NEWINGTON – Dick Vida will be 84 years old in a few weeks.
He’s still out on the field, rain or shine, in freezing or sweltering weather, every day, coaching football at Newington.
“Since I’ve been here, he has never missed a practice, a meeting, nothing,” said Newington’s John Acquavita, in his third season as head coach. “Raining, it’s freezing – he’s here every day.
“His presence alone … the kids are like, ‘Well, Coach Vida’s going out in the rain today, so I got to go out there too.’”
Vida has been coaching football for over 50 years and at Newington since 1980. His son was a captain on the 1986 team. He was the head coach from 1996 to 2002, when he retired.
“I was gone for about a month,” Vida said. “Then I got a call.”
He came back as an assistant.
Vida has coached at every level at Newington, every position. Now he’s the freshman coach, welcoming the new kids into the program and watching them grow as players and people.
He’s had a good time the last few years – after Newington won two games in Acquavita’s first season, the Nor’easters went undefeated last year until losing to Wethersfield on Thanksgiving. They bounced back in a big way, though, beating Wethersfield in a rematch in the Class MM quarterfinal game.
This year, Newington (9-2) will face top-seeded Windsor, which beat the Nor’easters 50-0 last year in the Class MM semifinals, in Monday’s semifinal at Windsor at 4:30 p.m. Newington defeated Middletown 12-0 in the quarterfinal last week.
And Vida is thrilled to be a part of it still.
“This is great,” he said. “This reminds of way back when. (Acquavita) is phenomenal. I wish I was younger so I could work with him more.
“I’m just very thankful that the coaches have always brought the old man on board.”
Newington won the Class LL state title in 1980, the first year he started coaching at the school as an assistant. Vida graduated from Hartford Public in 1960, where he played football for Ralph Worth and ran track for Olympian Lindy Remigino.
Those were the coaches he wanted to emulate, when he started coaching youth football at Pope Park in Hartford before he graduated high school.
“I had coaches that were not only exceptional coaches but also people who cared and they were very in tune with their players,” he said. “They were very tough. My head coach Ralph Worth at Hartford Public, he was an All-American at Boston College.
“Every Friday night he would have us over to his house – his wife Rose would make sandwiches, crab meat and tuna fish, with punch, for us kids and we’d go over and watch video – it was a big deal.
“When I was in my 50s, I’d go over and knock on the door, and he’d open the door and say, ‘Hey, Rose, one of the boys is here.’”
Vida is still teaching those lessons that Worth taught him. Emilio Figueroa, a senior offensive lineman and captain at Newington, appreciates what Vida brings to the team.
“He’s been here forever,” Figueroa said. “He’s there every day, showing Newington spirit. He says, ‘We bleed blue and gold.’
“We had a lot of fun moments our freshman year with him.”
Vida, who coached at Windsor Locks and now-defunct South Catholic in Hartford before coming to Newington, said other schools have asked if he would come and help out.
No. Sorry. Blue and gold.
He has no plans to retire. He doesn’t play golf. He still works in the school part-time. He will celebrate 64 years of marriage to his wife Tana next May, who, he said, has always been very supportive of his passion for coaching.
A lot has changed since he started coaching, including the music.
“When we first started, it was Rocky – ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ before we’d go on the field and then it was AC/DC,” Vida said.
Now?
“I like it,” he said. “I don’t know (what the names of the songs are). Sometimes I say, ‘Guys, you got to be careful, there might be mothers out there.’ The rap music, it can be kind of strong, you know.”
Said Acquavita: “We’re in the weight room for summer lift. It’s deafening loud. I’m eating Excedrin by the handful, and he just walks in and sits down. He’s not like, ‘Oh back in the day’ … he doesn’t do that. He rolls with it.”
And Vida said he’s still learning every day, part of what keeps him coming back – that and the relationship he has with the players.
“When you hang around young people, they keep you young,” he said.
Acquavita is thrilled that Vida still wants to coach.
“With him, it’s about a good example of aging and staying involved and being part of stuff,” Acquavita said. “That would be awesome to be that age and ready to go all the time, setting an example for the kids being here every day and you’re 84. It’s unbelievable.”
