NORRISTOWN — Four distinguished contributors to the Montgomery County sports scene are the latest additions to the Montgomery County Community Coaches Hall of Fame.

The four new ‘Honor Roll’ selections are Rod Johnson of Spring City, Earle Mercandante of Plymouth Township, Frank Bishop of East Norriton and the late Tony Chiccino of Bridgeport. They will be honored at the Montgomery County Coaches Hall of Fame induction banquet, which takes place on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at Westover Golf Club.

Anthony ”Chic“ Chiccino

It has been more than 20 years since the unexpected death of Tony Chiccino at age 51, yet there is still an absolute reverence whenever his name is mentioned in the Bridgeport area.

Chiccino first got noticed as a star athlete at Bridgeport High — such a star that the legendary Coach Bear Bryant, then at Kentucky, found his way to the tiny school and recruited the bruising fullback. After college and a stint in the military, Chiccino returned to Bridgeport, where he began a career of service to the community.

Although a noted football coach at Bridgeport, Upper Merion and Phoenixville High (the school’s greatest team, 12-0 in 1978), it was in the community where he really shined. He started Bridgeport’s famous Alabama Booster Club, pledging allegiance to Bear Bryant. He even got the coach to speak at the Holy Name breakfast in 1978. Each summer he ran the community recreation programs during the day and the Bridgeport Softball League at night. He served as president from 1960 to 1985.

Today, his legacy lives on in Bridgeport, as thousands of athletes play on the Anthony J. Chiccino Memorial Fields.
Posted by SD on 10/10/2007, 9:59 pm, in reply to "Mont. County Coaches Hall of Fame Dinner"
 
In Honoring Tony Chiccino (Big Chic), they're basically honoring the whole Chiccino family including Young Chic (Tony) also. I have learned over the past couple months that the Chiccino name is still royality in Bridgeport. And Nicky is right up there with his dad and brother in class, dignity and athleticism. It will be a nice night and an honor and also long overdue in this area to honor Tony Chiccino for what he did for the Bridgeport people. Here is a bio on what the man did:

Anthony J. “Chic” Chiccino was born in the tiny village of Howellville, Pennsylvania He was 1 of 7 Brothers, Pete, Frank, Val, Joe, Nick and Charles and 1 sister Purina. He moved to Bridgeport when he was 12 years old to live with his Godparents. He attended and graduated from the old Bridgeport High School in 1951. It was there that he excelled in Football, Basketball and Baseball. Bridgeport was a tiny school and often overmatched in many of their games, but that didn’t stop Chiccino from being noticed on the football field. His exploits caught the attention of the legendary College Football Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, who at the time was coaching at the University of Kentucky. Coach Bryant offered Tony Chiccino a scholarship to attend the University Kentucky to play football. Although Coach Bryant only coached Tony’s Freshman and Sophomore years, he made a lifelong impression on young Tony. He went to the Cotton Bowl with the team as a Freshman and watched Kentucky defeat TCU 20-7 behind the two touchdown passes of future professional quarterback Vito (Babe) Parilli. Blanton Collier took over as head coach for Tony’s Junior and Senior years. Tony was the starting Fullback for those two years and led Kentucky to a 7-3 record in 1954 and a 6-3-1 record in 1955. Chiccino graduated from Kentucky in 1955. Chiccino’s football career at Bridgeport High School was filled with enough good memories to warrant him a position on the Times Herald All-Time Football Team when the local paper announced it’s selections back in 2000.

He served in the Armed Forces from 1956 to 1958 and when he finished his military service, he returned home to Bridgeport where he taught at Bridgeport High School and voluntarily coached Football, Basketball and Baseball from 1958 to 1965. He was the Head Football Coach from 1960 to 1965. The school always had much larger schools on its schedule and often had tough seasons, but he taught his players to always play hard and never, ever give up, no matter how big or better the opponent was. Bridgeport High School closed its doors in 1966 and the school was absorbed into the Upper Merion School District. Chiccino spent a year at Upper Merion High School before he left for Phoenixville High School. He taught and coached football there from 1968 up until his untimely death in 1985 at the age of only 51 years old. His 1978 team went 12-0 and still considered the best team in school history. He was a beloved figure at that school as evident by the Anthony Chiccino College Scholarship Award that still exists to this day at Phoenixville High. This scholarship is presented annually to the school’s scholar-athlete.

