Editor's Note: Trumbull and Darien will play for the FCIAC football championship Thanksgiving morning. Both head coaches played together at Andrew Warde High School in the early 1970s.
It is quite an amazing thing and a neat coincidence how things have come full circle so many years and several decades later for a pair of longtime successful head football coaches in the FCIAC.
It was 41 years ago that Darien coach Rob Trifone and Trumbull coach Bob Maffei first buckled up their chinstraps as freshman teammates at Andrew Warde High School in Fairfield.
Both of their fathers were assistant coaches with the program — hence, the coaching pedigree — as upperclassmen they ended up playing alongside each other on defense, and now, all these years later, here they are still fraternal colleagues as two of the 19 head coaches in the FCIAC.
“I’ve always thought that was a neat thing,” Trifone, pictured to the left, said. “It’s kind of cool that both of us went to high school together, we were in classes together, and obviously with our teams we’ve been in the same coaching fraternity for a long time."Five years ago we had a high school reunion, all of the football players were there, and Bob and I were at the head of the conversation because we’re both still involved.”
As this year has evolved, Trifone and Maffei are two of the several FCIAC coaches having very successful seasons and in contention for postseason playoff berths – be it playing in the conference championship game at 7 p.m., November 19, at Trumbull High School or securing a spot in the State playoffs in their respective classes.
Trifone and Maffei had a kinship and the utmost respect for each other when they were side by side as linebackers for Andrew Warde in the early-1970s and that is a mutual respect that they maintain today.
Maffei, pictured to the left, was a tough, scrappy and heady 5-foot-8, 160-pound inside linebacker when he was a senior at Warde during the 1972 season. “I studied the film a lot,” said Maffei, who went to Yankton College. “I just got a jump on where the ball was going. If you’re quick they can’t get to you to block you.”“First of all he was a very good high school athlete — period!” Trifone said of Maffei. “He was a great baseball player and a very good linebacker in football. He was never really the biggest kid. When you look at him today, he wasn’t much different in high school. I always looked at him and said: ‘Where does that power come from?’ I always had the utmost respect for Bob. He was a good, tough athlete.”
Trifone was a 5-foot-11, 175-pound outside right linebacker who played to the right of Maffei. Typical of the son of a coach, he was also heady along with being tough and strong.
“He was smart,” Maffei recalled of Trifone. “He was very, very intelligent. He never messed up his assignments. He was a strong kid, too. He was very strong with the weights and stuff.”
Trifone played a little football at Central Connecticut State before making the transition to rugby.
Maffei and Trifone were so zealous about their football on and off the field when they were in high school. When they were not on the field, they would discuss football at the dinner table and watch film at home with their respective fathers.
Maffei’s father, Bobby, and Trifone’s father, Al, were both assistants to Warde head coach Bill Davis when their sons were teammates.
“They were very similar in coaching style,” Trifone said. “They were old school, very gruff, but at the same time they’d put their arm around you when you needed a hug. My dad and his dad were great friends. I know that coming from a football family stimulated me to go into coaching and I think it was the same thing with Bob, too.”
“My father was in the booth and Robbie’s father was the offensive line coach. And his father was our freshman coach, too,” Maffei recalled. “We’re a football family. My father made me a good football player because he taught me how to read keys, like linemen being on their heels and linemen on white knuckles. We’d watch tape together and look for keys. That was my early development as a player.
“I always wanted to be a coach,” Maffei continued. “I always wanted to be a pro football player, of course. But when that dream fades the next thing is to be a coach. Now my son (Bobby) wants to be a coach. He’s a student-assistant coach at Nebraska. He’s working for Sean Watson. He’s getting taught College Football 101 at Nebraska. So it’s three generations here.”
Another coincidence is that Trifone and Maffei were both protégés of two of the classiest and most successful FCIAC coaches ever.
Trifone was the defensive coordinator for former Brien McMahon coach Jack Casagrande and he ascended to the head position when Casagrande retired. Maffei assisted Jerry McDougall at Trumbull when McDougall was en route to setting a state record for most career wins as a head coach. Maffei, now in his 35th year of coaching, succeeded McDougall at Trumbull.
Trifone won the FCIAC championship in 1994 with a McMahon team that was one of the greatest FCIAC teams ever and the next year his Senators defended that crown. Maffei’s Eagles won the FCIAC title five years ago.
Trifone took a teaching and an assistant coaching job at Darien so that he could be involved with his stepson on the team and he then became the head coach and has resurrected the program.
As irony had it, Trifone and Maffei have hardly coached against each other since Maffei became Trumbull’s head coach 13 years ago because they’re teams have rarely been scheduled against each other.
Trifone recalled the one time they were on opposing sidelines in the late-1990s and how Davis, their former high school coach, was so proud to spend one half with each of them on their respective sidelines.
This year, yet again, they were not on each other’s schedule.
But because they are both having such successful seasons, well, who knows?
Darien is 8-0 overall, 7-0 in the FCIAC and in second place behind defending FCIAC champion Staples (8-0) in the points standings that determine the two finalists.
Trumbull (7-1) is third but Maffei’s Eagles do have a significant bit of their destiny in their own hands because they play at Staples this Saturday at 1:30 p.m.
Darien hosts Norwalk (3-5) at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.
The top two teams in the final point standings in the FCIAC will play each other for the conference championship and this is the final weekend of the season to determine that.
Trumbull has quite the challenge in trying to win at Staples and thereby set up a championship showdown of two former high school teammates going against each other.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we met in the FCIAC championship? Wouldn’t that be something?” Maffei said, before quickly adding, “But we just try to take things one week at a time.”
Darien is ranked fifth and Trumbull 11th in the New Haven Register’s media state poll. Darien is fifth while Trumbull received the 16th most points in the Day of New London Coaches Poll. In the MaxPreps state poll, Darien is fourth and Trumbull seventh, just a ahead of Staples.
Staples is ranked third in the aforementioned media and coaches polls.
Darien is second behind Masuk in Class L Football Point Rankings that determine the state playoff participants.
Trumbull, which has won two straight since a 27-19 loss at home to Stamford (5-3) on Oct. 22, is fifth in Class LL Football Point Rankings.
Staples is fourth in Class LL, behind top-ranked Norwich Free Academy, Xavier and Hall, all of whom are also 8-0.
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