TONY SAGNELLA- NORTH HAVEN HS HEAD FOOTBALL COACH

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Tony Sagnella, Anthony Sagnella. Whatdo you prefer to be called Anthony or
Tony? I think I think withyou it's Tony. It just sounds it
sounds better. And as I mentionedto as I mentioned to Henry, I
said, his wife's name is alsoTony, right right. So growing up

(00:20):
in Connecticut, I was always Anthony. For it's weird being with from an
Italian family, but I was alwaysAnthony. When I got to college and
in my football playing days, Ibecame Tony. Then I met a Tony
and I married her. And aftera couple of people calling the house saying
it is Tony there, and wehad to figure out who they wanted shit,

(00:40):
she said, she said, okay, you're you're Anthony again. Oh
so, okay, well, butI don't care. The football world generally
calls me Tony. That's what Ithought. Okay, I'll tell you well
what you've done, and we're notgoing to go into all the crapola.
And that's all it is is crapola, which I'm not going to go into
and don't care. But to startthe season without even playing a game and

(01:04):
you're all in one, that's howit start. You're all in one and
we were all one. That wasreally really tough for everybody. It was.
And I got a call. Igot a call from Glenn Lunge because
we're doing your game and uh,he said, no, there's no I
said, don't fool around with me. On week one. He said,

(01:25):
I'm not kidding. It was theright thing to do. You know it
was. I know it was,But you're right. Move on, you
did, so you start owing oneand years ago, if there was a
four team race for the playoffs,that might have been lethal. But now,

(01:46):
yeah, you're right. We weresixth. I think the fire fifth.
But I mean, you know whatI'm saying. One loss, now,
Uh, you get back on theplaying field. You beat a good
she and team on a Saturday night, I mean a good she. That
was the thing that was amazing.It really was amazing because we were we
were not allowed to organize as ateam for five days after the forfeit,

(02:08):
and we got a phone call.I got a phone call on the Tuesday
night saying we can return Wednesday.Fortunately the game and the game was a
Saturday already, it was a scheduledSaturday game, and that was try to
put it. First of all,we had a game plan and everything going
into week one, and then thathad never gotten used. So now you

(02:29):
have to throw that one out.You have to come up with a new
one, and you have to goplay a team on three days that played
already and the last time we hadplayed was in our last scrimmage. So
it was tough. It was justthat was an exhausting experience because just trying

(02:49):
to get trying to get through it, and she and was good. I
knew they felt they had us.You know, they're like, okay,
here's a here's a shot. Wegot a wounded animal, let's take them.
And and it didn't start well.You know, they drove down the
field on us and punched it invery methodically. It looked like we were
gonna get killed, and then ourkids buckled down and it was And you

(03:10):
won by ten points, right,you won by ten Yeah. And then
you go to Fitch and just destroyedthem Notre Dame in west Haven, the
biggest win against them, by thebiggest margin in I read north Haven history
against them. Yeah, everything's clicking. You beat a good fair I mean

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not at the time, maybe,but a Fairfield Prep team that was gonna
come later on. So here youare rolling along and then you beat a
west Haven team that you know Ihad seen already, and you come down
to ken Strong and what do youdo. You have the ball for thirty
four of the forty eight minutes dominationover west Haven and you won that game

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twenty one to thirteen. So hereyou are, despite forfeiting your first game,
you get had five in a row. Yeah, and now you gotta
go to Finns Stadium and yeah,well leading into what you going? Wow,
you tell me no, No,you said, I there, No,

(04:15):
I said, here's what I don'tlike about it. If there's no
direct there's no direct ride there.It was an hour and fifteen minutes on
a bus, that's right. Andthat's how long it took us to go
to Gratton and and you know yougotta just don't have a straight run there.
So that's a long time on abus and and we don't win up
there. But that doesn't mean Idon't like it. It's a great high
school environment, and they get afterit and they welcome you in with their

(04:38):
cannon and all their other and thenthey beat you, and then they beat
you. That reminds me of itreminds me of being at Rutgers and going
down to play like any school inthe South, like Florida or Burn,
Tennessee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, George, I
think one of the keys this yearwhen you look at us going from Week

