For Newman trainer-coach, school is a ‘second family’

STERLING — Andy Accardi isn’t a native of the Sauk Valley. But from the first day he set foot in Newman Central Catholic High School, the veteran teacher and coach knew he was home.

Accardi has been a jack of all trades during his nearly three decades at Newman, teaching multiple subjects in addition to coaching football and track and field, and serving as the Comets’ head athletic trainer.

Currently, Accardi teaches anatomy, driver’s ed, consumer ed and athletic training, and over the course of his 29 years at the school, he has also taught health, P.E. and strength and fitness classes. He has served as a Newman football assistant coach since 1993, and the head boys track and field coach since 1994; he’s also splitting coaching duties for the girls track and field team this spring with Pat Warkins.

He also attends many events for other sports as the athletic trainer, and loves to support the student-athletes while serving in that capacity. He’s often said that the best nights as an athletic trainer are the events where he just sits and watches the game without having to do any work.

He said he’s never really thought about how busy his schedule has been over the years. It’s just something that he’s done since he first arrived at Newman in August of 1993.

“I think that I came in young, and at the time I just wanted to be involved here,” he said. “And then it just became, around here, it’s just something with the school and the kids, I just liked being around them. You found ways that they needed some help, and it didn’t seem like it was work. It was fun.”

Accardi said he was naturally drawn to football and track, as those were things he competed in as a high schooler, and also the sports he worked most closely with as a student athletic trainer. He got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, then earned a master’s from the University of Nebraska.

But once he got to Newman, the school’s close-knit community made him want to spend even more time around the students, teachers and various teams.

“I can say this in all honesty, this is my second family. This is not a job, it’s not a place where I work; this is my home,” Accardi said. “I know that I could have gone someplace else and made more money, but the benefits that I have gotten from the Newman family – friendship-wise, the spiritual way that it has affected and changed my life over the past 30 years – is more important than money.

“It’s something so special about this place, I tell people, you can’t put your finger on it until you come here and experience it. For me, the day I walked in this building, it was life-changing for me, beyond belief.”

Accardi grew up in Effingham, Illinois, about 100 miles east and north of St. Louis. But after 29 years in the Sauk Valley, where’s he’s raised his daughter, Kaitlyn, 22, and son Christopher, 16, with wife Elizabeth (a registered nurse at CGH), he knows he wouldn’t have wanted to spend his teaching and coaching career anywhere else.

To him, staying at Newman and embracing that family atmosphere isn’t a rare thing. He points to other longtime Comets like hall of fame coach Mike Papoccia and assistant Jube Manzno as perfect examples of guys sticking around the football program for decades.

“The reason guys like Mike and Jube keep doing it here, keep coaching all these years at Newman, was because of that feeling of family,” Accardi said. “I guess I look at myself as just being another one of those teachers and coaches who got here and never wanted to leave.”

It’s something so special about this place, I tell people, you can’t put your finger on it until you come here and experience it. For me, the day I walked in this building, it was life-changing for me, beyond belief.”

—  Andy Accardi

Accardi tells a story that’s a perfect example of how he’s come to embrace the Newman family – and how the Comets have embraced him.

“When my dad passed away, there was a basketball game that night, and I told my wife, ‘I want to go to the game.’ That’s because this is where my family was, and I wanted to be around those people,” Accardi said. “I feel, besides in my own home, this is the place I feel the most comfortable.”

Learning under venerable athletic trainer George Sullivan at Nebraska, the necessary balance between work and family was something Accardi saw on a daily basis. Sullivan was the Cornhuskers’ trainer for 40 years, retiring after they won their last football national championship in 1997. But Accardi said it wasn’t his work with the athletic teams that was the most inspiring thing about Sullivan.

Instead, it was how Sullivan worked hard and always took care of the student-athletes, but also the fact that he knew that when he went home, it was time to focus on family. That lesson is more important than anything else Accardi learned during his time in Lincoln.

While at work, Accardi said his favorite part about his jobs, both as teacher and coach, is the students he gets to work with everyday. He believes it’s truly an honor to have been part of so many high schoolers’ educations.

“My favorite thing is working with the kids,” he said. “It’s probably cliché, but it keeps you young. It’s tough not to be in a good mood when you’re around the kids and they’re doing things they love. The kids change, and I know they say kids have changed over time, but really they haven’t. The smiles and attitudes are always great, and they’re worried about the same things as every high schooler.

“The best part is being around them and seeing them have success. That’s really the big thing, is when the work that they did in practice pays off later on, and you see that smile. Those are the moments that you know that you did your job for those kids.”

Accardi has seen plenty of that in his time at Newman. He has been an assistant for five of the Comet football team’s six state championships, and both runner-up finishes; he’s also guided Newman to a boys track & field state title in 2013, and seen championship performances in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays in 2013, and titles in both the 100 and 200 by Easton Bianchi twice – in 2017, then again in 2018. He’s also coached too many state qualifiers and individual medalists to count over the years.

But it’s the time spent with those teams, those student-athletes, that Accardi remembers most , not the accolades. And while the state titles are special to him, it’s because of how special they are for the kids.

As a coach, he believes one of the biggest keys to his success has been the fact that he’s also a teacher for his student-athletes.

“I think maybe one of the most valuable attributes that you can have as a coach is that they teach in the building,” he said. “I think the problem is if you show up at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, you don’t know if that kid had a bad day, was there something that happened at lunch, were they late to school, was there a test they struggled with. Being there during the day helps you get a better overall sense of the kids, and they can come talk to you if they need to – and about anything they need to talk about.

“Having the ability for the kids to see you in the building, I think it builds your respect a lot quicker, I think you have a better understanding of the whole kid versus just the athlete.”

One of the biggest lessons he sees year in and year out as both an athlete and a teacher is the adjustment the students have to make when coming into high school. While it can be a tough time in a teenager’s life, Accardi knows that it will likely also end up as a time when they created some of their favorite memories.

“I do know that probably the hardest thing, and this is what I’ve noticed most while coaching, the kids that come into high school their first year: their seventh- and eighth-grade year, they’re at the top of their league, and all of a sudden now I’m back down at the bottom again, and it’s an ego adjustment,” he said. “But I guess that’s our job as coaches is to let them get past that and teach them some mental toughness.”

He also knows the resiliency of kids, and the ability to find new things to be passionate about. That’s also one of the reasons why he’s loved teaching so many subjects over the years, is that you never know when a student might find a class that piques their interest.

And as a teacher, his ability to stoke that flame and watch as a student comes into their own his one of the most rewarding things he’s experienced in his profession.

“All the classes I teach have their own favorite part for me, but my favorite overall was … right now it’s anatomy, I love that because the kids going through there have so much passion, and driver’s ed is always fun,” he said. “But the health class is probably the one that really got to me, because I felt that it was a lot of things that we just don’t talk to our kids about, we don’t have discussions with them about that stuff, and I felt that 14-, 15-year-old kids need that. That was probably the one I felt the most impact with, but anatomy, I love that my kids are so energetic with that.

“It’s every class, every sport, everybody who I see as a trainer, I know that all of us teachers and coaches can make a big difference. I’ve found the kids can both be successful and have a good time, and we can as teachers and coaches as well.”