The joke's on Jimmy ... and he's still laughing
Ledyard — Amanda Fagan confiscated the sign sometime Thursday at the football game, the sign which bore the Fitch Falcon logo and the words, "Buonocore pays for Tinder," the location-based, free mobile dating app that's famous for, shall we say, romantic apocalypses.
Fagan, the principal at Ledyard High, could have stuffed the sign in a trash can. But then ... nah. What an opportunity. So she hung it over Buonocore's desk, which the coach saw upon returning to his office early Thursday afternoon and laughed heartily.
Say this for the Ledyards: They have fun over there. Much of it at Buonocore's expense. Even his boss loves busting his chops. So do his players. All of which sort of makes the general fandom's distaste for him even more delicious. Based on conversations with his colleagues, opponents, readers and their (always) anonymous comments, he's the most hated local sports figure in this corner of the world.
This is what happens when you are a young, smart guy who wins a lot and coaches at a "school of choice," which means he recruits everything with two legs and is responsible for every affront to society this side of Apartheid.
And so it was after the Colonels retained the Colonel Ledyard Sword for the ninth straight season Thursday — the Sword may want to ponder buying property in Ledyard because it sure looks as though it's not leaving anytime soon — that Buonocore couldn't help but smile over the rampant desire to tweak him.
Actually, it began the day earlier. Buonocore's players, whose meticulous preparation for more than a week even impressed their hard-marking coach, decided to have a little fun with him. They know it doesn't take much for their coach to morph into Jimmy Steinbrenner.
"I called motion away from the play side to the weak side," quarterback Ty Ebdon said, alluding to an X-and-O boo boo. "He just lost it. We were good for a week and a half and he didn't yell once. We figured we'd get him. We knew we'd be good today."
How well did they get him?
"He called me an idiot for the first time since probably, like, sophomore year," Ebdon said, laughing. "Then at the pasta dinner he was joking with everyone. You know how he is. He has those moments."
Buonocore grinned at the recollection.
"It was probably one of our best lead-ins to a game," he said. "Then boy, did they light my fire (Wednesday). I find out dinner they did it on purpose. They're a great group. It's probably the first time I've yelled at Ty in a while. Then the kids said, 'well, you haven't yelled at Luke (Saccone) yet.'"
Buonocore arrived at the high school not long after sunrise Thursday only to see his home field spray painted with some pro-Fitch vocabulary. Nothing profane. But an attention-getter.
"I actually didn't notice it at first," Buonocore said. "I came out to the field with (assistant coach) Marc Congdon to set up the field. Marc said, 'did you see that?' I said 'what?' Then I saw it, and thought 'you gotta be kidding me.' I couldn't believe it. Our kids were excited regardless. I don't think we needed that, but it didn't hurt."
Then he retired to the quiet of his office after the 55-20 victory to see the Tinder sign. Tremendous.
So now the Colonels are back in the playoffs, a star-crossed place in recent years. Plenty of wins, no championships. One assistant coach on another team opined recently that Ledyard is fine around here and all, but once the big boys come calling ...
"Look, a lot of things can get me going," Buonocore said. "Not too difficult. The folks around here can say what they want. The fact of the matter is that we always seem to find ourselves in this position. I'd certainly rather be in this position than on the outside looking in watching us play.
"We hope to prove people wrong, he said. "We hope to get back to that final Saturday and change the outcome. Whether that was a realistic goal when the season began, I'm not too sure. But it was a goal. The kids realize it's realistic now. Those people on the outside? We don't concern ourselves with them."
Then Buonocore scanned his home field, all his kids posing for photos with the Sword, all the happy faces, all the hope and wonder that lies ahead in the next two weeks and said, "These people here, our family, our friends. These people are who we play for."
This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.
Twitter: @BCgenius
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