“There never was someone in our town like Dick, but what we all remember is how our moms always wished we would be like him,” said Mike Lynch, the retired television sports broadcaster whose father, Dick Lynch, was Mr. Jauron’s football and basketball coach. “He was the nicest, sweetest person I ever knew in sports.”
Known as “Dick” in the pros but as “Dickey” at the little football field on Swampscott’s Humphrey Street, Mr. Jauron excelled in basketball and baseball, but made football his life and career despite being drafted as a shortstop by the St. Louis Cardinals. Though the Globe named him one of its top 10 high school football players in local history, he is remembered by his teachers less for his achievements in athletics than for his discipline and dedication in the classroom.
“He was among the finest students I ever had,” Charles F. Kimball, who taught him 11th-grade American history, said in an interview Saturday. “We knew he was an athlete, but what really set him apart was that he was a scholar too. He was a ‘scholar-athlete’ when the phrase meant something.”
Years after he was named in 2001 by the Associated Press as NFL Coach of the Year, he told friends he was most proud of appearing in a high school dramatic production.
Mr. Jauron had 3,284 rushing yards rushing in high school and was recruited by all the football powers of the time but eschewed the big-time schools and struggled with choosing among Harvard, Dartmouth, and Yale. He finally headed to New Haven after Carmen Cozza, the iconic Yale coach, was the speaker at his high school football banquet and became a standout on Yale’s last nationally ranked football team (1970) and was the first player to be named to an All-Ivy first team for three consecutive years.
A fourth-round draft selection, Mr. Jauron was told his future was as a safety despite recording 2,947 yards rushing for Yale. In that new role he was selected to the Pro Bowl in his second season, finishing his playing career with 25 interceptions. He played in Detroit from 1973-77 and in Cincinnati from 1978-80.
“I loved playing with Dick Jauron,” said Reggie Williams, who played on the defensive unit of the Bengals with Mr. Jauron after being drafted out of Dartmouth. “We immediately bonded as Ivy Leaguers determined to show the team, and the world, that we were tough.”
Mr. Jauron began his coaching career as defensive backs coach for the Bills and the Green Bay Packers, became defensive coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars and then for the Lions, and eventually became head coach of the Bears, where he served for five seasons beginning in 1999 and completing a 35-45 record.
In 2006 he took over the Bills as head coach, where he served for another three years and had a 24-33 record. After being fired in Buffalo, he was a senior assistant for the Philadelphia Eagles and defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns.
He left coaching with a 60-82 record, leaving football in large measure to care for his ailing wife, the former Gail Johnson. He moved back to Swampscott, where old-timers still remember how, in a game against the Newburyport Clippers that determined the championship of the Northeastern Conference, Mr. Jauron grabbed a pass at the 1-yard line in the final seconds of the first half but signaled for a timeout as he fell to the ground. Swampscott won that game, 28-27. Mr. Jauron’s Big Blue went 25-2 in his three years on the team.
Mr. Jauron was born Oct. 27, 1950, in Peoria, Ill., the son of the late Robert Thomas Jauron, a longtime football coach, and the late Katherine (Strain) Jauron, for a time a secretary at Swampscott High. Besides his wife, he is survived by two brothers, Robert E. Jauron of Swampscott and Michael Jauron of Lynn; a sister, Susan Kay Jauron of Harrison, Maine; and a daughter, Kacy Jauron-Rogers of Swampscott. He was predeceased by a brother, Wayne Jauron, and a daughter, Amelia Jauron. A celebration of life will be held later this year.
Of all the Jauron stories in his hometown, the one that endures most vividly is how the legendary football coach Stan Bondelevitch was driving down Bay View Ave. in Swampscott when he saw his star athlete on a ladder helping Rosalind Stone, a fifth-grade teacher, paint the trim on her house overlooking Fisherman’s Beach. Bondelevitch was horrified and ordered his protege off the ladder. “If we’re going to lose the franchise,” he would say, “it’s not going to happen on a Wednesday.” The next time Bondelevitch drove by the Stone house, it was the teacher who was on the ladder. But Mr. Jauron was on the ground, holding the ladder steady.
David Shribman is a nationally syndicated columnist. He can be reached at dshribman@post-gazette.com.
This article was originally published by a www.bostonglobe.com . Read the Original article here. .