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Football is a family affair for the Pelinis
YSU coach goes out of his way to watch son play
By JOHN HARRIS
youngstown
Professionally, Youngs-town State football coach Bo Pelini recently celebrated a big win over Southern Illinois that positioned his team for a FCS playoff berth.
Personally, however, Pelini was still digesting what transpired less than 24 hours earlier when his son Pat’s Cardinal Mooney High School football team lost to Chardon Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin in a Division IV Region 13 semifinal playoff game.
While Pelini’s YSU season continued, his son’s high school career ended abruptly.
And for a coach whose hardscrabble public persona is one of no-nonsense toughness, deep down he’s just a dad.
“I’m proud of him and what he’s accomplished” said Bo Pelini, a graduate of Mooney who’s in his second year at YSU.
“When I’m coaching a game, there’s certain things you feel you have control over,” Pelini said. “When he’s out there, you don’t have any control over it. You live and die on every play. It’s hard emotionally. That’s where your mind-set is.”
Pat enjoyed every moment of the unique father-son bond.
“We talk about both of our teams and a lot of in-depth conversations about football,” Pat said. “He’s always there for me when I need him. If I need to ask him a question, I’ll go to him.
“But he’s not going to make me go outside and do 50 push-ups or something crazy like that. He tries to stay out of it as much as he can. He wants to be a dad, but he’s a coach when he needs to be.”
Despite around-the-clock demands associated with being a college football coach, Bo Pelini attended all but three of Mooney’s 11 games this season.
If Pelini has one regret, it was missing Pat scoring both of his team’s touchdowns, including a 75-yard punt return and recording two interceptions in Mooney’s win over archrival Ursuline when YSU was preparing for a road game against South Dakota State.
Said Pat, who added quarterback to his defensive back duties over the final four games resulting from injuries to starter Antonio Page: “It was one of those moments that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.”
Bo Pelini recalled how he felt not being there.
“I’m listening to the Ursuline game. I’m listening to the Hubbard [playoff] game [when YSU was on the road against North Dakota State] and I don’t know if I’ve ever been that stressed out in my life,” he said. “No. 1, you’re not there.
“I try to make all my kids’ games, I always have. I figured out a way, unless I was on the road, to make all the games. It’s hard when I’m not there.”
Following a long day of meetings and practice, Coach Pelini became simply “Dad” upon showing up without fanfare minutes before the playoff game at Niles’ Bo Rein Stadium with wife, Mary Pat (known as Mip) ,and daughters Kate and Caralyn.
When the game ended and the Cardinals walked slowly off the field after congratulating the winners, Pelini, like the other Mooney parents and family members in attendance supporting their sons, stood near the railing separating the stands from the field and watched in quiet solitude.
“You’re used to being involved in it,” he said. “I really don’t have any involvement other than emotional involvement. That’s different.”
Over the years, Pelini discovered the importance of forging a healthy balance between his professional life and family.
“I learned a long time ago in coaching, you’ve got to have balance,” he said. “At the end of the day, I’m about this [YSU] football team. But family’s always got to come first.
“I’ve been fortunate in the different jobs I’ve been in, I’ve always been able to find a way to get there. Sometimes it requires a late night if one of my kids plays during that week, but I’m going to make it to that game. I might have to come back and finish and be up late or up early the next day, but that’s one of the nice things about being in charge.”
Before Pelini accepted the YSU job following a lengthy head coaching stint at Nebraska, he considered how the move would affect his family.
For Pat, the oldest of the three children who was born in Boston when his father was an assistant coach with the New England Patriots and enjoyed living in Nebraska, the move to Northeast Ohio wasn’t an easy one. Looking back, however, Pat believes it was the best move the family could have made.
“Being a coach’s son, we’ve done a lot of moving. It’s been hard. Especially my last move,” he said. “I had to leave behind a lot of friends. That was the hardest move probably. But it definitely brought our family closer together.
“My Dad looked at his options and said, 'What do you guys want to do?’ He didn’t say, 'I want to do this, I want to do that.’ He asked us what we wanted to do. We put family first and did it together.
“I really didn’t understand what the Mooney family was all about and the tradition it had until I got here. To experience the same thing that my parents went through in high school here is really special.”