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Rockford’s greatest high school football coach un-retires to coach with his son

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6 months ago

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Rockford’s greatest high school football coach un-retires to coach with his son

Dan Appino isn’t like John Elway, who went out on top, retiring after winning his only two Super Bowls in his last two years.

He’s more like Michael Jordan, who went out on top twice — retiring after each of his NBA title three-peats.

Only to later un-retire both times.

Appino was already one of the greatest football coaches in NIC-10 history when he went 58-3 in his last five years at Boylan, including back-to-back undefeated Class 6A and 7A state titles in 2010 and 2011. Then he was hired away to turn around the worst football program in league history. Auburn had gone 10-116 the previous 14 seasons. Appino inherited a team on a 27-game losing streak and immediately led the Knights to the playoffs. He ended up 43-20 with five playoff seasons in six years at Auburn.

More: Rockford’s 10 greatest high school football coaches and what made them great

He then stepped down as head coach but worked as a defensive assistant at Auburn under John Paul Toldo for two years. Only then did he fully retire as a coach.

But that retirement is also now over. Appino will coach the inside linebackers this year on Tony Capriotti’s staff at Guilford, coaching alongside his son Patrick, who is Guilford’s defensive coordinator.

“He’s been living the grandpa life, going up to the cabin and fishing every time he can,” said Patrick Appino, who has three kids 4 years old and younger. “I told him he can’t see his grandchildren until he comes and coaches the linebackers for a little bit.

“I am holding him hostage.”

Dan Appino, who also coached the inside linebackers when he first started at Boylan more than 30 years ago, said this is the third year that Capriotti has asked him to work on his staff. The answer in the past was no for a simple reason. “I never wanted to work at one school and coach at another,” Appino said.

That’s not an issue anymore. Appino will retire from his job as a school counselor after next year. And Guilford had a counseling opening. So he will transfer over from Auburn and both counsel Guilford students and coach them in the 2024-25 school year.

More: Area coaching legends disappearing

“This is going to be really cool for me,” Appino, 62, said. “I don’t know how cool it will be for Patrick. I can be a pain in the butt with how things are done and when they are done. He may find out he has an unruly assistant he may have to chain in a bit. We worked together for several years when he was at Auburn. That was a real gift at the end of my career to work with him. I really looking forward to finishing out that way.”

It was a gift for Patrick, too.

“He’s the reason I got into coaching,” said Patrick Appino, who played for his dad at Boylan and was a senior defensive tackle on St. Xavier’s only NAIA national champion football team in 2011. “I’d been the ball boy on all his teams at Boylan. I always wanted to play for him, but I never thought about being able to coach with him until he got that offer from Auburn.

“It was really cool to see that side of things and how his football mind works. Growing up, we didn’t talk too much about Xs and Os at home. It was about putting in the work and when we were home it was family time.”

Capriotti now has a star-studded staff of assistants. Denny Diduch, who coached Forreston to a pair of Class 1A state titles, coached the safeties the last two years under Capriotti and now is the freshman defensive coordinator and is also in charge of the weight room for the program.

“Any time you get a chance to add somebody with that amount of success, it’s invaluable,” Capriotti said. “Look at Coach Diduch and Dan and the four state titles between them. I am excited to learn from them.”

Dan Appino will probably be more assertive than a normal assistant coach. That could make things delicate at times, but he has been here before after assistant his former long-time assistant John Paul Toldo after he first stepped down at Auburn.

“I am sure that John Paul got frustrated with me from time to time,” Dan Appino said. “I have to stay in my lane and play my role. But I think Coach Capriotti also wants my two cents on how I think things should be done. I have to be able to provide that aspect again. At this age, I can’t run backup quarterback plays on the scout team like I used to. Hopefully, I can help provide my perspective on things.”

The biggest change, Dan Appino said, is how much coaching will cut into the free time he and his wife used to have to travel.

“But she gets to watch her boy coach and her husband be out there with him while the grandkids are with her,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a fun experience for us all.”

Although he is sure he will retire as a counselor next year, Dan Appino’s football plans are less certain.

“I don’t know if I will keep coaching or not,” he said. “This will be a nice test of the waters for me to whether I want to keep coaching in the future.”

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