Part-time pay, full-time passion
| Men's coach Greg DeVito
(left) and women's coach Chris D'Ambrosio (right). Eastern Connecticut State athletics photo |
By Robert Molta
Sports Information Director, ECSU
WILLIMANTIC, Conn. -- By day, Greg DeVito is a fulltime faculty member at E.O. Smith High School. By night, Chris D’Ambrosio works full time for the Department of Developmental Services. In their spare time, the pair have made the soccer programs at Eastern Connecticut State University the envy of the Little East Conference, to say nothing of vaulting them into the regional and national limelight.
Saturday morning, DeVito leads the men’s team into their fifth straight postseason tournament when they face Springfield at 11 a.m. in the opening round of the NCAA Division III Tournament at Hitchcock Field on the campus of Amherst College.
Some six hours later and 350 miles to the south, D’Ambrosio will be at the forefront when the women’s soccer team kicks off NCAA tournament play against homestanding Johns Hopkins University at 5 p.m. at Homestead Field on the JHU campus.
It’s common knowledge that developing a winning program at the college level is a difficult, time-consuming process.
Throw into that coaching mix a fulltime job and family and personal responsibilities, and the difficulty of creating and maintaining a successful program can be multiplied at least two-fold. Both DeVito, a Norwalk native and University of Connecticut graduate, and D’Ambrosio, a Coventry native and St. Thomas University (FL) graduate, joined their respective soccer programs at Eastern as assistant coaches. Three years later, they were appointed head coaches.
DeVito replaced Frantz Innocent when the latter retired after a 17-year (parttime, as well) tenure. D’Ambrosio stepped in for his hometown buddy, Matt Paton, after Paton was offered an assistant coaching position at the University of Colorado.
Neither DeVito nor D’Ambrosio needed much time to apply an indelible mark to their respective programs.
All five of DeVito’s season at the helm have been punctuated by trips to a post-season tournament. Three times, the Warriors have won the Little East Conference tournament and with it, an automatic berth in the NCAAs. Last year, they were selected on an at-large basis after losing in the LEC tournament semifinals, and in 2008, they were the No. 1 seed in the ECAC tournament.
Every season, the Warriors have won at least ten matches under DeVito – the first time in the 51-year history of the program that this has been accomplished -- and have compiled a .745 winning percentage, which is easily the best winning percentage among the five coaches in program history.
Giving more credence to DeVito’s accomplishments is the fact that until his arrival the program and qualified for post-season play only once in the previous 29 seasons and in the previous eight LEC tournaments, had failed to qualify four times and bowed out in the first round the other four years.
Twelve seasons into his head coaching career, D’Ambrosio is the all-time winningest head coach in the program’s 26-year history with 146 victories. He also has compiled the highest winning percentage (.679) among the five coaches in program history.
With D’Ambrosio, the Warriors have lost more than one LEC regular-season match only twice. They have won or shared four conference regular-season championships and have won more LEC tournaments (4) in the last nine years than any other conference institution.
DeVito has been coaching soccer on a variety of levels for nearly 20 years. Prior to his appointment as Innocent’s assistant, he had spent six years coaching girls’ soccer at E.O. Smith, averaging 12 wins per year in three seasons as head coach. He began as assistant boys’ coach with the state power boys’ soccer team at Smith.
D’Ambrosio has coached both boys and girls’ soccer, coming to Eastern after 11 successful seasons at Coventry High School with the girls’ program. He has worked for the State of Connecticut for nearly 25 years, primarily on third shift. After catching a few hours sleep in the morning, he arrives at Eastern for practice or a game or to meet a recruit. Later that night, he will many times return to work in time for his 11 p.m. shift.
Making additional demands on D’Ambrosio’s time are his two teenage boys who are involved in both travel and high school soccer. Between games, travel, practices, scouting, recruiting and fundraising, each coach estimates working a 35-40 hour week during a ten-week soccer season. Through the first week of November, D’Ambrosio says that he has additionally arranged two dozen campus visits for high school recruits.
There are two common denominators to both coach’s success at Eastern: a passion for the game and time-management skills.
“With any situation like this, you have to love what you do,” points out DeVito. “It doesn’t really simulate work when you really enjoy it. And as the years go by, I’ve learned to make more time for myself and make sure that I don’t get to the point where I am overwhelmed, because if you are overwhelmed, it’s not fun anymore. There’s enough time in the day -- if you manage your time – to keep that anticipation and fun and always look forward to the next day.”
D’Ambrosio echos those comments: “Just trying to balance your schedule is one of the most difficult things,” says D’Ambrosio, who labels the fall as ‘chaotic.’ “The time commitment is unbelievable. For me, ‘organization’ has become a strength. I know the amount of time that I have and the amount of time I need to do something in. “But the first few years,” he admits, “were overwhelming.”
Each coach points out that the contributions of his assistant coaches have been instrumental in the success of the program. D’Ambrosio’s close friend, Ken Goodale, has shared the sideline with him for the last 11 seasons. DeVito has been assisted by Adam Phaniah in each of his five seasons and Jay Barney for four and Matt Weston for three. Goodale’s roots go back to the early 1980s when the program began on the club level. Phaiah is an alumnus of the program and Barney a former standout goalkeeper.
After 25 years coaching girls and women, D’Ambrosio is well-versed on the need to communicate effectively and motivate his female players. “You have to be able to talk to them,” he notes. “You need to say ‘let’s have a conversation’. Yelling and screaming at players – especially women – doesn’t work. The chemistry is really important. The women have to want to work for each other. They have to get along.”
Like D’Ambrosio, DeVito has developed a rapport with his players over the years and feels that communication and trust are imperative to building a successful program, especially when the coach isn’t available to monitor activities on a fulltime basis. He looks upon the student-athletes as the building blocks of developing a national program.
Points out DeVito: “We have guys in the program who are willing to work hard all the time when they are not being watched all the time, and guys who are willing to do the right thing even when I’m not there to stand over them. Adds DeVito: “We have a group of guys who have bought into what it is that we are trying to teach them, and that what we are trying to stress to them is important.”
