I was no more then five years old at the time, but I remember when Coach Poggi came out to the backyard to tell Henry that the food was ready. I believed at the time that I saw a giant, a man larger than life whose physical stature mimicked that of a professional football lineman.
Coach Poggi used to play football when he was in college at the University of Pittsburgh, and the sport has remained a huge part of his life. He started his career as a player at Gilman high school, a school right down Roland Avenue that mimics Hopkins in many ways.
The founder of Gilman, Daniel Coit Gilman, was also the first president of Hopkins. As you notice or may have thought, Gilman Hall on campus is also named after him. There are a lot of consistencies between the two schools as I’ve said before, and one that rings true is especially their commitment to excellence in all fields.
Coach Poggi embodied excellence on a daily basis, but not the same type of excellence many people would think a football coach needed to possess to be successful. Instead of being a wizard with offensive game plan or defensive schemes, Coach Poggi embodied excellence through his ability to motivate, empower and drive his players toward success in every facet of their life.
Coach Poggi would hold a weekly Bible study where players could come and just discuss their faith and issues they felt were prevalent outside of football. The span of Coach Poggi’s influence was not restricted to the world of football, but rather, he acted as a philanthropist and role model with football being a secondary passion.
He has taken in players who were in rough patches in their lives and cared for them as a father would. But that paternal instinct was not limited to just the people who he would take under the roof of his own home, but rather to every player that was a part of the organization that he built over so many years.
He would have weekly meetings where he bought enough food that the whole team was filled to the point of bursting. He would genuinely listen to each person’s concerns, and he had a way about him that made you truly believe you were the most important person in the world to him at that moment in time.
After so many years at a privileged school like Gilman, Coach Poggi has decided to expand his philanthropy efforts to a school called St. Francis Academy in Baltimore city, a school that doesn’t have nearly as much funding or as many resources as Gilman does.
However, Coach Poggi sees this as an opportunity to further enhance the lives of those who truly need help. His religious sentiment shows true in both his words and his actions, and we need more people like him who are willing to fight for those who need direction and support rather than leaving them to fend for themselves.
Coach Poggi has done more than he will ever know, and I can’t thank him enough for the lessons he taught me in my own life, especially the value of hard work and dedication to a greater cause than yourself.
