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WHEELING – As a new college graduate, Dino Gaudio wanted to find a place where he could not only teach students, but also coach them on the basketball court.
Months of searching, however, yielded no job prospects. With two weeks left before the 1981 school year, it was a newspaper ad that changed Gaudio’s fortunes.
“I picked up The Intelligencer one day, and it says in there ‘business teacher, assistant basketball coach, Wheeling Central Catholic High School,” he said. “I said ‘that’s me.'”
He interviewed for the position the next day, and was offered the job that afternoon by then principal Joseph “Doc” Viglietta – an offer that didn’t sit well with Central’s head basketball coach, Skip Prosser.
“Skip wanted another guy … and was a little miffed he doesn’t have a say in who Doc is hiring,” Gaudio said.
When Prosser learned Viglietta had hired Gaudio, Prosser responded in a less than enthusiastic manner.
“Skip says ‘what is a Dino Gaudio and how do you know he can coach?'” Gaudio said.
Viglietta answered that there was a very simple reason he knew Gaudio would do a great job.
“He told me he could coach,” he said to Prosser.
That interaction was the beginning of a friendship bound by success on the court, as Prosser and Gaudio worked side-by-side for 27 years until Prosser’s death in 2007. Gaudio spoke of that relationship and thanked Viglietta for the opportunity Wednesday during the YMCA Light of the Valley luncheon at Wheeling Park’s White Palace. Viglietta was given the Dr. Lee Jones Patron of Youth Award for his years of service to Wheeling Central and youth. Gaudio said Viglietta’s leadership had a profound effect on his coaching career.
“I’ve often spoken to people under my charge … and told them it’s not where you are that’s important, it’s who you are with,” Gaudio said. “At Central, you were with great people … and (Viglietta) created an environment where students could thrive and succeed.”
That success came quickly to Prosser and Gaudio, as the basketball team became a state powerhouse. Gaudio recounted the 1982 state championship season, in which the team suffered just one loss to Cambridge – an event he said displayed the Wheeling Central attitude.
“They beat us – the officiating was questionable – but Skip never made an excuse about officiating,” Gaudio said.
When Prosser heard his team complaining about the referees, he didn’t hesitate to walk into the shower and remind his team of his expectations.
“He walks around the corner into the shower – the water is up to his calf and he’s in dress shoes – and he gives it to those kids,” Gaudio said. “He told them it’s not about the officials, its about us, and we didn’t play well.”
After arriving back at Central, the lessons continued.
“We’re driving up Eoff Street … all those cars and those parents are waiting for those kids. It’s a school night, it is cold, it’s January, the exhausts are running,” Gaudio said. “We go back in the locker room and we talked to those kids another 40 minutes. Those parents are out there waiting.”
Despite the long meeting, Gaudio said not a single parent complained, which showed the power a strong staff and good leadership can have.
“Those parents trusted (Viglietta) and the people he hired to coach his kids, that if they were in the locker room, they deserved to hear what he had to say,” Gaudio said.
After Prosser left to take a job at Xavier University, Gaudio lead Central to a state title in 1987. He then rejoined Prosser at Xavier before taking a job at the United States Military Academy at Westpoint in 1993. He recounted a day in which he saw former Army and NFL coach Bill Parcells roaming the endzone of the football field, and asked a staff member why Parcells was there.
“He has so many knuckleheads in the NFL, every once in a while he likes to drive across the (George Washington) Bridge, up the Palisades Parkway to West Point because he wants to revisit old values – values that are timeless and true,” Gaudio said.
Those same principals exist at Wheeling Central, and Gaudio said they served as a powerful recruiting tool during his coaching tenure.
Now an analyst for ESPN, Gaudio said he is often asked what makes a good coach. His response, he said, is rooted in the ideas he learned from Viglietta, Prosser and the rest of the staff at Wheeling Central.
“Telling isn’t teaching,” he said. “To be an effective teacher, you have to tell them what you want, show them what you want, have them demonstrate … and correcting their demonstrations, and repetition. I learned that on 14th and Eoff streets.
“For you to be an effective teacher … they have to trust you … that was a big word with me and Skip. The foundation is in trust, and Central is the epitome of trust.”