When Tony Chiccino wasn’t teaching or coaching, he was doing other things to make the Bridgeport community a better place to live and even more so, a better place for people to participate in sports. He was so revered in his hometown; he was elected as a Bridgeport Councilman and served from the 1970’s up until his death in 1985. He started Bridgeport’s famous Alabama Booster Club in honor of his old collegiate coach Bear Bryant. The booster club annually attends a University of Alabama football game in Tuscaloosa. The Alabama Booster Club also raises enough money each year to award a scholarship to a lucky local student to attend the University of Alabama. Chiccino remained close to Bear Bryant all those years after playing for him. He even got the “Bear” to come up to Bridgeport to speak at the Holy Name breakfast in 1978 as the guest speaker. Chiccino started the Bridgeport Park & Recreation programs and was deservingly named the first director of this program. Much of his summer was spent running the Rec Programs in the daytime and the Bridgeport Softball League at night. The Bridgeport Softball League is one of the oldest continuous running leagues in the country. The league started as a fast-pitch league in 1935 and continued that way up until 1959 when it switched over to slow pitch. Chiccino became president of the league in 1960 and ran it up until 1985. He did all of the work on the field by himself, often enlisting the help of his sons, Anthony and Nicky. After his death in 1985, the field was dedicated and renamed the Anthony J. Chiccino Memorial Fields. The league was one of the best around back in the 1980’s with Chiccino at the helm, amassing a total of 50 plus teams the last couple years before his death and was on par with the Norristown League in talent and success of it’s teams in state competition. It was considered an honor to win both leagues in the same year and it didn’t happen too many times either which goes to show how competitive each league was. Right before he passed away, he and Norristown League Commissioner Sully “Heels” Gelet were in the process of combining the Bridgeport “A” Division with the Norristown “A” Division to form the “Inter-Borough” Softball League where teams would play at both locations and crown the combined Bridgeport-Norristown Champion at the conclusion of the season. This was a dream that “Chic” had and it died along with him. Gelet still to this day says that Chiccino’s idea would have made this area’s upper level softball program the best in Eastern Pennsylvania.

His viewing in 1985 is still considered the largest in the Borough’s history. People waited in lines that stretched up DeKalb Pike for hours just to pay their respects to the man that gave so much and asked for so little. He instilled his willingness and dedication to athletics and the importance of youth programs to his son Anthony C. Chiccino, who followed in his father’s footsteps as he worked tirelessly coaching at St. Titus Elementary School and Norristown High School. He also spent his summers working in the Bridgeport Parks & Rec programs. He too tragically passed away back in 2001 at the young age of 32 working at the recreation program teaching young kids the basics of basketball. Young “Chic” as he was called left behind a fiancée Nora Dollarton. His dad would have been so proud of him.

Mrs. Rita (Nicola) Chiccino has had her share of heartaches losing a husband and a son, but she can rest assured that the Chiccino name will always be associated with respect, honor and dignity. Mrs. Chiccino still lives in the same house on Grove Street she shared with her late husband and raised her family. She has son Nick (wife Maggie) and daughters Mary Rose Swenda (husband Tom), Rita and Dolores. It is many times said, only the good die young and in the case of the Chiccino Family, this is so true.
 John

CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer
Johnny Nicola, 65, president of the University of Alabama Booster Club of Bridgeport, is surrounded by memorabilia in his home.

Montco's 'Crimson Tide' booster club getting excited

By Derrick Nunnally

Inquirer Staff Writer         link to the article

You can read about cargo cults in anthropology books and learn how a chance encounter with another culture can give an isolated group enthusiasm for generations.

Or you can drive to Bridgeport on a fall Saturday, roll down your windows, and observe something pretty close.

Just follow the shouts of "Roll Tide!"

