Celebrating the Football Life of Legendary Coach Peter Mazzaferro

By Jim Fenton

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. — Peter Mazzaferro had a number of different addresses after graduating from Suffield Academy in Connecticut.

He spent four years at Centre College in Danville, Ky., graduating in 1954, and pursued a Master’s degree at Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Mazzaferro was then drafted into the U.S. Army and was stationed in Texas and Virginia, and he was also a teacher and coach in Philmont, N.Y.

He was a college coach at Waynesburg University and Geneva College in Pennsylvania and also Curry College in Milton, Mass.

After all those stops, Mazzaferro found a permanent home when he was hired as an assistant football coach at the former Bridgewater State College in 1966 by head coach Ed Swenson.

At the age of 36, Mazzaferro landed in a spot where he would settle in, becoming the long-time head coach and an associate professor in the Department of Physical Education.

Mazzaferro was the Bears’ head coach from 1968 until 2004, compiling a 195-137-7 record.

Coach Mazzaferro died on Friday, May 30 at the age of 94.

After his 34-year teaching and 36-year coaching career ended, Mazzaferro could be found at the Bridgewater State football, basketball and baseball games, following the athletics program closely while in his 90s.

The school meant a lot to Mazzaferro, who was born in Torrington, Conn., on June 24, 1930.

“It’s been my whole life, really,” Mazzaferro once said. “I dedicated my life to Bridgewater State football.”

Mazzaferro was in need of a job in 1966, and Swenson, who he had met at a coaching clinic in the Catskills, was there to offer one.

After two seasons on Swenson’s staff, Mazzaferro was elevated to the head job when Swenson, also the director of athletics, stepped down.

The Bears won six New England Football Conference titles and made it to the NCAA Division 3 tournament in 1999 and 2000 under Mazzaferro. He also guided them to ECAC postseason games in 1989 and 1992.

Mazzaferro was the New England Football Writers Divisions 2-3 Coach of the Year in 1989 and 1999. BSU went 34-6-1 from 1989-92, putting together a 10-0 regular season on the way to the NCAAs.

He received the George C. Carens Award in 1996 for outstanding contributions to college football in New England and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the All-American Football Foundation.

“I had met Ed Swenson at a coaching clinic up at the Catskills,” recalled Mazzaferro. “One time when I was coaching at Waynesburg (University in Pennsylvania), he asked me to play them.

I looked at the football guide and Bridgewater wasn’t even listed. I didn’t know much about it.

“I came here and they gave me faculty ranking and a decent salary, so I never thought of leaving.

“If I had never met Ed Swenson back then, “I guess I never would have known about Bridgewater State.”

Mazzaferro was a defensive end on the Centre College football team in the 1950s and ran the quarter-mile in track in addition to playing basketball. Mazzaferro was inducted into Centre’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008.

Whenever Mazzaferro was discussing his alma mater, he was sure to note that Centre pulled off one of the greatest college football upsets in 1921, knocking off Harvard.

Mazzaferro was inducted into the Bridgewater State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994.

“We refer to him as ‘Papa Bear,'” Rich Florence, who played for Mazzaferro from 1971-74 and was an assistant coach from 1977-93, once said. “He’s touched and he’s  impacted the lives of so many players. It’s almost tough to count them. He’s just so well respected.”

Joe Verria, the current head coach at BSU, also played for Mazzaferro from 1976-79 and became one of his assistants in 1988.

“He’s someone who has dedicated his life to BSU football, BSU athletics,” Verria once said. “When I came  here my freshman year, he was my head coach and he’s the one who gave me the opportunity to coach college football and I’ve been here ever since.”

Bridgewater State honored Mazzaferro on Sept. 8, 2023 when it named the Bears’ home field the Peter Mazzaferro Field.

“The reason is really clear,” said BSU President Fred Clark at the time. “He’s done so much for us, 36 years as not  just a coach but a physical education faculty member, and in both areas he excelled.

“It’s the way he coached that influenced my enthusiasm. He focused on fair play, strong character  and understood the importance of not just creating great students but creating great people.

“We remember where we’ve come from and as we’re moving forward into the future, we remember that we  stand on the shoulders of truly great people that created the foundation on which we’ve built.

“Peter Mazzaferro is one of those folks who created the remarkable foundation here at Bridgewater State.”

Mazzaferro wrote a book, “Dropkick Me Through the Goalposts,” detailing his life and coaching career. He told the story of teaching and coaching at Ockawamick Central School near Albany, N.Y., where one of the students was Oliver North, the Marine involved in the Iran-Contra scandal.

He was also an expert on western Pennsylvania because of his time at Waynesburg and Geneva and rattled off the names of outstanding football talent from the area like Joe Montana, Joe Namath, Mike Ditka, Dan Marino and Johnny Unitas.

Mazzaferro also worked at camps operated by Clair Bee, the famous basketball coach.

But for all of his stops along the way, none could top all of the time that he spent at Bridgewater State dating back to the mid-1960s.