Anyone who spent time around the Harrisburg and Bishop McDevitt football programs knew Harold Gaffney.
He was Coach Gaff, and he was a much-loved figure among Harrisburg city’s two high school football programs. He was afflicted with Downs’ Syndrome, but he was not an object of pity. Rather, Harold immersed himself in the football programs at Harrisburg and Bishop McDevitt, where he carried a clipboard and carried himself with dignity.
Coach Gaff died at the age of 63 on April 7, his body finally worn out from the eventual beating that Downs’ Syndrome metes out.
Today, Patriot-News columnist Dave Jones provides an exceptional story about why Coach Gaff was one of the beloved figures in Harrisburg sports. The lengthy and moving column is here. Please read it.
Of course, I talked with Harold many times over the years, often after games during which Gaff would tug on my arm and say, “I’m the coach. I won the game today.”
I’d lost count of how many times that happened.
After one McDevitt victory a few years back, Coach Gaff was particularly insistent: He wanted a post-game interview. How could I not oblige him?
So, I pulled out my pad and asked Gaff a few questions, questions I would have posed to any coach. The answer was the same to every question: “I’m the coach. I did a good job. I know. I won the game!”
I was conflicted, of course. Now that I had interviewed Gaff, do I make a big sham of it and exclude him from the story, or do I use it and de-legitimize the story? I was genuinely agonizing about how to handle this as I drove down Market Street in Harrisburg toward the Patriot-News.
In the end, I did not quote Harold, but I did make a modifying reference to Coach Gaff, either in the game story or my column later that week (can’t recall now), identifying him as a McDevitt coach.
A week or two later, when I covered my next McDevitt game, Gaff came over to me, pointed to himself and said, “I’m the coach.” And then he gave me a huge hug.
That was it. I could have just as easily poured into a city storm drain as walk away; I was that big of a puddle.
The point is: Coach Gaff was not, as he was so often referred, a mascot. He was a human being who, like all human beings, wanted to matter. And Harrisburg and McDevitt football enabled Harold, in his world, to matter a whole lot. In the process, he drew a whole lot of people into his orbit. And he was loved.
I leave with one more Harold Gaffney story. It comes from the first year that Gaff had switched allegiances from Harrisburg to McDevitt. At the always intense, always packed Harrisburg-McDevitt game, Gaff went onto the field for the pre-game coin toss with McDevitt’s captains.
I was in the press box at Harrisburg’s Severance Field (the old one that was about the same size as your downstairs powder room) sitting beside Harrisburg statistician and friend Edgar Moore, a wonderful man.
Edgar looked out at the field, saw Gaff in his McDevitt jersey and let loose a huge, rolling laugh.
“Will you look at that? It’s not enough that McDevitt goes and steals our players. They went and stole our mascot!”
It was the one time the “mascot” reference was easily forgiven.
R.I.P, Harold. We in the Harrisburg football community will miss you.
