Players, Coaches, Family Say Goodbye to Tony Sparano at Funeral, 'Not A Dry Eye'
One of the greatest honors any person can be given is for their funeral to turn into a celebration of the life they lived in the time they were given, and Tony Sparano, the late offensive line coach of the Minnesota Vikings, was greatly honored indeed for his 56 years.
The Vikings took Friday off from their training camp in order to attend the funeral service at the Church of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata, Minnesota.
The team joined an estimated 250 mourners, including Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, Saints coach Sean Payton, and the Ryan brothers, Rex and Rob, the latter three men having worked with Sparano as coaches elsewhere along the deceased’s coaching journey through the NFL.
Also in attendance were many players who’d been coached by Sparano over the years.
According to a report in the Twin Cities region’s Pioneer Press, there was “not a dry eye” in the room.
“I’m sure there will be an enormous grieving period for the family, and whatever it takes for them is right for them,” said former tight end Matthew Mulligan, who came from Maine for the service. “But I hope the family sees the amount of support they had from all these people coming out. There were people from Florida, from California. There were so many people who came to say, ‘He meant the world to us.’ Hopefully, (the family will) be able to look back at that at some point and say, ‘That helped.’ ”
Mulligan was on the practice squad in Miami when Sparano, as head coach, led the team to an AFC East title in 2008 after the Patriots’ Tom Brady was injured in Week 1 following New England’s 16-0 season in 2007.
Mulligan also played under Sparano’s son Tony Sparano Jr. in Buffalo in 2015, when Sparano Jr. was the tight ends coach there.
Sparano’s widow Jeanette gave the eulogy, and Mulligan told media, who were not allowed into the service itself, of the power of her words.
“I thought that Jeanette was just amazing,” Mulligan said. “Her eulogy, there was not a dry eye in the place. The thing that I got from the whole deal, she was saying, ‘It was faith, family, football for Tony,’ but that he was the best father and unrivaled as far as his compassion and love for his family.”
Rex Ryan, who gave Sparano a job as his offensive coordinator for the Jets in 2012 after Miami let Sparano go as head coach following the 2011 season, spoke highly of his former subordinate.
“He was a great coach (and) just a hell of a person,” Ryan said. “He was my kind of guy. He was a tough ass, but he was just special. He had a great rapport with his players. You knew what you were going to get from him. He was an honest man. Just a great coach.”
Ryan also expressed his surprise when he learned that his friend, just 56, had died so young.
“I got a call from (Sparano Jr.), but I think he was in shock at the time,” Ryan said. “He was 56 years old. That happened to my dad a few years ago, and you can see it (at 85) years old. That never makes it easy, but you’re kind of prepared for it. At 56 years old, you’re not prepared for it, and I think it shocked everybody.”
Gabe Jackson, who played under Sparano in Oakland, spoke to the coach’s effect on him as a player and indirectly credited Sparano with instilling in him the skills and work ethic that led to the $56 million contract extension he signed at the end of his rookie deal.
Jackson, who had never played on the right side of the center before, was thrown into a practice off his normal left guard position when Sparano yelled “get in at right guard” to him.
“He threw me out there into the fire to see how I was going to survive,” Jackson told ESPN. “He told me, ‘You’re going to have to be able to play everything, because the more you can do, the more valuable you are.’ That always stuck with me.”
Later, talking about Sparano’s at-times aggressive tough-love disciplinary approach, Jackson said “I didn’t understand at the time why he was doing that. But he had a good philosophy and a reason behind everything that he did.”
Sparano’s pallbearers — the starting offensive linemen from his 2017 Vikings team, Riley Reiff, Nick Easton, Pat Elflein, Joe Berger, Mike Remmers, and Rashod Hill — were walking symbols of Sparano’s legacy, as the job falls to them to keep Minnesota’s quarterbacks upright during this upcoming season.
Sparano was a textbook, right-out-of-central-casting Italian tough guy, something Jackson noted as well.
“His main thing was he wanted to demand the respect of everybody, and if the operation wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t going to be because we weren’t organized and because everybody was listening to different people,” Jackson said.
How ironic, then, that a man who prized order in his professional life could inspire such loss of control as people, facing the world without him, could only break down in tears at his funeral.
Rest in peace, Tony Sparano.
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