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For nearly three decades he was a familiar figure on the sidelines at North Quincy football games, a great bear of a man in topcoat and three-piece suit, hand on hips, felt hat thrown back on his head, a stern look on his face.
“He was a disciplinarian,” said his longtime friend, Pete Zoia. “He was tough but fair. And he loved North. It bothered him very much that he would miss his first Quincy-North Quincy game on Thanksgiving Day. He cried when the subject came up.”
In his 29 years as head coach at North, he became a legend and was credited with playing a major role in creating the famed Raider school spirit. Jack Donahue, who coached the Raiders in the first Quincy-North Quincy game and 27 more, attended all 51 games in the series between the traditional rivals.
He died Saturday, November 10, 1984, only 12 days before the 52nd game at the age of 79. A funeral mass was celebrated yesterday at St. John’s Church. Burial was in Mt. Wollaston Cemetery.
John J. Donahue, to use his given name, was the founder of football at North Quincy High School and couched the team from 1932 to 1960, winning 183 games, losing 101 and tying 24. Perhaps his greatest victory came in 1993 when his underdog Raiders, only in the second year of varsity football, upset heavily favored Quincy, 6-0, in the opening game of what has become a great rivalry.
Thirty years later, he reminisced about another Quincy-North game in 1952, in which his Raiders ran up 460 yards to Quincy’s 137, made 26 first downs to Quincy’s five, and the lost the game, 32-19. “Give me the score any day,” he said. “You can have the statistics.”
His teams beat Quincy 10 times, lost 15 and tied three. Appropriately, his last North Quincy team in 1960 defeated the Presidents 28-20, scoring 28 points in his 28th coaching start against Quincy.
Mr. Donahue was born in Peabody and starred as guard at Boston College under the famed coach Frank Cavanaugh, who was called “the Iron Major.” He captained the 1926 Eagles and reportedly played one game on a broken leg.
“He modeled his coaching style after Major Cavanaugh,” said Zoia, who was a running back on Mr. Donahue’s teams in 1933-35, teams that never lost to Quincy.
He coached football at East Bridgewater High School for four years before moving to North Quincy in 1932. He taught history at the high school, retiring from that job in 1971.
Mr. Donahue was inducted in the Massachusetts Football Coaches Hall of Fame in 1966 and served a term as present of the Massachusetts High School Coaches Association in 1948.
He was a charter member of the Boston Gridiron Club and was elected president in 1958. He was also a member of the Quincy Retired Teachers Association.
He had been in failing health for some time and last September he fell in his Quincy home and fractured his right thigh. He had been a patient at Weymouth Nursing Home before being transferred to Quincy City Hospital.
Mr. Donahue leaves his wife, Sally M. (O’Hara) Donahue, and two brothers, Edward T. Donahue and Leo B. Donahue, both of Peabody. Another brother was the late Frank Donahue.
A moment of silence was observed in his memory at Saturday’s North Quincy-Brookline game and the game ball, autographed by players and coaches, was presented to Mrs. Sally Donahue.
His memory is also perpetuated in the Jack Donahue Award given annually to the outstanding North Quincy player in the Quincy game by the North Quincy High School Football Boosters Club.
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Diane T Mulcahy (Malmgren)
William W. Curran
I never played for Coach Donahue, he retired when we were in the 9th grade, and was replaced by Coach Leone. He was however at many practices and spoke to me several times with advice and suggestions. He was respected by everyone as a Coach and a Teacher and was a great role model for all.
Bill Curran
Alfred F. Johnson
Before I had Mr. Donohue as a history teacher in senior year he was a rather distant figure, a figure from the past who just lumbered his big frame around the corridors looking gruff, weary and ancient. I had seen him in better days on the sidelines when he had been, before Mr. Leone, head football coach of the Red Raiders and I had gone to Saturday football games at Veterans Stadium before I entered North in 1960. I also knew from a couple of classmates on the team that he was the NQHS golf coach. If anything by senior year I would say I would have had nothing to say about the man, no story to tell.
During most of senior year that comment would also have been true since nothing remarkable happened to me in his class. He would just drone on and on or have somebody recite from the book. Since I was/am a history nut I would just read a few chapters ahead and I did not cause any waves. He had his world, I had mine.
In the spring of 1964 I was chomping at the bit to get out of school, to move on, and I had developed a certain “angry young man” attitude, a faux “beat”/folkie persona. One day Mr. Donohue asked me a question in class about Russia and the First World War (the 1914 one for the non-history nuts) and I gave him what he thought was a surly answer. (Please, please don’t ask me what the question was or what I answered. Not these days when half the time I don’t know where I put the car keys.) He told me to come see him after school.
That afternoon the minute I got into the room where he sat alone at his desk he blurted out to me as I sat down at my assigned seat, red-faced and seemingly apoplectic, “What are you a Bolshevik?” Startled but silent at that remark he proceeded to harangue me for a bit and then asked me to explain my behavior in class. I made the fatal mistake of saying that I had just answered the question the way I saw it. Not satisfied with that answer he asked me to sit there and thing about it for a while-a forty-five minute while. He then asked me if I had anything to say. I said no and he said to come back after school the next day.
The next afternoon the same thing, and again he kept me for that forty-five minutes. At the end of that time he again asked me whether I had anything to say and I again answered no. He told me to come back the next day. You know what is coming-yes, the third day I got “hip” and figured unless I wanted to keep his company forever I had better tell him something. So I pointed out that, no, I was not a Bolshevik, in fact had worked hard passing out literature on the streets of North Quincy for the late President Kennedy in 1960, still considered myself a Kennedy boy and not some Red. We then went back and forth a bit about my “attitude” and he let it go at that, then told me to go. Such are the small absurd things that happened to us as part of our coming of age.