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- Staten Island Advance
December 14, 2016
Curtis football community pays tribute to Mel Haskell
Peter Gambardella was still basking in the glow of Curtis' city football championship when he looked at his phone, hours after his team's victory over Erasmus Hall at Yankee Stadium.
Not surprisingly, it was a text from Mel Haskell, congratulating the Warriors head coach on the win.
"He was a loyal Curtis guy," said Gambardella of Haskell, a fixture on the Curtis sidelines for as long as anyone can remember, who passed away recently at the age of 62. "He still kept coming around."
That's what happens when something gets in your blood, the way Curtis football had with Haskell -- who went from Warriors player, to JV coach, to proud parent and uncle of those who continued the gridiron lineage in St. George.
S.I. Advance/Irving Silverstein
The football family tree included his brother, Will, one of the best players in the city in the early 1990s, who went on to compete at Washington State; his son, Mel Jr., a member of Curtis city championship teams in 1998 and '99; and his nephew, Prince DeGroat, who just celebrated his title in the Bronx on the night of Dec. 2.
"Mel leaves a big legacy," said Gambardella, who recalls seeing Haskell at the Warriors' quarterfinal triumph over Midwood last month, shortly before Haskell was hospitalized by a heart attack.
OLIVIERI REMEMBERS
Gambardella's former Curtis coach and predecessor, Fred Olivieri, remembers watching Haskell as a basketball and football player when Olivieri was just a science teacher at the school and not yet the grid coach.
Olivieri said it wasn't a coincidence that one of the reasons the program took off in the 1990s was due to Haskell, who first coached a lot of future Warriors in both the S.I. Boys Football League and the S.I. Pee Wee League before serving as their JV coach at Curtis from 1995-2002. He would win four JV crowns, including three in a row during one stretch.
"Mel coached a lot of the big names ... Steve Gregory, Mike Goodman. He was a mentor, an advisor, a 'look-out' guy," said Olivieri, who benefitted from the guidance Haskell bestowed on the program's younger players. "For me, he was a good sounding board. He helped me immensely."
Olivieri chuckled when reflecting on the time when Haskell gave him grief for taking Gregory -- a future eight-year NFL defensive back -- off the JV and promoting him to the varsity during his sophomore season.
"I saw Steve score five touchdowns in one half of a JV game and said, 'He's not doing himself any good staying down here,'" Olivieri said. "Mel got mad at me, but in a nice way."
GOOD ADVICE
It was around that same time, however, that Haskell had to convince Olivieri to bring a string-bean southpaw freshman QB named George Hassell up to the varsity.
"It was in August, right before camp. We needed a quarterback, but I took a look at George and wasn't sure," recounted Olivieri. "Mel said to me, 'Coach, I'm telling you, he can do it. I had him in the boys' league. He can do it.'"
Hassell would go on to lead Curtis to its first ever city semifinal appearance in 1996 before directing the Warriors to the city championship game his final three seasons, winning titles as a junior and senior.
"I loved the guy," Olivieri said of Haskell. "He was just such a sweetheart ... a real nice man."
He was tough when he needed to be, too. Haskell, a bear of a man physically, could use his intimidating presence to his advantage at times when trying to teach right from wrong in his neighborhood.
COMMUNITY LEADER
Once, he intervened between a gang leader and a member who wanted to leave, despite the risk of severe penalties. After a meeting, Haskell received the promise that no harm would be done to the youngster.
"It's easier for kids to get a gun than to find a mentor," Haskell told the Advance's Derek Alvez in 2000. "You have to be loud and out there -- kids are looking for direction. If we don't uplift them, we will lose them to gangs, drugs, AIDS, crime and jail."
Whether in the community or on the football field, Haskell cared about turning boys into men, stressing the need for teens to respect themselves first.
"Mel really dedicated his life toward being a positive role model," said Gambardella, who first heard of Haskell's passing while attending the Fugazzi Senior Bowl at New Dorp on Saturday afternoon. "He didn't like it, for instance, when guys wore their hat backward."
Damian McCaig was on Haskell's undefeated 1999 JV squad before becoming the Fabbri Award winner as a running back/linebacker on Curtis' 2002 city championship team. Now, the current Warriors assistant coach tries to pass on some of the lessons he learned from Haskell.
"Some coaches are Xs and Os guys, but he was about trying to get everything out of you," said McCaig, who said he consciously made sure to conduct himself properly when he found himself standing next to Haskell on the sideline this past season.
"As tough as he was, and as big a guy as he was, he just had a big heart."
The wake for Mel Haskell will be Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Martin Hughes Funeral Home, located at 530 Narrows Road South, Concord. A service will be conducted from there on Friday at 11 a.m.
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d. 10 Sep 2012, West Brighton, Monroe, New York 