Nearly 900 miles from Tuscaloosa, Ala., and almost 40 years after they first assembled, members of the University of Alabama Booster Club of Bridgeport have exulted this month about their Crimson Tide's dramatic ascendance toward the top of the college football rankings.

"I've never felt so great about an Alabama team," said George Lombardo, a mortgage consultant who travels from his home in Bethel Township, Delaware County, to hang out with other Alabama faithful.

Bridgeport is a gritty Montgomery County borough with a population of fewer than 5,000 and seemingly securely in Penn State territory. Yet for decades, an Italian old-boys' club - not one member of which graduated from Alabama - has cheered on the Southern school's football team, made annual pilgrimages to games, and even funded scholarships there.

Why? Because a native son, the late Anthony Chiccino, played for the legendary coach Paul W. "Bear" Bryant at Kentucky in the 1950s.

Chiccino, a fullback for Bryant, watched as his old coach took over at Alabama in 1958 and began piling up the wins. Chiccino's brothers-in-law, Johnny and Jerry Nicola, kept hearing Chiccino's reverent accounts about being around the coach, and got intrigued.

Then they got devoted. Then they evangelized.

Eventually, a formal social club was mustered up, with bylaws, a membership cap of 20 (with a waiting list) and a clubhouse, which members decorated in 'Bama crimson and white, with banners and Bryant pictures. The members even established a scholarship fund for students from Pennsylvania and New Jersey who attend Alabama.

"I grew up with a lot of Notre Dame or Penn State clubs, and I think we surpassed most of them," Johnny Nicola said, "especially when you say it's a booster club here with that commitment to Alabama."

Jerry Nicola is Bridgeport's mayor, and Johnny, a garrulous 65-year-old, is the club president. During its 37-year existence, their group has put on parties in Birmingham and, when the Tide won titles, erected billboards in Bridgeport.

In 1979, two weeks before a national title game, Bryant himself even visited. For him, the club held a $20-per-plate dinner at the SS. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Hall. The event drew 500 people and the sporting press, which heard Bryant tell a story about going from dirt-poor upbringings to football championships.

"Believe me, it was like being in church," Johnny Nicola said. "You could've heard a pin drop."

In the years since, the club - like Alabama football - has seen shifting fortunes. Chiccino died in 1985, two years after Bryant. Other members became too old to travel to Alabama for games. Nephews and sons filled the ranks of the all-male group.

The first few coaches after Bryant came up for banquets in their honor, but those events got too onerous to organize. Alabama, after all, has had eight coaches since Bryant retired in 1982. And the lease for the clubhouse wasn't renewed.

But some things endure, particularly the annual road trip.

Every year, the club members who can make it fly as a group to Birmingham and place a wreath on Bryant's grave in Elmwood Cemetery before driving to Tuscaloosa for the game. This year's trip happened last weekend, and university officials even gave the club a luncheon Friday at which the members met scholarship winners.

And Saturday, the club was featured in the game-day program at Bryant-Denny Stadium, where Alabama beat Kentucky, Chiccino's old school, 17-14. It was Nicola's first in-person inspection of his Tide this season, and he left fretting at how close the game was due to ill-timed Alabama penalties and turnovers. This would not do, now that he's gotten excited about the 6-0 Tide ascending to number two nationally.

"I sure hope they got that out of their system," Nicola said, listing a litany of miscues he watched against Kentucky.

Even in the Tide's off years, club members have remained devoted, but this year's success has made their rooting easy - and, possibly, amplified.

Last week, Nicola's living room had more than a dozen figurines and pictures of Alabama elephants on display, and a visage of Bryant peering from each of the four walls, alongside autographed photos of his coaching successors.

Nicola has met every coach since Bryant, and finds himself infatuated with Nick Saban's current Tide team, which pummeled highly regarded Georgia last week and suddenly became a national contender.

"The team, I can see the difference with Coach Saban," Nicola said. "Everything's more in unison, the way it used to be."

Members haven't begun planning a laudatory billboard just yet - "it's way too early," Nicola said - but they are rife with enthusiasm.

"I think this is the most feared team in the country right now," Lombardo crowed.

 

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