Thousand Oaks Titans: Titan News: "Lessons of the gridiron" A story about Tony Calfo from the Ventura Star 10/05/2006

Coach Tony Calfo uses strategies he's tried to teach his players to handle personal problems of the past year

October 5, 2006

Mental strength and determination, two of the character traits Tony Calfo has tried to instill in the minds of the 250 teens he has coached over the past 10 years, have been important qualities he has needed to get through a tough year.

The recipient of the 2006 Thousand Oaks Titans' Bill Lawrence Coaching Award, presented in late summer, has found himself relying on the very effective lessons he has been teaching. In the past year, both his wife and his mother were diagnosed with breast cancer, and his second son, Vincent, was born with a birth defect that required emergency surgery the day he was born.

Through it all, the family has remained steadfast and focused. His mother is doing well, and his wife, Cristen, who he says is his hero, is just finishing her cancer regimen, Calfo said.

"Football is the best teacher of life experience in the world," the coach said. The 36-year-old volunteer uses the sport to teach children many important life lessons, including, "They learn how they must learn to rely on other people."

After playing on his team, members also come away knowing how their work and effort affects other people along with special insights on the importance of personal drive, he added.

Thousand Oaks City Councilwoman Jacqui Irwin, Titan League president, adds "teamwork and dedication," to the lessons players learn. "Tony is an extremely good role model and prepares his team for high school and life by teaching them hard work equals future success," Irwin said.

Her son Matthew, 16, was on Calfo's team, and she noticed he learned those lessons and many others from Calfo that have served him in other areas of his life, including water polo, the sport he now plays. "Matthew was very fortunate to be on Tony's team," Irwin added.

And though Calfo teaches his players that winning is not everything, he is a good football coach and took his team to the playoffs eight of the past 10 years and even won the "Super Bowl," Irwin said. Championship teams from each weight division compete in a "Super Bowl" to determine the league champions.

Calfo was one of the founding board members of the Titans League, which is a member of the Pacific Youth Football League. Titan teams compete with teams from Agoura, Camarillo, Channel Islands, Fillmore, Newbury Park, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Ventura, Crown Valley, Castaic, Burbank and Westlake Village.

"When I began, they were called the Cowboys," Calfo said. Formerly the Conejo Cowboys, the league's first season was in 1967. The name Cowboys was chosen because at the time the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League held their summer camp at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. The Dallas Cowboys stopped training at CLU after 1989.

In 2000, Calfo and other members of the board of directors, including Bryan Nuesca, Dan Allred, John Oliver, Joe Turgeon, Chris English, John Taylor, Susan Courtland, Cathy Johnson and Pat Potter, changed the team's name to the Thousand Oaks Titans and aligned the organization and uniforms with the Lancers, the Thousand Oaks High School team.

Nuesca was a good friend of Calfo, who was single at the time and had recently moved back to California after graduating from Crespi High School in Encino and Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis. He asked Calfo to help him coach a football team. Calfo was living in West Hills and working in Hollywood but joined his friend in Thousand Oaks to help out one time.

"It looked like mayhem. I knew they needed me to help give them structure and organization. I was hooked," Calfo said. The first time he went out onto the field with the boys he remembered all that his former coaches had given to him when he was a youth, and his gratitude reminded him that he needed to return the favor to other boys, he said. He never realized he would be doing it for 10 years, said Calfo, the director of research services for Smith Geiger when he's not volunteering as a coach.

"The ages 13 and 14 are critical times, and football is a good sport, the perfect sport, to teach them what they need to know to become strong individuals," he said. He looks forward to someday coaching his sons Anthony, 2, and Vincent, 8 months.

Calfo enjoys keeping in contact with his players as they grow up and go to high school and college. Some of his former players are just starting to graduate from college and begin their lives, he added. "It is exciting to see them grow up and become the kind of men I hoped they would be."

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