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one to say West Haven, wasthat we suffered a few injuries in preseason
and in the summer, the kidsthat were playing other sports, like we
had like three or four baseball kidscome into the season already banged up.
And fortunately we have depth in ourskill spots. And you know, I

(05:26):
mistaking of the seing game how wewere relying on Jake mccrevin at the end
of the game. And Jake's avery good football player, but he plays
mostly a role on defense. Andin the fourth quarter, we've got guys
out with cramps, We've got guysout with injuries, and you know,
you're going to the bench. Andfortunately we had a deep bench this year

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and kids like Cameron Thompson changing positions. You know, he ended last season
as a fullback on offense, cameinto this season as a wing back and
then with Adam pandoff he's injury andpre season we moved him to the tailback
spot and he and he had tolearn those but his ability and willingness to

(06:12):
learn helped us, you know,continue to have success on the field.
Then you need somebody to fill infor the position that he vacates when you
move him. And then we hadlike Chris Curtella, Joe Masteriani, guys
that were able to plug in.And then you had reliable guys like Tristan
does that you know, you wereexpecting a good workload out of and he

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produced. So we were very fortunateto have those kids in our stable and
to be able to use them andbattle test them. And then around you
know, the week before we playedWest Tavin, we go into a bye
week and that's when Adam was makinghis return. I think he played a
little bit against Fairfield Prep, butwe we knew that coming out of the

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bye week he would be back toyou know, go and going into West
Tavin, we were healthy and wepretty much remained healthy the rest of the
year. Yes to the year.Yeah, And so after the loss,
you beat Cheshire, you beat Hamden, you beat Amity and now you get
to the playoffs and in the quarterfinalsyou had to play Fitch again. Started

(07:19):
slow that game ten to seven ata half, but have a great second
half you win that forty one two. And then comes the semi final game
at Windsor, game that we didon w ELI and we were there and
just a Winsor team that could scoreboatload of points. Yeah, and then

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they were very, very, veryimpressive. Yeah, we got You know,
you get out at the end ofthe season, you get out and
you start looking at people, andyou know, I was rooting for Cheshire.
I know they were banged up.You know, we were rooting for
an sec you know, match upat some point, but they and they

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got put in the other bracket,and you know, we were all hoping
that would be a great way tofinish. But deep down, when you
look at the bracket, everybody knowsyou're probably gonna have to get through Windsor
and get through Wilton. Both arevery good teams, very well coached,
and very talented. So we justwe kind of knew. We're like,

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we're gonna have to play those wschools. You know, we're gonna have
to do it. Yeah, Yeah, and you know we we got We
got to see them both live andyou know, I saw Windsor play Berlin.
I believe. And then I sawWilton take apart Shelton and that was

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really hard to watch because of ourloss to Shelton. And then you watch
Windsor do it. I mean,Wilton do a pretty good job on that.
Yeah. Yeah, you're just likeyou're saying, oh my god,
they are tremendous and they were.They were a good football team winsor though.
And again we talk about the offenseand who can defense that single wing.

(09:09):
We understand that and it's so difficult, but it was your defense that
played real well in both of thosegames. Are well. Let me tell
you in another one too. Youknow, you look at that statistics and
sometimes they're misleading. So we gaveup twenty two points to Fitch. Let

(09:30):
me tell you what their offense.And I know their offense because we used
to run a very similar offense beforethe single wing, the triple option,
and they do it very well andthey have very good kids doing it.
And for you to get ready ina week to defend the option at a
high level is challenging. So tobe honest, I know the outsiders look

(09:54):
at that score and they're like,oh, well, North Dapa must have
relaxed. No, we played hard. They were very they're very good.
Honestly, we're better off playing aspread team, to be honest. I
mean, but no, no,I wasn't accusing you of them. I'm

