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Family, friends say goodbye to Phil Annarella
Family, friends say
goodbye to Annarella
By Brian Dzenis
NILES
From a young age, Phil Annarella took care of others before himself.
Annarella took his sisters to and from school and became the man of the house after their father unexpectedly died and a eventually became a leader of hundreds of young men on the football field during his 48-year coaching career
“There will never ever be another Phil Annarella. It’s important you understand that this was a humble, loving and caring man,” said Rosiemarie Nair, Annarella’s sister, while delivering his eulogy on Saturday.
“He loved football, but wasn’t about the game. It was what he impressed on those kids. He enjoyed the challenge of leading those young men into becoming successful and good human beings.”
Annarella, the Austintown Fitch football coach who also had stops at East Liverpool, The Rayen School, Warren Western Reserve, Warren Harding, Hickory and Niles, died in his Niles home on June 8 at the age of 70. His funeral was held on Saturday at St. Stephen Church in Niles.
Annarella grew up as the oldest of three children in New Castle, Pa. One of his first responsibilities was walking his sister, Angela Micco, to school each day as there were no buses at the time. During his high school years at Union Area High School, he had to leave football practice early to take Nair home as she went to a separate Catholic school that didn’t provide any transportation.
“Can you imagine him ever leaving a practice early?” Nair said. “He’d remind me of that for years with a smirk about all the gassers he ran because of me.”
Phil’s college days stressed his parents, Philip and Helen Annarella, because of his penchant for hitch-hiking his way back to New Castle from West Virginia University, but Helen was quick to forgive and bake his favorite cinnamon rolls.
In 1973, Philip died in an industrial accident, three years after his son became an assistant football coach at East Liverpool.
“After dad was killed, Phil became the man of the house. He drove back to New Castle from East Liverpool every day after a full day of teaching and football practice,” Nair said. “You talk about the character of a man. This was a 23-year-old man having this strong sense of love, duty and compassion to make that sacrifice.
“He spent every weekend with us — ignoring calls from his friends to go out,” she added. “He got us dinner. He took us shopping and he just enjoyed every minute he had with us.”
Annarella wasn’t finished as a caregiver when his sisters reached adulthood. His wife, the late Gayle Lynn Annarella, became ill with peritoneal mesothelioma in 2011. He continued to coach while taking care of her until her death in 2012. They had been married since 1977.
“He always talked to us about how he had to find ways to spend time with her while coaching. [Gayle Lynn] understood that he needed coaching to have some sense of normalcy,” Nair said. “What he went through was horrible, but he was resolute. He never complained.”
The remaining seven years of Annarella’s life were devoted to his four children and three grandsons along with the Falcons. Nair recalled a story Annarella told when one of his former players served in the military overseas and was pinned in bunker and all he could hear during a life or death situation was one of Annarella’s quotes from the locker room, “the true test of a man is how he handles adversity.”
“That says everything. If you touch just one human being to that degree, you know your job is fulfilled,” Nair said. “I’m sure a story like that can be told by thousands of kids.”
In addition to his sisters, Annarella is survived by three daughters, Debbie Darnell of Mineral Ridge, Jennifer (David) Darnell-Sayers of Lancaster, and Melissa (George) Faluhelyi of Stow; son Philip A. (Madelyn) Annarella of Girard; grandsons, Oliver, Andrew and Matthew Faluhelyi of Stow; and his brother-in-law Lance (Jo Ann) Cullumbine of Ashland, Ore.