It makes me feel slightly old knowing I once stood behind the chain link backstops of Wareham High and at Mass Maritime watching the impassioned, sometimes wild but always super-competitive Muldoon brothers play ball.
I never really made myself known to them, least of all to St. John Paul II athletic director John Muldoon when he was then a teenage Viking and then as one of Bob Corradi’s “Bucs.”
St. John Paul II Athletic Director John Muldoon (right) announced yesterday he’s going back to school to get his master’s degree and will be stepping aside as the Lions’ AD but stay on as football coach and retain his teaching position. He said he’s applying to Bridgewater State and Southern New Hampshire University.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports
But boy did I love watching them play. I loved watching them play because there were bits and pieces of how they played that reminded me of a time long ago. That was really it in a nutshell. Seeing them play with the same sort of unbridled passion that once drove me as an athlete in days, admittedly, that seem to gather more and more cobwebs in my memory as time goes on.
The thing is, the Muldoons are not forgettable.
That’s the difficult thing about change and when a special school like St. John Paul II grows so quickly and becomes so tightly knit and so successful, all within the past eight years. It’s difficult to step back or alter the course once the ship is all engines, full steam ahead.
But the Lions’ athletic director John Muldoon the past couple months has felt an increasing need to do just that. He teaches. He coaches a highly successful football program. He loves football with the passion only a successful football coach or player can exhibit. He struggled with the notion that had crept into his mind and heart that if he was going to try and make himself a better version of, well, himself, and if such a version can exist, he needed to give something up.
Muldoon last month sat down with St. John Paul II High School head Chris Keavy and talked it out. Muldoon said that he wasn’t sure he could handle juggling everything while also applying for graduate school and this fall getting a master’s degree in athletic administration. Something had to give but Muldoon knew there was one thing in his heart he could not let go of: football.
Truthfully, only former football players can really know that lure, that insidious grasp, that lifelong affixation to something that is mere entertainment to so many. Nothing can replace that feeling and it can be difficult if not impossible replacing it in life once your cleats dig into the goal line one last and final time.
That feeling is repeated for Muldoon 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s ingrained in who he is. He wouldn’t let go of those Fridays or Saturdays on the gridiron even if he could let go.
But he is letting go, for the time being, of the heavy drain of being an “administrator.” The paper mountain and ceaseless phone ringing and the sheer drabness of having to always leave last and always be first on the job quite simply “tired him out.”
The fast-track success of the Lions’ athletic department and programs owes quite a bit to Muldoon. Not everything, but a considerable amount. It’s difficult to imagine him being tired doing anything, nevermind doing something he loves. If you witnessed him play football or baseball as a young man, you’d fully grasp why that statement is so true.
But for any success comes sacrifice. True, personal sacrifice. Something always has to give for success to be realized and on the proverbial altar of the St. John Paul II mission, Muldoon has given much more than most men would ever think to.
What’s held him together this long are the lessons learned from such deeply influential people in his life as the late Wareham High athletic director and baseball coach Joe Cafarella and most assuredly, Mass Maritime athletic director and baseball and former football coach Bob Corradi.
What’s kept Muldoon focused this past near-decade is his faith, always knowing that the spiritual guide that gave him such a unique opportunity to change from the “wild days of youth” to the man he has become today is an ever-present, uplifting and ineffable force.
What’s made him realize that this decision to step aside – his decision alone –is the right decision is the sense of family he’s fostered at a small albeit tightly knit, humble place such as St. John Paul II High School.
It’s an intangible thing he holds onto. Perhaps it’s an ideal. Perhaps it’s nothing more than simply wanting the chance to hold that piece of paper one day soon that solidifies he has “mastered” some aspect of life.
But if you knew Muldoon even just a little bit, you’d know it’s much more than that. At 35 years young, as “tired” as he may be of the blab and pave and pedestrianism of being an athletic director, the choice to leave was all about the quest to see what the best version of himself looks like.
Muldoon will be the first to tell you he is far from perfect. He assumes nothing. He pretends to be no more than the man he is. He is as simple and humble a person I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He’s as honest and forthright as they come, even when he knows he is wrong or made a mistake and he walks a path so few of us have the courage to admit is right in front of us.
John Muldoon not only walks along the road less travelled, he defines it.
And for that no one can fault him. No one can blame him for being man enough to step outside himself, confess his limitations and simply strive to continue what he has grown to become.
It may seem like centuries ago running full bore at Spillane Field, adolescence in full stride and a “damn the torpedoes” illusion of invincibility.
But in less than 20 years Muldoon has created himself and helped a school and athletic program grow at breakneck speed and solely in a positive way.
And for that and that alone, the man deserves a chance to see what more he can achieve unfettered by the chains of a desk.
— Sean Walsh’s column “One On One” appears on Capecod.com weekly in the sports section. Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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