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During his coaching days, Al Angelo is throwing a tirade on the practice field. And as he rants, blood drips from a cut on his forehead.
"If a kid messed up a block, Dad would . . . go wild," said Skip Angelo, Al's son. "He always had blood dripping from one spot on his forehead where he'd bang heads with someone else who was wearing a helmet."
The Frankford dressing room is cramped, dimly lit and loaded with nostalgia. Most of the locker stalls stand behind a chain-link fence.
"The locker room was like a shrine," Gary Hegh recalled. "The walls were covered with pictures from players of the past. Mr. A would call you over and point to a picture. Every picture had a story."
Tradition and discipline.
They were Al Angelo's favorite things in his 20-year reign as Frankford's football coach.
Angelo helped the program to achieve such fame that the sixth volume of the 1978 Congressional Record carries a discussion about the Thanksgiving Day game rivalry between Frankford and North Catholic. The rivalry began 59 years ago.
Now, Angelo is back.
In June, he ended his two-year retirement to replace his successor as coach, John McAneney, who retired from the Philadelphia School District after 30 years of teaching.
He's older (57), he admits having mellowed and he has painful osteoarthritis in his right hip. But Angelo says he's eager to resume coaching at the only school he knows. His record at Frankford was 172-39-5. He had nine Public League titles and one City Championship.
"I missed it so much," Angelo said. "Everyone said I'd get over it, but it only got worse. People said I'd spend time with my family. What family? Hey, all four of my kids have grown up and left. It's just me and my wife, Janet."
So it was back to enhancing the legend.
