SWAMPSCOTT — There will always be a special place in Dick Jauron’s heart for Carmen Cozza, his coach at Yale University, who died Thursday at the age of 87.
“The best thing about Coach Cozza was the man himself,” said the former Swampscott High great who became the NFL’s Coach of the Year in 2001 while with the Chicago Bears. “He was a great man. He was a great family man, great father, great husband and great friend and mentor.”
But even so, said Jauron, you underestimated him at your own risk.
“He had a fairly calm exterior,” said Jauron, perhaps the most famous of all the Swampscott High players who patrolled Blocksidge Field during the Stan Bondelevitch era. “But he was a fierce competitor. He had the heart of a champion.”
Cozza coached at Yale for 32 years, from 1965 through 1996, and was the winningest coach in the school’s history with a record of 179-119-5 (one of those ties being the 29-29 game with Harvard in 1968 — Jauron’s senior year at Swampscott).
Jauron also said that Cozza was a tremendous athlete.
“He was great baseball player,” he said, “and a great football player. And through my whole four years at Yale, he was one of the best handball players on campus. And that included all the athletes. He was very tough-minded.
Also, said Jauron, “while he always had your best interests at heart, he was never shy about enforcing the rules and letting you know where the boundaries were.”
This past November, Jauron was one of five Yale athletic alumni presented with the George H.W. Bush Lifetime of Leadership award at a dinner Friday night on New Haven, Conn, campus. He said Cozza was unable to attend.
“I talked to him the day before,” said Jauron, “and I think the week before the event. It seemed apparent that he was weakening. I’m grateful his battle is over.”
Jauron said he incorporated lessons he’d learned from Cozza into his own professional life.
“I think as you go along, you learn from everyone you come in contact with,” he said. “My father (Robert) was a football coach. You learn from everyone.
“At the same time,” he said, “you have to be who you are, too. Coach Cozza was a great example to me.”
Off the field, Jauron said, Cozza was equally impressive.
“He never felt it was necessary to flaunt his authority,” Jauron said. “He had a family that he loved, and that loved him, and he was just a real gentle man.”
Cozza was only in his fourth year of coaching on Nov. 23, 1968, when Yale and Harvard, both undefeated, met at the Crimson’s home turf for a game that would not only decide the Ivy League championship, but go down as one of the most iconic athletic events in New England history.
With 48 seconds left, Yale, led by quarterback Brian Dowling and running back Calvin Hill, had the lead, 29-13. However, the Crimson scored twice, and both both 2-point conversions, to end up tying the game.
In 2008, in time for the 40th anniversary of the game, Kevin Rafferty produced a documentary of the game.
“I remember seeing it with my wife (Gail) in the basement of our home,” said Jauron. “We were about a quarter of the way through it when it occurred to me. I said to Gail ‘neither Carmen nor Calvin are in this.'”
