— If you cut Dave Melaragno open, he just might bleed scarlet and gray. After all, the man has spent 49 years as an Edgewood Warrior.

Melaragno, a member of the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame, first became a Warrior in 1963 as a student. After college and a brief stint as a teacher and coach at St. John, he returned to the Ashtabula Township school and has remained there ever since, serving as a teacher, coach and, most recently, as athletic director.

After all those years, Melaragno has become as much a part of the building as the walls themselves. The building, and the people inside, will now have to find a way to get along without him as he is retiring.

“It was time I do some things with my wife,” Melaragno said. “It was just time to open the door to somebody younger.

“I want to enjoy life a little bit and I don’t want to die working.”

Melaragno will take his new freedom and use it to make up for some of the time he’s lost over the years.

“I will go and see some football games,” he said. “And Linda and I will spend some time down in Florida. We have a condo and we’ll spend some time there. This year, we are going for six months. We’ll leave in November and stay into May. After this year, we’ll play it by ear. We told the kids we are taking off and won’t be around. We won’t be there for Christmas. We’ll probably have Christmas and Thanksgiving at the same time. This is the first year Linda and I will get to spend time together.”

After all that time as a teacher, coach and administrator, Melaragno is looking forward to spending that time with Linda.

“I hope she’s excited,” he joked. “I know I am. Linda’s been there for me since I started. God bless her. I love her so much. I would come home after we would lose and I’d be up watching film and breaking it down for the next game. She took care of the kids while, I guess, I played.

“There’s no way my life would be complete without her. She’s been the apple of my eye for 35 years and I hope she will be for the next 35.”

Melaragno will also take some time with his kids, Stacy, 34, Keith, 32, and Sarah, 30, as well as his grandkids, Julia, 3, Bella, 3, and Ross, 2.

“I was fortunate enough to coach all of three (of my kids) in one sport or another,” Melaragno said. “I couldn’t be prouder than I am of those three kids. They grew up to be ladies and a gentleman. They’re passionate about what they do. They have great jobs. Sarah, who’s married to Justin Sprague, and Stacy, who’s married to Scott Borgio, are married to two great guys. Keith is engaged to Katie Phillips and it will be great to have her in the family.”  

During his last 10 years at the school, Melaragno has served as the athletic director, taking over the role after retiring from his post as an English teacher and football coach.

“I will still be involved,” he said. “I will still go to games and watch the kids. It’s been a major part of my life. It’s been a great run. I had some great opportunities, some great kids and some great teams.”

As with many educators and coaches, Melaragno doesn’t look back on his years and count the victories to see how successful he has been. He sees something far more important and far more lasting than wins and losses.

“I’m most pleased to see the success of the boys who went out, grew up and became young men,” Melaragno said. “They’ve grown into young men and become a success. That’s important. That’s what’s gratifying.”

The longtime mentor hopes he played a role in the development of those young men.

“I hope I did instill in them how to be a man, how to face adversity, deal with losing and win like gentlemen,” Melaragno said. “I was never a fan of dancing in the end zone. The main things were have fun, grow into a man, respect opponents and respect their elders.”

That was an aspect Melaragno missed after moving into his administrator’s chair.

“It was tough to get away from the game,” he said. “But, again, I think it was time. It was time for somebody younger. I put my time in. I never believed winning or losing was all that important but that growing into a respectable young man was the most important thing. Life is funny. It’s not easy. There will always be adversity. Through playing sports, learning to deal with adversity is huge.    

“I always tried to stress that if you played the best game you were capable of and had fun with it, if you got beat it was just by somebody who was better.”

Making the transition from coach to administrator was not easy. But Melaragno knew exactly who to contact.

“It was difficult,” Melaragno said. “It was pretty stressful at first, but once I got in a groove, things went pretty well. I had a lot of help from other ADs. I remember being on the phone a lot with John Higgins, Dik Pavolino and Sue Herpy. They steered me in the right direction and as I got into it, it became a bit easier.”

Becoming AD allowed Melaragno to grow some of the relationships he had with his colleagues at the school.

“I was able to make great friends,” Melaragno said. “I had some great people I worked with at the high school with Greg Stolfer, Jerry Mlack, Tim Essig, Karl Williamson, Dave Fowler.

“They’re all close to my heart, as well as all the coaches who were my assistants. As the head coach, you get the brunt of everything and you get the accolades, but you can’t do it without great assistants. When I coached, I felt I had very good assistants and that’s half the battle.”

In a lot of ways, being the AD resembled being the football coach.

“It is similar, but there’s a lot more to it,” Melaragno said. “As a football coach you delegate a lot of authority to the assistants. I really believe that as a coach, I had all head coaches as my assistants.

“It’s basically the same as an AD. I was dealing with the head coaches. If something went wrong, I would go to the head coach and he would deal with his assistants. It’s different, but not much different.”

Now that it’s come to an end, Melaragno knows he made the right career choice all those years ago.

“When I think about what I’ve done, I wouldn’t do anything differently,” he said. “I’d still be a teacher and a coach. You don’t make a lot of money, but what I did, I wouldn’t change. It’s priceless.

“When a student or player comes back and talks about how successful they are or about the kids they have, or about being a doctor or a nurse or about having done something good, I think that’s the greatest thing in the world. It’s gratifying to see kids grow up and be success.”     

Ettinger is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.

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