Former players remember football coach Al Mauro, who led Plum and Burrell teams to WPIAL titles

By: Ted Sarneso
Tuesday, November 21, 2023 | 5:07 PM

Coaches are teachers without the classroom.

Al Mauro, a career middle school and high school teacher, certainly fit the bill.

“Abby” as he was known by family, friends and players, died Nov. 11 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 80.

In his career as high school football coach, Mauro compiled a record of 104-94-10 and coached five conference champions at four stops: Wilkinsburg, Plum, Burrell and Franklin Regional.

He will be remembered forever for leading the 1983 Plum and 1986 Burrell teams to WPIAL titles.

Both programs had little talent when Mauro first arrived, but he molded those teams into champions.

• “We had no business winning a championship as far as talent goes, but we were coached so well,” said Steve Sebastian, a defensive back and linebacker for the ’83 Mustangs.

• “The year before we had better talent,” added Plum running back Paul Palamara. “The ’83 team put forth more of a team effort. It was like a family, and Abby taught us that.”

• “He was walking into a program that had nothing but youth in 1985, just a group of inexperienced high school players,” said Tom Hornack, a running back for the ’86 Burrell team.

• “Without him as a leader, I don’t think the players would have made it that far. He willed them to what they became,” said Tom Henderson, Mauro’s running backs and outside linebackers coach at Burrell.

Mauro, a Verona native who graduated from Verona High School, a small-school powerhouse during his playing days, lived by the adage that practice makes perfect, and those practices prepared his teams every week.

“We would run plays over and over and over again in practice until they were right,” Hornack said. “We would be kicking each other in the offensive huddle because somebody had screwed something up.”

Added Palamara: “We used to run the play 30 or 40 times until we mastered it.”

Mauro’s drilling at practice served to demonstrate to his players and coaches the values they would use throughout the rest of their lives.

“He taught us discipline, dedication, repetition, work ethic, things I use every day,” Palamara said.

Mauro found ways to soften practice, mostly with his “quirky sense of humor,” players said.

“He would always be telling the corniest jokes,” Henderson said. “One day at school, he wore one brown shoe and one black shoe. All kids came up and laughed and he’d ask, ‘What’s so funny?’ Finally, somebody told him. He stood there flabbergasted at the idea, but he did it on purpose. He was fun to be around.”

The fun also extended to game day. For both schools, Mauro would play a cassette during pregame that was nothing but college fight songs.

“We had to endure all those songs, but that was his ritual,” Sebastian said.

Said Hornack: “Everybody who played under him could probably hear a song that reminds them of when Abby played it for the team. He wanted us to have tradition.”

Mauro, an education major at North Carolina State, left an indelible mark on his players and staff.

“I saw him at a banquet in 2009. It was as if no one else was in the room,” Palamara said. “When we saw each other, he was solely focused on me, what I was doing then and wanted to know about my family.”

Added Hornack: “I’m set to retire from teaching at the end of this year. When I was going through my student teaching, I went to different classrooms and took notes. I sat in the back of one of Abby’s fifth or sixth grade classrooms at Plum when I spotted this kid at the board while Abby was teaching. The kid had already written 50-75 sentences on the boards that said, ‘I will not defy Mr. Mauro.’

“Kid was probably writing for an hour before I got there. Abby wanted it done his way. Whether in the classroom or on the football field, he wanted to teach you a lesson about doing things the right way.”

Mauro remained a special part of the lives of many of his players and coaches well after their careers had ended.

“The last time I saw him was about a month ago,” Henderson said. “I stopped up at the house (where) he was staying. People that were already there were quiet, solemn, and a lot of people with their heads down. Abby started singing to them. Even though he didn’t have much more time to himself, he still got joy out of bringing smiles to the faces of others.”

Added Sebastian: “Football was just one part of his life. One example, my father was the voice of the Mustangs for 35 years, from 1982 until he got sick. My dad passed in 2017, and Coach Mauro was battling Parkinson’s. He checked himself out of the living facility he was in and had his wife drive him to my dad’s funeral to pay his respects. I walked him up to my dad’s casket and Coach Mauro was bent over, could hardly stand up straight, and he cried. That was the kind of man he was.

“Just a big loss for us all.”

Mauro is one of only two A-K Valley coaches to win WPIAL football titles with two schools. The other was Chuck Wagner, whose 1965 Oakmont and 2003 Springdale teams brought home crowns.

Mauro was inducted into the A-K Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.

He is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, Lois, and two children, Jon Mauro and Lindsay Rager, as well as eight grandchildren.

Tags: Burrell, Franklin Regional, Plum