Tony Scazzero: End of an Era

by Rene Kozarsky | Special to MCLA.us

Texas A&M prides itself on tradition. The Corps, the 12th Man, Aggie Muster -- the list goes on. Even when it comes to athletics, there are head coaches that have had sustained success over long periods of time at the school. Corbelli, Johnson, Guerrieri are names that come to mind.

But even at the club level, Tony Scazzero could be added to that list. Over time, everything changes, even Texas A&M. Once open practice fields are now parking garages. University Drive is now mostly in the shadows due to high-rises that have been built in the last decade. And for the first time since the spring of 1978, the A&M Men’s lacrosse team will have a new coach as long time head man Tony Scazzero has retired from college coaching.

Scazzero grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley and found lacrosse his last year of high school. A natural baseball player, Scazzero played lacrosse his senior year for a new program at Sleepy Hollow High School.

His baseball talent took him to Cornell, but Hall of Fame lacrosse coach Richie Moran found him and convinced him to focus on lacrosse instead. He later found himself in College Station after playing for two years at Cornell.

“My Dad had opened a restaurant, so I kept going back and forth. I’d miss a semester and go back, and then miss another semester and come back. After a while, I just needed to stay and work at the family business.”

And as fortune had it, he wound up in College Station.

“There were a bunch of Cornell guys that were being recruiting by A&M for Ag Science and Animal Nutrition as professors. We knew guys that had come down here to do their grad work. My brother and I were still in the restaurant business at the time and they said, 'There’s a place for rent down here.' And that turned out to be where we opened the Cow Hop”.

Scazzero ‘s brother found out that A&M had a club lacrosse team and was helping them out every couple of days as the team was in a coaching transition from Dave Gruber to Doc Hall. The team asked Scazzero to come out. After playing for A&M in club game against Dallas, Scazzero figured out that his playing days were behind him and transitioned to coaching.

The team asked him to be the head coach. That was the spring of 1978 and, aside from a one year sabbatical in the early 8O’s (to go help his father’s restaurant again), Scazzero had been the head coach until the end of the 2024 season.

During that time, Scazzero has seen the evolution of lacrosse in Texas. From a loosely organized recreational activity to a highly-evolved region that some are considering the next hotbed of the sport, Scazzero has seen the changes.

“It didn’t grow evenly. Back in the late 70s and very early 8Os, Houston was the hot spot. A few former college players were getting into coaching high school teams. It kept expanding. Austin was next. And then Dallas came along, and took it to another level, with them sending recruits to the D-I level”.

He has also seen the evolution of the game at the college level within the state and the nation. From the days of the old Southwest Lacrosse Association (SWLA) to it’s transition to the more organized brand of club lacrosse under US Lacrosse, first known as the US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates (USLIA) to it’s transition to the US Lacrosse Men’s Division Intercollegiate Associates (MDIA) then to it’s current incarnation of the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA).

“We knew we needed to eventually break away from US Lacrosse and we did that and founded the MCLA. The college (club) game took off from there. Each change transpired in a different manner, but it has created a pretty strong lacrosse organization. It was such a big deal when we started the MCLA; that’s it’s not a beer league. Not that there’s something wrong with those, but we did it through eligibility. We had officials’ contracts. If you scheduled a game, you played it. We had conferences all over the country. This was the real opportunity to be ‘virtual varsity.'”

Scazzero even served as MCLA president for a time. His leadership with the organization off the field helped the it grow to what it has become today -- the preeminent club lacrosse organization in the nation.

John Paul, long time Michigan head coach, who transitioned the team from club to varsity status, remembers Scazzero’s contributions to the MCLA.

“When my term as the seconnd president of the MCLA ended, Tony stepped up to become the third and led the league through its next phases of development. It’s not an easy job, but he brought his passion for the MCLA and the game, and that commitment benefited literally thousands of college lacrosse players.”

Paul, whose last coaching stop was with the Premier Lacrosse League’s NY Atlas, continued, “In a league where long-term coaches can make an enormous difference in the competitiveness and stability of a program, his 46 years with the Aggies is unmatched. I’ve never heard an A&M player or alum say a negative word about his leadership. He led teams that played hard, for a purpose, and he brought perspective and life-lessons to his approach.“

Life lessons is something that was always at the heart of Scazzero’s coaching, as this author, one of his former players, can attest. There was always tough love involved but there was always an underlying point to what he was trying to teach.

“Once I had given my word to coach and keep the program going, it was something that Doc Hall and I talked about all the time, was that we had to keep it going," Scazzero said.

It was part of our obligation to the sport. Some people said I took it too far, but the reality is it was important to keep it going because players learn life skills by playing lacrosse. They learn earlier than other students do because it challenges you to become better people. You learn how to become a good loser and how not to be a bad winner. You learn all the things about life through the sport.”

“I will always remember playing Tony’s A&M team in College Station," said Paul. "After the game they put on a Texas barbecue for both teams. That exemplified his approach: compete hard, but understand there’s more to this than the game. It was a great lesson.”

After five decades of coaching at A&M, one of his legacies will be the mark he has left on coaching and officiating. Scores of individuals from the program have gone on to become established coaches and referees.

Scazzero elaborated.

“One thing I am really proud of is how many former players became officials and league organizers. We’ve had so many players move on and contribute. Back around 2000, we started counting and we got to about 68 players that were coaching high school and we kind of stopped counting at that point because it just became too many”.

His longevity A&M can’t be understated. He started at a time that few games were filmed (and those that were filmed literally on nine millimeter film) and finished at time where A&M games were regularly streamed live on the internet. From playing games on Simpson Drill field, to practicing at the Zachary practice field, to moving over to turf lacrosse field at Penberthy, complete with changing rooms, showers and a shot clock, Scazzero has seen some amazing changes with the program.

So why did he stay in coaching so long?

“I didn’t feel there was anyone else at the time that was going to step up and do that job that I felt was required. I wasn’t trying to do it halfway. If I was going to coach, I was going to try the best I could. I had a family and a full-time job but it brought me a lot of satisfaction to do as good of a job as I could. The second part of it is -- whatever you give, that’s what you get back. To have made a difference in a lot of people’s lives, that’s something I will always cherish-that I had that opportunity and I was able to take advantage of that for a very long time.”

Though he may not be coaching college anymore. He will still be on the sidelines. Reminiscent of that scene in the Nick Nolte movie Blue Chips, where the long-time college basketball coach steps away from the college game but can’t help himself from teaching the game to kids he randomly finds playing pick up at a local playground, Scazzero won’t be far from the sport.

He and his wife recently move to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area to be closer to their grand kids and with that came to opportunity to coach at the youth level with Aledo Lacrosse.

“We’re going to field a JV team, a seventh and eighth team, a fifth-sixth grade and a third-fourth grade one”.

So it’s not a complete retirement from coaching.

Nevertheless, Scazzero will be honored at a retirement dinner presented by the Doc Hall Foundation in College Station on February 22. Hall of Fame Coach Bill Tierney will be the guest speaker. Tickets can be purchased through the Doc Hall Foundation website.