Thirty Days of Thanks, Day 13 — Coach Luti
circa Patch, November 13, 2020
I wrote this on November 13, 2020. Coach Luti would be in his 104th year were he still here. This week I am reposting it as my blog post. The 57th Annual Bill Luti Road Race was this past weekend, and I am all up in the feels.
Grief can wear so many faces and masks and hats. The people we love and lose. My life continues to be one of juxtapositions. Everything happy is also sad, I am ok and not ok, I love my life, I do not love my life.
The Universe often sends people to us. I had no idea 41 years ago what a gift Coach Luti would be.
Ninety-nine years ago today, William Vincent Luti was born. Last year, when he passed his 98th birthday, he said in an email: “What’s so great about ninety-eight?”
He would die 17 days later, just after midnight in the early hours of December 1st.
His death closed out one of the most difficult years of my life — other than losing Molly. I slept on the couch for months after he died. Since then, I have had the blessing of spending significant time with his family, buying his house, continuing to direct the Bill Luti Road Race, and attempting to continue his legacy.
So today, Friday the 13th of November, I am grieving the loss of a mentor who changed my life.
Grieving someone who became my father figure
I knew of Coach Luti back in my elementary school years. Cross-country meets at White’s Park were no small event. The chorus of counting during warm-ups, the cheering of fans as the harriers ran their race, and the long maroon line — impossible to miss.
I came to truly know him, though, in the spring of 1979.
I joined the track team and announced to him on that first day, March 19th, 1979, that “I’m gonna be a star!” He grinned at me (a grin I would come to know quite well) and asked me how I knew that. I grinned back, shrugged my shoulders, and walked away.
As an asthmatic who had been excused from PE for three years, I had NO idea I was actually an elite runner.
These moments still live in my body — because he believed in me
I have specific memories of him.
Moments in time that stood out when they happened — and come back to me again and again.
My second track meet, he held my hand and made me stay with him the entire time (at Dover High School). I ran 5:42 in the mile and 2:38 in the 800. He asked me if I knew on sign-up day how good I was, that I was, in fact, going to be a star.
Another memory: junior year. I had passed out drunk at a dance at the beginning of February vacation. I was grounded, had to meet with the principal and vice principal (Mr. Garrett, who carried me into my house).
The phone rang at the end of that week — it was Coach. Stern, but loving. His message: I could only wear a CHS racing shirt for a short time. I could “get hammered” for the rest of my life.
I followed my sports contracts for Coach my junior and senior year. There was no disappointing him in me.
A final high school memory: when I broke 5 minutes in the mile.
We had worked so diligently all spring. I developed pneumonia over April vacation and had to rest a few days. I was in a panic. It all worked out (obviously), but I had daily contact with Coach. This was when the only way to talk to someone was in person or on a wall phone.
When I ran that 4:56.1 1600M at Memorial Field, Coach was on the back stretch. His instructions came in a clear, calming voice. I nodded. As nervous as I was, I knew without a doubt I would win — and I did.
His one-armed hug, his words of joy, his instructions on how to take a humble victory lap stay with me still.
Honoring the legacy of a life-changing coach
Coach and I stayed close through my college and professional running years. I’d pick up the phone to call him and he’d already be on the line. I called him from BU often.
He came to Boston to watch me run. He was there when I qualified for NCAA Indoor Nationals and watched on TV when I became BU’s first Division I All-American. When I returned to Concord, he came to an alumni race I ran. As I passed him, he said: “Nice job, lard ass.” (I had gained some weight.) It made me laugh — it was said with love.
Every Halloween, I brought my CHS cross-country teams to his house for apple cider and full-sized candy bars. He came to spring track practices to give throwing clinics.
The first time I was named Coach of the Year for cross-country (in 2000), he came to the dinner.
I called him from North Carolina when Rachel Umberger won the national 800M title. He chided me: “What took you so long to call?” He’d already found the results online.
He celebrated the birth of Gracie and Molly. He was happy I had settled into family life. He and Mrs. Luti gave me moral support when Chris Rath forced me to resign — they were devastated for me. The gossip made him ill.
He asked me over a lot in those dark days.
One visit, he got teary. We were talking about coaching boys vs. girls. “Boys are all business,” he said. “Sure, they horse around, but that goes away come competition time.”
“Girls,” he said with a wistful look, “never remove the spontaneity and fun from their competitions.” He remembered his girls’ team running off the bus to hug the Hanover girls. There were only a handful of girls’ teams back then, but he recalled those moments with such tenderness.
His tears came from a familiar feeling. He’d watch us in our youthful exuberance and feel deeply sad. “I knew the heartbreak that awaited many of you. I knew how sad life could become, and it broke my heart.”
When I asked if he felt that way about his boys, he said boys were sensitive — but girls could become mothers, and “no one can feel to the depths a mother can.”
(I didn’t know then about Phyllis Ann Luti — his daughter who died at age three from a brain tumor.)
Having now lived the reality of losing a child, I see it. I see how losing Phyllis changed him.
In my later adult years, I co-directed the Bill Luti Road Race with fellow alum Bob Teschek. Twenty-five years of giving back to Coach.
Race days were the best. Alumni reconnecting. Fast times. Light conversation. So much community support: Delta Dental, my Concord and Bow XC teams, NHTI, Joe Kings, Margaritas, Runners Alley.
I remember racing it and getting encouragement at mile two from Coach. In later years, he’d tease me there and hand me water. In his final years, we held the finish line ribbon together.
Losing him brought back the ache I know too well
When Molly died, Coach was one of my biggest emotional supports. He shared hours of stories about his own experience — and how it had affected Mrs. Luti. He and Molly really clicked. After Mrs. Luti died, Molly insisted we visit him regularly. It’s why the foundation that owns his house is called The Little House on Lyndon Street — it was what Molly was going to name her book about him.
One of the last real conversations we had was in February 2019 — ten months before he died. I was walking with Kenny shortly after my brain tumor surgery. He was being driven home by his daughter Angela.
He stopped at the sign, rolled down his window, took my hand.
“Oh Higgy,” he said, as I took off my hat and showed him my scar and buzzcut. “Tragedy always seems to find you.”
He asked questions, wanted to know how I was. I had disappeared in the years after Molly died. He missed me. I missed him too. That summer’s race weekend was the best. So many hugs. So many alumni.
I think I only saw him once or twice after that.
I remember looking down Lyndon Street one day, shortly before Thanksgiving, and thinking — turn right, Higgy. Go say hi to Coach. I didn’t. I promised I’d see him after Thanksgiving.
He died that Sunday night.
I cried for many weeks after Mrs. Luti died in March of 2015. I don’t always do well with this permanent kind of change. I remember how much her death broke Coach. He told me once, “I’m just waiting to die now.”
The only thing that comforts me is knowing he’s with Margorie and Phyllis. He is — I’m quite sure — happy.
We don’t always know why we meet the people we do. I had no idea, that first day of track practice, that Coach would become the male role model, father figure, and mentor of my life.
This past March 19th was the first one I didn’t send him a note or call to celebrate the day he came into my life. Instead, I signed the purchase and sales agreement for his house.
We closed on April 1st — Molly’s 17th birthday.
Whatever the universe was thinking that day, 41 years ago, she had a plan. And I will be forever grateful for Coach Luti.
I love you, Coach. Say hi to Mrs. Luti for me. And tell Phyllis to have Molly spend time with her — she’s great with kids.
