LYNN — Frank DeLuca is a Medford guy through-and-through, even if he attended high school at BC High.
He grew up in South Medford, a few houses down from Lynn Classical principal Gene Constantino. When he got old enough, he coached and managed in the South Medford Little League for 30 years, winning a state title in 1980 and coming within a 4-3 loss to Delaware in the Eastern Regionals from competing in the Little League World Series.
He’s also coached baseball at Tufts and North Cambridge Catholic.
But five years ago, his childhood friend Constantino, by this time the principal at Classical, asked him to coach and teach at the school. The sport was volleyball, though, and his knowledge of it was limited.
“Gene and Mr. (Bill) Devin (athletic director) know I’d coached, so when a position opened up, they said to me ‘you can do this.’”
DeLuca helped out with the JV team his first two years, “and I was fortunate enough that my second JV team went 16-1.”
When varsity coach Frank Grelish had to step down, Constantino offered him the varsity job and DeLuca took it.
“I had to do some research,” he admitted. “I had to learn the rules. Thankfully, the other coaches in the league were very helpful.
“From that point on, it’s just knowing how to coach,” he said. “You see things. You put things together, and thankfully I was able to put it together pretty quickly.”
Volleyball, he said, is a very strategic game in terms of positioning players, when to substitute, and what players are allowed to do. For example, he said, players have to rotate on the court to all positions until the ball is served. Then, they can matriculate to anywhere on the court.
“Naturally,” he said, “you want your tall girls in the front.”
DeLuca will begin his third season coaching varsity on Sept. 6, as luck would have it, at Medford High. This is because the Northeastern Conference and Greater Boston Leagues have merged. Previously, the two teams had not met.
One story that DeLuca found amusing involves Medford’s coach, Taylor Dyer.
“Gene, me and a Ray Dyer used to play together in a men’s softball league,” said DeLuca. “When I met her, I asked her whether she was Ray’s sister. She looked at me and said, ‘no, I’m his daughter.’
“So I guess I miscalculated my age,” said DeLuca, who graduated from high school in 1971.
He expects some of the players he coached during the latter stages of his Little League career might still be at Medford High.
“Some of them should still be there,” he said. “I went through a lot of people in 40 years.”
