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'A role model for many': Friends, family remember late Akron football coach Gerry Faust
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- 'A role model for many': Friends, family remember late Akron football coach Gerry Faust
Before Gerry Faust led the University of Akron football program for nine seasons, he met a homesick student in South Bend, Indiana, as the head coach at Notre Dame and played matchmaker by giving her phone number to one of his players.
The young woman, a tennis player named Laura Lee, and the football player, an offensive lineman named Larry Williams , would be a good fit, Faust figured, because they both hailed from Southern California.
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"The long and short of it is we've been married for about 38 years now and have five kids," Williams said Tuesday during a phone interview.
Akron Zips football players carry UA coach Gerry Faust off the field after a win over Ohio in the 1994 season finale at the Rubber Bowl.
Faust's impact on the lives of his players and other people he met became his lasting legacy.
Faust died Monday night at the age of 89, accompanied by family at his Fairlawn home, his son-in-law Steve Buzzi said. Faust had been bedridden for four or five days after suffering a leg injury last week, Buzzi explained.
"He was very much a big supporter of the community wherever he was at," Buzzi said. "He was very proud of his [Catholic] religion. He was proud of his grandchildren, and he loved to participate with the youth organizations any way he could. He loved to see kids succeed or try to succeed."
Notre Dame football coach Gerry Faust yells from the sidelines during a 1981 game.
A Dayton native, Faust played quarterback for the University of Dayton and became Cincinnati Archbishop Moeller High School's first football coach in 1960. He compiled a record of 178-23-2 and won five Ohio High School Athletic Association state championships (1975-77 and 1979-80), plus four mythical national titles (1975-76 and 1979-80).
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Faust's incredible high school success propelled him to Notre Dame ahead of the 1981 season. He would complete his five-year contract with the Fighting Irish and resign with a record of 30-26-1.
Akron Zips football coach Gerry Faust sits behind his desk at UA in 1989.
Faust landed at Akron in December 1985 with the Zips determined to transition from NCAA Division I-AA to Division I-A. They made the move beginning with the 1987 season. He went 43-53-3 until Akron ousted him as its coach in November 1994 and reassigned him as a high-level fundraiser with the title assistant vice president for university development.
"He was as good as anybody in the country at gathering talents," said Williams, a former Akron athletic director who holds the same job at the University of San Francisco. "Now, because he didn't have any experience at the collegiate level with 18- to 22-year-olds, he often struggled on different aspects of that age group. His mindset wasn't trained to be able to lead that age group.
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"He would've been better served and would've better fit today [in the transfer portal and name, image and likeness era], where every day we have to recruit our student-athletes to stay and feel comfortable, and we're working on trying to figure out how to better their situations. Well, he did that from the get-go when the authoritarian model was the regular pace and beat.
"Despite the fact that our overall record at Notre Dame certainly wasn't up to the expectations of Notre Dame, he impacted my life and many lives of the student-athletes that he had in just unbelievably powerful ways."
Gerry Faust laughs during his introductory news conference as Akron Zips football coach in 1985.
A former NFL lineman who played for the Browns, Williams was at Notre Dame when its Faust era began. And former longtime Akron sports information director Ken MacDonald was with the Zips when they hired Faust.
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"That press conference was the largest that had ever been on the Akron U campus without a doubt," MacDonald said. "There were people coming in with helicopters. They had all kinds of TV trucks, and it was amazing. It was jam-packed.
"It was unbelievable, really. Then after he took the job, everybody and his brother wanted to interview him, and he never turned any interview away. He always managed to have time for somebody, and they were calling from all over the country."
Cover of Gerry Faust's book.
Faust was a fixture in the Beacon Journal's sports section in the 1980s and 1990s. He eventually co-authored a book with one of the newspaper's columnists, Steve Love.
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St. Vincent-St. Mary High School girls basketball coach Carley Whitney has a signed copy of the book titled, "The Golden Dream." Faust befriended Whitney when she coached his granddaughter Megan Buzzi, a 2016 STVM graduate. He would regularly stop by Whitney's office to chat, and he addressed the STVM girls hoops team a few times.
"He was just such a genuine, caring just explosion of life," Whitney said. "I don't even know how to explain him. Obviously, a devout Catholic, extremely positive, never in a bad mood, never had a bad word to say about anybody, even if it was a bad situation. Just the most outpouring, positive vessel of a human being.
"Every time he came in, it was just so electric, and he would always leave you feeling better and make you better. He'd pray with you. He would talk to you. He would encourage you. He didn't know you were having a bad day, but he picked you up. He was a role model for many."
Because Faust remained in Greater Akron after his retirement, he developed relationships with many Zips coaches over the years. He sat behind the men's basketball bench at home games for the first few seasons of UA coach John Groce's tenure. While the Zips were on the West Coast for a game Tuesday night at Saint Mary's College of California, Groce returned a call from the Beacon Journal and said he would remember Faust's "heart" above all.
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"He cared about others at a high level. He really did," Groce said. "It was always about other people when I was around him, whether it was him remembering names, he was just phenomenal at remembering people's names, whether it was his prayer list, where he prayed for people and their needs.
"He'd come in quite a bit into the office unannounced, and everyone knew in our office he was always allowed to do that. He would pop in my office and say hello, and he was always very supportive of what we were doing and how we were doing it."
Gerry Faust news: Former Notre Dame, Akron football coach dies at 89
Cincinnati Archbishop Moeller High School football coach Gerry Faust celebrates with his wife, Marlene, after a game in 1979.
Faust is survived by his wife, Marlene; brother Fred (Laurie); children Julie Buzzi (Steve), Gerry III (Deedee) and Stephen (Irena); and grandchildren Megan and Natalie Buzzi, Spencer Taylor, Chloe, Alex, Emilie and Igor Faust.
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Faust was a member of St. Hilary Parish in Fairlawn. When St. Hilary School started a football program, Faust offered advice to the coaches, Steve Buzzi said. When Faust attended one of his granddaughter's cross country meets many years ago at St. Francis Xavier Catholic School in Medina, he noticed a boy pouting instead of running, approached him and offered words of encouragement. The kid responded by participating in the race, and his family told the Buzzis the story a few years ago when they ran into each other at a restaurant.
There are countless tales of Faust making a difference.
"One of his proudest moments at Akron I know was he had a football player, I can't remember his name, but the first kid in the family to go to college," Buzzi said. "The man's mom was dying from cancer, and Coach was visiting her. And on her deathbed, [the player] promised that he would graduate from college. And that's what was important to [Faust], for people to succeed and advance in life."
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It's the record the old coach made matter most.
More on Gerry Faust's life and legacy: 'He is Moeller High School'
University of Akron football coach Gerry Faust delivers a pregame speech to the Zips in 1990.
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich .
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Gerry Faust's friends, family pay tribute after Akron coach dies at 89