(10:16):
saying that. I think people seescores sometimes and they're like, yeah,
the shutouts are impressive. Believe me, when we go to Windsor and shut
them out and then shut off Willand those are very impressive. But I
do think I think our personnel forthem, they're a little more comfortable defending
a spread team because we see itevery week. It's sort of like defending

(10:39):
US. You ask, you askWindsor and Wilton what it was like playing
is, they'll probably say, well, it's difficult because we don't see it
every week. That's what That's whatFitch was. Fitch was very good at
what they do, and if theywere a little better on defense, it
would have been a you know,a tougher out for us. You you

(11:00):
had both sides of the ball coveredin those last two I mean, your
defense was as much a topic ofdiscussion as the offense. I mean the
offense. We knew what the offensecould do, right, but you need
to be good on defense. Ithink in the playoffs, mean you really
do. And then you know,over let's not overlook our kicking game.
You know it will never ow.In fact, I saw his father this

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morning at the start. I sawyour kicker Eric for Toronto. His father's
Todd and he's a super guy.Eric and Adam you get, you get
nothing but consistency and high level ofperformance, you know, as a punter
and a kicker. And then youadd in all the coverage, you know,
all the the willingness for guys thatare on our starting offense and our

(11:43):
starting defense to commit to that.You know. Coach Keith Wolkovitz does such
a good job one of my favorites. Yeah, and he does just just
you know, between scouting reports,game plans, practice plans, meeting time.
It's not an half thought in NorthHaven, you know, the kicking
game is not an afterthought. Andhe does a really good job with that.

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When you look at if you lookat our offensive production, I think
Wilton did the best job of slowingus down. Even Shelton we had left
probably seventeen points on the field.I mean, Shelton beat us, but
Wilton really contained us. And itwas our kicking game that created field position

(12:33):
in our favor, and then ourdefense kind of smothering them at times to
shorten the field and give us opportunities. So we end up. You know,
we had one drive it was abouta sixty yard drive. Then we
had a what about a forty yarddrive because of no, even less than
that. It was it was probablya thirty yard drive because of Cam Thompson's
interception right and and and then atthe end of the game when we were

(12:58):
just killing the clock, that wasalso set up by our punt team and
by our defense. So you needto have all of that going for you.
I think to be successful in theplayoffs. Two championships in a row,
two state championships in a row,believable, and not only that,
the SEC Tier one champions that veryhard about. You're very proud of that,

(13:20):
I know I am. I ambecause you know, being in at
the program for as many years asI have been here, I remember when
we couldn't compete with anybody. Youknow, there was a there was a
dark time in like two thousand andfive when we didn't win a game and
we were at the bottom. Whenremember when Ray Curran used to do that.

(13:45):
Yeah, that ranking just forget whatpaper that was. It was the
post, I forget what it was. It was the new even post,
the Elmsted Elmsteady Post. And heused to rank him and we were bottom.
We were number twenty. It wasbad to be down there and then
to climb up. And we're nota bigger it's not like we're a double
L school. You know. No, I don't know for us, for
us to make all the the commitmentswithin the program, and I'm talking from

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the youth level, the alumni,you know, you know, all the
way from the ground up and tojust you know, continually work and raise
the bar. And it's an amazingclimb to be the Tier one champion because
I know the league has three tiers, but I don't think anybody will argue

(14:31):
that Tier one is the I don'tthink. Listen, you just to be
commended. You're an outstanding coach,you have a great program. Uh,
you're one of the best coaches inthe state. I'm up against the clock.
I gotta let you go, butI can't thank you enough for two
minutes. Thank you again for thestuff, peppers, and I'll expect more,
bring anytime, bring them to school. Leaving with Jeff and I know

(14:54):
he'll get even with Jeff, you'llnever get them. Well, guess what.
I appreciate what you do for Ilove you. You are just a
special guy. You're a special coach. And as I always say, it's
not just the team when I callteam, you're a program. I mean,
this is a program North Haven Football. Baby. It's top shelf and

(15:15):
you are top shelf. And Ilove you. I think you're great.
Uh, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmasto you, Tony, and we'll talk
to you soon. You got it.