The Observer Sits down with Gene DeFilippo

Director of Athletics since September of 1997, Gene DeFilippo has seen BC through its transition into the Atlantic Coast Conference. He has been instrumental in strengthening BC’s athletic program by making significant changes to the athletic facilities—including new football practice facilities, a total renovation of Conte Forum, new soccer, field hockey and lacrosse facilities on Newton campus, new Field Turf in Alumni Stadium, and an air-inflated bubble over Alumni to serve as an indoor practice facility during the winter— and reaching new heights in fundraising that paid for the Yawkey Athletics Center.

He has been AD during some of BC’s most successful athletics season in its history. He has also provided more academic support for the athletes, making athletes’ achievements both on and off the field a source of pride. DeFilippo sat down with The Observer in his office, where he has maroon and gold M&M’s—true Eagle pride— for the first time to discuss how lucky he is, how much he enjoys working with student-athletes, the winner of this year’s Beanpot, and his top one or two favorite football teams of all time.

The Observer: You’ve been director of athletics at BC since 1997. In your time here, has there been one thing that stands out as something you are the most proud of?

Gene DeFilippo: I don’t think there’s any one thing that I am most proud of. I think there are a number of things. One was when Paul Taylor, one of our BC fencers, was one of two students awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Those are the only two Rhodes Scholars at Boston College in our history. Certainly the number of times that our football team has led the country in graduation rate. I think that’s happened twice that we’ve won it and every year we’re in the top six or seven. Winning the two national championships in ice hockey was terrific. Some of the great victories that we’ve had in football, beating Notre Dame and Penn State and some of those would rank up there.

O: As BC’s athletic director, what does your job entail?

GD: I think the job of the athletic director is to provide leadership and organization for the department as well as providing the climate and the resources necessary for success. We’ve got some great administrators. The one good thing that every leader can do is to hire great people, and that’s one thing I’m really proud of. A lot of the other things everybody’s had a hand in, but hiring some of these people has been great. I think the AD or leader of any group needs to provide the leadership. Where are we going? How are we going to get there? And the other thing is the climate. We try to provide a real family climate here. We have some sayings from coach Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers. Coach Lombardi said that the three most important things in anybody’s life should be their god, their family and their friends, and the Greenbay Packers. So we always say there’s three things that ought to be really really important in your life. Your God, your family and your friends, and the Boston College Eagles. And the other thing is to provide resources, and in my case, resources are fundraising. Nothing happens until somebody raises some money or somebody sells something, and so it’s very very important for me to be out on the road a lot raising funds. The Yawkey Center is a great example. That’s the only building on campus to be paid for entirely with outside private funding. We have a tremendous group of fundraisers, but I do have to spend, and enjoy spending a lot of my time fundraising.

O: What is the most rewarding part of your job?

GD: To work with student athletes on a day-by-day basis, and watch them come in as boys and girls and leave as men and women. To have an effect on somebody’s life, to help them overcome a problem, whether it’s a divorce in the family, or an alcohol issue or any other kind of health problem or to work with somebody like Mark Herzlich in getting through some of the things that he has gone through in the past year. To work on a daily basis with them, the student athletes, and to help them is truly fun.

O: What would you say is the most unheralded BC sports team?

GD: I don’t know that we’ve got one. But other than our men’s football, basketball and hockey, and women’s basketball, I think all of our teams are unheralded. Unfortunately, they don’t get the publicity that they really deserve. If you’ll just take the fall season, women’s soccer ended up 7th in the country and went to the great eight, the men’s soccer team was 14th in the country and they went to the round of 16, field hockey was 12th in the country and they went to the NCAA tournament. We’re winning in a lot of sports. Same thing in the winter and spring sports. Those sports don’t get nearly the publicity, so in a way I think they are all unheralded.

O: The men’s basketball team has had some really disappointing losses this season, especially against non-conference teams like Harvard, Maine, and Rhode Island at home. With only eight games left, do you think the team will get a shot at March Madness?

GD: You know what, I do. I think that we could get real hot here and put together a string of victories, and we’ve got enough real good teams on our schedule that that would give us some great wins. We’re at a critical point in our season because we’re right in the middle of the conference and so if we get hot, yeah, anything’s possible. We have had some disappointing losses, and then we’ve had some real good victories. We’ve beaten Providence on the road, we beat Michigan on the road, we’ve beaten Clemson, who was ranked 21st, so we’ve had some good wins, we’ve had some real disappointing losses, but if we catch fire here, anything’s possible.

O: For the team to have what you would consider a successful season, do they need to make it to March Madness?

GD: Of course our goal in every sport is to win the conference championship, but there’s a lot more to be learned by athletics other than just wins and losses. I want us to be the best BC that we can be. People ask us sometimes would you like to be Stanford or would you like to be Duke or whoever. We don’t want to be anybody other than Boston College. We want to be the best BC that we can be, and that’s what we try to do every single day. So as long as we’re being the best we can be, getting the best out of the talent we have and giving a great effort, that’s what’s really important.

O: The football team lost to USC in the Emerald Bowl, but with all of the changes the team underwent before and during the season, involving both coaches and players, would you say that it was still a successful season?

