L. Cahill, is now a trustee and has endowed a permanent scholarship in his father’s memory.
Durgin said he keeps the Agganis legacy alive through the athletes who play in the game.
“We give them a breakdown of what kind of a person he was,” Durgin said. “His character was as strong as his athletic ability.
“I compare him to (former Heisman Trophy winner) Bo Jackson,” Durgin said. “That’s what Harry was like.”
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].
