Big Blue, bigger impact.
If you walked into the Dick Lynch Gymnasium at Swampscott High School ahead of the boys basketball game against Winthrop on Jan. 16, you would have witnessed lots of hugs, smiles, and rounds of applause for a legend at the school.
That’s because Swampscott’s baseball field (behind Swampscott Middle School, where the high school team plays) has a new name in Frank DeFelice Diamond, named after the legendary coach who helmed from 1966-71 and 1977-2005.
DeFelice, 82, received a plaque toward the center of the gymnasium before speaking to the crowd and smiling for pictures.
“Today, it’s an opportunity to get a baseball field named after you in the town that you live in and where I coached. I think it’s tremendous that I have that privilege,” DeFelice said. “I’m very excited. Thank you very much.”
Like what he and his teams got for more than three decades, DeFelice was met with thundering applause.
During his time in the dugout, he won 465 games (.644 winning percentage), the state championship in 1993, and the Northeastern Conference eight times. He sent dozens of players onto college baseball and a handful to the pros. Perhaps more importantly, he held his players accountable, teaching them life lessons that went way beyond the field.
For that, you get more than a Swampscott Hall of Fame nod, which DeFelice received in 2011. (He’s also in the Winthrop High and Massachusetts Baseball Coaches halls of fame.) Beginning this spring, each and every Swampscott baseball game will feature a little bit of Frank.
“Lynn teams play at Fraser Field, you know? They have names,” head baseball coach Joe Caponigro, who
played for DeFelice at Swampscott, said. “It just makes sense. If you’re going to name this field, Frank would certainly be the only choice.”
The Swampscott Board of Selectmen unanimously approved the proposal on Jan. 10, one spearheaded by Caponigro and Steve Bulpett, a former Swampscott baseball player and Boston Herald sportswriter.
“My best friend’s nephews were playing baseball at Swampscott a few years ago and we’d go to games to see them play,” Bulpett said. “Coach DeFelice was always there and we’d have a nice conversation. It just struck me that he’s kind of the essence of community.”
At one of those games, Bulpett chatted with Caponigro.
“Steve was the real catalyst for this. I saw him, probably last year, at a game and he brought it up,” Caponigro said. “Then, we just kind of put our heads together and did what we had to do… This is a recognition that is very justified with his accomplishments (and) longevity.”
Accomplishments and longevity, indeed, but it was more than that, according to Bulpett.
“I started thinking about the field, and certainly his accomplishments as baseball coach would warrant his name being there,” Bulpett said. “But I think the part that really put it over the edge for me was the fact that he was still – after all these
years – coming here to support the program.”
“I’m still associated with baseball because it’s a tremendous passion with me,” DeFelice said.
DeFelice’s impact goes a long way. Just ask Paul Halloran, who assisted DeFelice from 1989-92 and 1997-2005 and led the Swampscott American Legion team to back-to-back state championships in 1995 and ’96.
“This is the most well-deserved honor there could ever be. I got a chance to experience just how tremendous a coach and molder of men Frank was. He absolutely held his players to the highest standards, yet he was always fair and honest with them,” Halloran said. “If you were the parent of a player, you hit the jackpot when your son got to play for Frank DeFelice, even if some players realized that later in life.”
“Steve Bulpett and Joe Caponigro should be congratulated for spearheading this effort, as well as the Board of Selectmen for approving it,” Halloran added. “Frank’s coaching tenure did not end the way he deserved, thanks to the actions of a few small people who thankfully have long left the scene, so it is very gratifying that his legacy will be immortalized with the naming of the field. Everyone in Swampscott can be proud of that.”
Speaking of being proud, Kevin Rogers, a standout pitcher on the 1993 state championship team, said DeFelice created “a pride in playing for Swampscott.”
I learned not just baseball from him, but a lot of life lessons and a lot about teamwork, physical and mental toughness, preparation, and discipline.”
Head baseball coach Joe Caponigro
“If you were lucky enough, you were coached by Frank,” Rogers said. “It was everybody playing for the same thing. He instilled that in all of us.”
When asked to describe DeFelice as a coach, Caponigro could have gone on all night.
“I learned not just baseball from him, but a lot of life lessons and a lot about teamwork, physical and mental toughness, preparation, and discipline,” Caponigro said. “I appreciate everything Frank did for me growing up and the lessons I was taught.”
Discipline came to Bulpett’s mind, too.
“I was around when he was coaching, so I got to see it up close, but even in the classes that he was teaching (physical education in Swampscott’s school system for more than three decades), Coach was a disciplinarian, and maybe we didn’t love it so much at the time, but we got to appreciate it,” Bulpett said. “I always appreciated Coach – even when he was yelling at me.”
DeFelice was also head football coach at Swampscott from 1977-81.
“I was disappointed to realize I was a better football player than I was a baseball player,” said DeFelice, who grew up playing sports in Winthrop with his brother, Bob, a Hall of Famer at Winthrop High, BC, and Bentley University, among others. “I loved football, but I have a tremendous passion for baseball.”
It’s true. DeFelice still finds a way to be involved with the game, serving as a consultant with Endicott College in Beverly.
“So 2008, he walked right into my office… From there, we were off and running,” Endicott baseball coach Bryan Haley said. “He was with us from 2008 to 2018, somewhere in that range, and then he became our consultant. We talk about baseball and stay in touch – that sort of thing.”
Haley jumped right to one of his favorite things about DeFelice: “The stories.”
“He’s a class act and one of the kindest people in the world, but the stories he has from back in the day… priceless,” Haley said.
There will be a formal dedication at a Swampscott baseball game this spring.
“He knows more baseball than any of us will ever know,” Haley said.
