Following more than a half-century at the helm and well over 1,800 games, legendary Bentley University baseball coach and Winthrop native Bob DeFelice coached his final game Sunday afternoon at Stonehill College’s Lou Gorman Field.
While the finale of his 54-year career was a 4-1 Northeast-10 Conference loss to the Skyhawks (18-29, 7-17 NE10), DeFelice saw his team take three of four from Stonehill in the season-ending series and win 12 of its final 20 under his direction.
Bentley’s bats were quiet as Stonehill sophomore lefty Jonathan Rice (Hopedale) authored a complete game two-hitter. He walked five and struck out seven while blanking the Falcons after the first inning.
In the first, sophomore DH Jackson Walonis (Walpole/Walpole HS) and junior first baseman Eddy Beauregard (Paxton/Wachusett Reg. HS) drew one-out walks. Junior right fielder Tim Zupkus (Middlebury, Conn./Holy Cross HS) followed with a single to center, driving in Walonis with what proved to be the final run of the DeFelice era.
Bentley finished its final season of the DeFelice era at 17-25 overall and 11-13 NE10.
In recognition of his five-plus decades of service to athletics at both the high school and collegiate levels, DeFelice has also been named as the 2022 recipient of the National Football Foundation Grinold Chapter’s Ron Burton Distinguished American Award.
Named in honor of the late Ron Burton, who was the first draft pick of the then Boston Patriots and a noted philanthropist, the chapter presents the award annually to a recipient who is an outstanding person that has maintained a lifetime of interest in the game and who, over a long period of time, has exhibited enviable leadership qualities and made a significant contribution to the betterment of amateur football in the chapter footprint.
DeFelice will receive the prestigious award on Sunday, May 15 when the Grinold Chapter holds its 43rd annual Scholar-Athlete Awards Banquet at the Boston Newton Marriott.
In addition to his 54-year run as the only head baseball coach in Bentley history, DeFelice spent 20 years as a high school football coach. The Boston College product began his coaching career at Christopher Columbus High School in the sixties and was the head coach at Winthrop High School from 1970-86. During that time, he led the Vikings to a 101-65-2 record, with four Northeast Conference championships, a 33-game winning streak in the early 1980s and two Eastern Mass. Division 2 Super Bowl titles.
DeFelice, who had started at Bentley in 1968, was promoted to Director of Athletics in October 1991 after two years as an assistant athletics director and two as an associate athletics director. The Boston College product held the position for nearly three decades, until September 2020.
During his tenure as AD, the university’s sports teams prospered, with 120 conference championships (regular season and playoff) and NCAA appearances in ten team sports (football, women’s basketball, men’s basketball, field hockey, volleyball, golf, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, men’s cross country and women’s cross country). There were two national championships, field hockey in 2001 and women’s basketball in 2014.
There was a vast expansion of Bentley’s athletic facilities, including the addition of DeFelice Field and The Arena, home of the Falcons’ Division 1 hockey team. He was also the founder and first commissioner of the Eastern Football Conference, which eventually led to the Northeast-10 adding football as a conference sport.
The multi-honored DeFelice has been enshrined into nine Halls of Fame, including Bentley, Boston College and the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches. In December 2017, he received the George C. Carens Award from the New England Football Writers for his lifelong contributions to the sport of football.
Tickets are available for this year’s dinner, which begins at 5 pm, by visiting www.grinoldchapter.com.