GD: This past year’s football team will probably go down as one of my favorite football teams of all time, simply because of the adversity that those players went through. You know changing coaches in January and bringing in some new staff members, then we get into spring practice and our captain, Mike McLaughlin, tears an Achilles tendon, he’s our middle linebacker. Our full back, James McCluskey, tears an Achilles tendon, so we lose two starters. At the end of spring practice, Mark Herzlich is diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma. In June, our quarterback transferred. So we started the season with three linebackers whom had never played and we had three quarterbacks who had never played in a varsity game, and to come out with an 8-4 record and a 5-3 record in the ACC, is just remarkable. This team will be one of my top one or two favorite teams in all the years that I’ve been in this.

O: With Herzlich back practicing, where do you project the football team to be next season?

GD: I’m not a predictor. I think that we’ll be a lot more experienced this year than we were last year. With coach Spaziani and our staff, and with the work ethic of our players, our goal is to go out and win the ACC championship. That’s what we’re working for right now.

O: The Beanpot is finally here and the Eagles have a chance to win their 15th title. Last year, Northeastern had a decisive victory over BC, and BU went on to win their 29th Beanpot title. Do you think the Eagles can win the Championship game this year?

GD: Oh yeah, yeah, I really do. I always think we’re going to win every game. So I’m going into the Beanpot thinking we’re going to win the Beanpot. It’s about this time of the year that Jerry York’s teams always take off. People are always worried in December and January. “Oh they’re young or they’ve got a few guys hurt” or whatever. I never worry because when you get near Beanpot time, BC just takes off, and we keep getting better and better and better. And I know this, there’s no team in hockey East that’s going to want to face this BC hockey team in March, I’ll just tell you that right now.

O: In the Championship game, BC will face BU. You’d still pick BC as the winner, keeping in mind BC has dropped the past two games to BU, one at Fenway and one here at home?

GD: Absolutely. Yes, I’d pick us as the winner.

O: When a team has a losing season, where do you look to make changes?

GD: When we have a losing season, the first thing that we do is as a staff, we look at all the support people. Are we doing everything we can from an athletic director’s standpoint? Are we doing everything we can from a financial standpoint? Are we doing everything from sports information, from the weight room, in the training room? Are we providing all the support and assistance necessary for that staff and those players to be successful? We look at the coaching staff. We look at our talent. We look at our competition. When we have a losing season or when we have a winning season, at the end of the year, we go through things from top to bottom and try to make it better, so we can be the best BC that we can be. My old football coach at Springfield College used to always tell me when we won, he used to say “Gene, things are never as good as they appear to be and they’re never as bad as they appear to be. Remember that,” and I’d say “yes sir.”

O: In what area does the BC athletics program excel the most at?

GD: I think we do as good a job as anybody in the country in balancing academics and athletics. If you ask me what the toughest part of my job is, I would tell you without question it’s to maintain a balance between academics and athletics. On one hand, we have the alums, the fans, the players, and the coaches. They want a win and they want to win a lot of games. On the other hand, you’ve got the Board of Trustees, the administration, the deans and the faculty, and they want us to do really really well academically so finding that fine balance is very very important. Our graduation rate for the last 15 years or so has been about 96%, and we win in most all of our sports. So I think that we do probably as well in balancing the academics and athletics as anybody in the country. I always tongue-incheek tease about our alums. I say that our alumni would like us to be Harvard Monday to Friday, and Alabama on Saturday afternoon. That’s a tough task.

O: In what area does the BC athletics program need the most improvement?

GD: I don’t know if there’s an area we need the most improvement in. I think that from a facilities standpoint, from a coaching standpoint, we’ve got some real good things. The one disadvantage that I think we have with our spring sports, here in the northeast, and it’s not just Boston College, but everybody in the northeast part of the country, is the weather. You know the baseball teams, the softball teams, the golf teams, down south, many of whom we compete on a weekly basis, they’re out practicing starting February the 1st. Yes, the bubble is terrific for us and it has been very very helpful, but there’s nothing like being outside to practice your putting and your chipping, your pitching in baseball or softball, or your women’s lacrosse or track and field, whatever the sport is, we’re disadvantaged by weather. But we don’t use that as an excuse. There are no excuses. We know what the weather is and we make the best of it.

O: Do you attend many BC sporting events?

GD: I do. I try to attend as many as I can. This job is not a job. It’s a lifestyle. I work every day. My wife made me take New Years Day off, and sit home, and I did, but I work every day and I don’t call it work. Work to me is doing something that you don’t want to do. It’s mowing the grass, it’s taking out the garbage, it’s raking leaves. That to me is work. What I do, it’s not work. It’s a joy. I can’t wait to get up in the morning and to get in here. I get so excited for our coaches and our teams. I love being at the games. I love being around the coaches, I love being around the players. So you know, I’m very very very fortunate in life that I have an opportunity to do something that I really really love to do, and you know, I’m lucky.

O: Would you agree that not very many SuperFans show up to BC sporting events? If so, what do you attribute the lack of SuperFans at games supporting our teams to?

GD: I think that our students are really really good fans. Some of the games are during the week and a lot of students have classes during the week, a lot of students are studying during the week. We have a lot more going on at Boston College and a lot more interests than just in athletics. When Notre Dame comes in here in football or Duke and North Carolina come in here in basketball, as they will within the next three weeks, this gym will be alive and hopping and you will be able to cut the enthusiasm with a knife. I love our students. They have been terrific for us, and I understand that they have other things in their life. And that’s not a bad thing, that’s a good thing.

Related Articles: