Basketball legend DeFazio dies after battle with cancer

There are some memories of when you are a small child that remain with you for a lifetime, flashbacks to perhaps your earliest recollections.
Like when JFK was assassinated. I was a little more than two years old, but I remember how our family mourned for days, glued to the television for any and all news of the tragedy.
I remember when my brother, Jack, came home from his stint with the U.S. Marines and I didn’t know who he was and I cried for hours.
And at the tender age of 4, I vividly recall the first time I laid eyes on the guy who would eventually become my coach, my mentor and my friend, Bill DeFazio.
At that time, DeFazio was my next-door neighbor on Kennedy Blvd. and I was always fascinated by him, because he was reminded me of Leo Gorcey of the old “Bowery Boys” movies that were on Channel 11 every Sunday morning.
On this one day, DeFazio was having a football catch with Bob Hurley, the same Hurley who is one of the newest members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The football rolled into the sewer. Everyone had to believe that the impromptu game of football was over.
But the undaunted DeFazio would have nothing of it. He went head first into the sewer, considering he was all of 5-foot-4 and 120 pounds, so he could fit easily, and got the ball and came out to have the game go on.
It was a scene I could never forget and one of the many over the last 40 years that remain in my head about DeFazio, who died Wednesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 63.
Hurley recalled the sewer incident as he remembered his friend of 55 years.
“He always had the propensity to do things like that,” Hurley said. “If it meant going after the ball, then that’s what Billy did. Billy was strong enough to lift the sewer plate, but he just went right in.”
Hurley recalled the first time he met DeFazio.
“We had just moved to the Greenville section when I was in third grade,” Hurley said. “Within a week or so, we started to play all the sports together in the Linden Avenue courtyard. Both of us were there all the time.”
DeFazio and Hurley were teammates together at the now-defunct St. Paul’s of Greenville, a sports program that gave both legendary coaches their starts in coaching. DeFazio then went to Snyder High School and was a fine football player there. After high school, DeFazio enlisted in the U.S. Army and had an extensive tour of duty in Vietnam.
In 1970, DeFazio became the head football coach at St. Paul’s and would also become a basketball coach and athletic director of that flourishing program.
“As great of a coach he turned out to be in girls’ basketball, he was at his best coaching football,” Hurley said. “It was his true talent. It’s a shame he never got a chance to run a football program, because he would have been brilliant.”
It was at St. Paul’s where I had the chance to play for DeFazio, which led to a close relationship that would last a lifetime. Despite his size, he was the most feared and revered man in our neighborhood, because we never wanted to do anything wrong to infuriate him and we always wanted him to appreciate what we did and who we were.
After his stint at St. Paul’s, it was Hurley who recommended DeFazio to the people at St. Anthony that he should become the new girls’ basketball coach there.
“I just knew that he had the organizational skills to do a great job,” Hurley said. “Billy ran everything at St. Paul’s. He had that endless energy and was committed to put his mark in everything he did. He knew kids and knew how to take advantage of their skills. No challenge was too hard for him. It didn’t matter he never coached girls’ basketball before. He was a coach.”
DeFazio would then become the most successful girls’ basketball coach in Hudson County history, winning a total of 576 games as a head coach. He was the only Hudson County coach to win county crowns at two different schools, St. Anthony and Marist. He’s the only coach in the state to win NJSIAA state titles at two schools and the only Hudson County coach to have two state titles.
Through the years, there were some epic rivalries between DeFazio and another legendary coach, Bayonne’s Jeff Stabile. It was believed that the two had a heated and antagonistic relationship, but it was not the case at all.
“After the games were over, we’d say, ‘Let’s go have a beer,’ ” Stabile said. “We would go scouting together. He did his job and did it well. Billy put the time in and practiced at night, because he worked during the day [DeFazio was a contractor full-time]. It was difficult for him and for his kids. But he was able to get a lot out of players that a lot of other coaches would never be able to get. There were some amazing things that happened over the years. There were times I’d try to figure out what he was doing. From the time he was at St. Anthony’s to the days at Marist, I was amazed how he was able to do everything he did.”
DeFazio was definitely the most competitive man I’ve ever known – and that comes from someone who is extremely competitive.
Just how competitive? At times, he would go head-to-head with his own wife, Alice, who was the head coach at St. Dominic Academy when Bill was at St. Anthony. And there was nothing he would rather do than to take a victory home to their home on Pearsall Avenue.
“I remember when he took the job at St. Anthony and he brought his team to Country Village to practice and I would work out with them,” said Alice DeFazio, who is currently the athletic director at New Jersey City University. “And he literally ran me over. He didn’t spare me once. I think it was the whole concept of tough love. It didn’t matter if you were his wife, his daughters or his grandson, he had to be tough on you. But it would always end with a hug or a kiss. That’s the side of him that a lot of people never saw.”
I also know that side as well, because during my coaching days, I had the misfortune of having played against Billy three times – and lost all three. One was in a Hudson County All-Star game where he stacked his team with the best players, then used a “run-and-jump” defense in a game that was not supposed to have zone defenses. Yes, he was certainly competitive.
Another close friend was former Harrison girls’ coach Jack Rodgers. DeFazio, Stabile and Rodgers were the three most successful coaches in Hudson County girls’ basketball history.
“I played against him five times and he got me three times,” Rodgers said. “The battles were great. I think a lot of people came to see the antics on the sidelines.”
Rodgers recalled one St. Anthony-Harrison game that went to double overtime.
“They fouled out so many kids and had to play the second overtime with just three kids left on the floor,” Rodgers said. “We won that one.”
Rodgers remembered that DeFazio came to his final game as a coach three years ago.
“Our friendship grew closer over the years,” Rodgers said. “It was a nice relationship. He just embraced you by the way he was. He really cared about the kids and the game. He always outcoached the other guy. The energy he had was incredible. It was fun being his friend and fun knowing him. No matter what, he was always your ally.”
Everyone who ever knew Bill DeFazio knew one thing. There was nothing else like him on the planet – in a good way. I always called him “the Tasmanian Devil” because he would be constantly spinning, a whirling dervish. Incredibly, the welcome mat to the DeFazio home featured the cartoon character.
“He was truly one of a kind,” Rodgers said.
“He was like the Energizer Bunny,” Hurley said. “He would go and build a new room on a house, then go have practice. I’ve been thinking all day what a unique person he was and how many people he had a positive effect on. He’s a guy who has friends in every single walk of life. He was an amazing guy, a special guy, a phenomenal guy.”
“You’re not going to duplicate Billy DeFazio,” Stabile said. “When God was making the animals and decided He needed two of everything, He stopped when he made Billy.”
There’s no one to better describe him than his best friend, comrade in basketball and wife.
“I feel fortunate to have had him touch my life,” Alice DeFazio said. “He made an impact on so many people. I’m proud of the fact that I was married to Bill DeFazio. I’m gushing with pride. It makes you realize how really special he was. It’s overwhelming to know that there are so many other people who loved him.”
That includes one of his former players who later wrote about him countless times and loved him like no other person in his lifetime. One of a kind, unique, special…they’re all understatements of how truly special Bill DeFazio was – and always will be. His suffering is over. His legacy and memory will live on, no question.
Funeral services will be held Saturday and Sunday at McLaughlin Funeral Home in Jersey City from 2-6 p.m. with the funeral Mass to be held Monday at 11 a.m. at St. Vincent’s R.C. Church on Avenue C in Bayonne.
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.