KOJOYIAN STAYS YOUNG AT HEART ON GRIDIRON
By Marvin Pave
The Boston Globe
November 8, 2009 Sunday
Fifty-seven years after accepting his first head football coaching job
at Westborough High, 34 years after assuming the same role at Newton
South High, and 16 years after being inducted into the Massachusetts
High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame, 82-year-old Art Kojoyian
is still doing the job that keeps him young at heart.
Kojoyian is in his eighth season as the line coach at James Madison
High in Vienna, Va., his 58th consecutive season as a high school
football coach.
But it is the 28 years that he served as an assistant and head
football coach, as well as the head wrestling coach, at Newton South
that will bring Kojoyian back to the city on Nov. 27, when he will
be inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame as a member of
its inaugural class.
"I still enjoy working with the kids and getting down in that
three-point stance to demonstrate how to play the line," said Kojoyian,
a Westborough native who has resided in Reston, Va., since 1990. In the
late 1940s and early ’50s, he was a two-way guard at George Washington
University, once suiting up against a University of Kentucky team
under the direction of the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant.
"Going into the hall of fame is a great thrill," he said.
"Westborough was my home and Newton was my second home. I coached
my son Arty there in football and my other son, Armen, in football
and wrestling."
It will be a nostalgic Thanksgiving week for Kojoyian, affectionately
called "Kongie" by those closest to him.
He will be introduced at the inauguration ceremonies by the man who
preceded him as the head coach at Newton South, fellow inductee and
close friend George Winkler, for whom the school’s football field is
named. Kojoyian was his assistant coach for 12 years, starting in 1962.
"I scouted some of Kongie’s Westborough players when I was an assistant
coach at Boston University, knew how good a coach he was, and wanted
him on my staff," said Winkler, like Kojoyian a member of the high
school coaches’ halls of fame for both football and wrestling.
On Thanksgiving Day, Winkler and Kojoyian plan to be in the stands
to watch the Lions take on the visiting Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High
squad, whose head coach, Tom Lopez, is a former Newton South football
captain. Lopez and Harry Crump, who played for Kojoyian at Westborough
High and went on to star at Boston College, introduced him at his
induction into the state football coaching group’s pantheon in 1993.
"It doesn’t surprise me he’s still coaching," said Lopez, a standout
end who played for Winkler and Kojoyian from 1962-64 and whose
interview for a position at Lincoln-Sudbury was arranged by Kojoyian
after Lopez’s graduation from Bates College. "He’s unique and I love
the man. Kongie has done a ton of good things for young people."
As the head coach at Newton South from 1975-90, Kojoyian’s teams
compiled a 59-89-8 record, but there were milestone moments: The
1981 team finished 7-3, the program’s best record in 14 years,
and the 1983 squad went 8-1-1 and won the Lions’ first – and only –
Dual County League championship.
Lopez and Kojoyian were coaching rivals on many Thanksgiving mornings,
and Lopez said that if the Lions prevailed, the phone would ring at
his home later that day, Kojoyian on the other end asking, "hey, Tom,
how does that turkey taste today?"
Kojoyian said it was all in good fun, adding, "Tom was the most
coachable player I’ve ever been around. I started at Newton South the
first year he played at the high school and it’s been a special bond."
James Madison head coach Gordon Leib said that Kojoyian has the
"most energy of anyone on my staff and it’s been a privilege to be
alongside him.
"He’s said to me that if he couldn’t take a kid and turn him into a
football player, he’d quit coaching – and that hasn’t happened. Our
players call him `the flipper’ because he likes to teach the flipper
block, using the shoulder, forearm and hips."
Newton South athletic director – and graduate – Scott Perrin said
playing for Kojoyian at the school was "a privilege and something I
have always reflected on. He was a great technical football coach,
but an even greater teacher of life."
Kojoyian, who works out at a health club several days a week and plays
a monthly low-stakes poker game with his former George Washington
teammates, was brought up on a farm adjacent to Route 9 in Westborough
with his brother, Sarkis, who died in March.
His Armenian parents, Vahan and Miriam, came to Watertown from Turkey.
Vahan saved enough money working for Hood Rubber to buy the farm. The
house was heated by a wood stove, and water was supplied by an
outdoor pump. A refrigerator, electricity, and indoor plumbing were
added later.
"We’d milk the cows early in the morning, deliver eggs and do whatever
chores needed to be done," said Kojoyian, who walked 3 miles back to
the farm after football practice at Westborough High.
"Growing up like that, you learn what life is really like and how
to cope and it has made me a stronger person. I was lucky enough to
play football while in the service in Maryland and catch the eye of
the coaches at George Washington."
His birth name is Avedis, but it was changed to Art by the sports
information staff at George Washington for the football program,
and it stuck.
Fresh out of college, Kojoyian was hired as head football and baseball
coach and JV basketball coach at Westborough High. The first couple
of seasons he was a one-man staff. Although his complete record at
Westborough High is unavailable, he recalled losing just one game in
1952, and according to school yearbooks, his teams were 28-13-4 from
1955 to 1960, including a league championship in 1960.
"He was a demanding, knowledgeable coach who put the helmet on and
showed us how to block and tackle, a great motivator who taught me
how to be prepared, something I’ve taken with me," said Crump, who
played two seasons as a running back with the Boston Patriots.
Crump’s brother, Ronnie, who went on to captain the Worcester
Polytechnic Institute football team, remembers the time his nose was
broken during a game against Millbury High.
"Kongie was told by the team doctor that he needed permission from
my parents to stay in the game," said Crump, "so he found my dad who
told him it was OK. I came back with gauze in my nose for the second
half, and a couple of weeks later I played in the Thanksgiving Day
game with a special cage on my helmet."
Kojoyian on occasion asked his players to round up the hundreds of
chickens on the family farm for vaccinations, and he also called
on former players to scrimmage against the Westborough varsity the
Saturday before the traditional Thanksgiving game against Northborough
(now Algonquin Regional High) to keep them sharp.
"He had a locker for me and a Westborough jersey when I was a
5-year-old water boy for the team," said his son, Armen. "I’ll never
forget it."
Arty Kojoyian, a former Newton South football captain, said his father
had the ability to get the most out of the players who weren’t stars.
"He’s a teacher at heart," he said of his father, "and he’s excited
about coming back to Newton."
Kojoyian, who also coached the line at St. John’s High in Washington,
D.C., and South Lakes High in Reston, Va., said he has no plans to
stop coaching. "Football changed my life and gave me the opportunity
to coach. The experience has meant much more to me than the money
I’ve been paid to do it."