Two dads who did it right
Toolbox
By Tom Haley STAFF WRITER - Published: June 21, 2009
Castleton State College defensive coordinator Marc Klatt had an idyllic childhood, even by small town Heartland standards. Growing up in Oelwein, Iowa, his daycare setting was the Hickory Grove golf course. He went on to play football for the Oelwein High Huskies, a program where fans live and die with the team and pore over the accounts of each game in The Register, the community's daily paper.
There are individuals who have their hand in everything in Oelwein, just as there are in all small towns. It takes people wearing plenty of hats to make the community go.
One of those was Howard Klatt. He was an assistant football coach on the Huskies' staff, coached basketball and golf, and was the greenskeeper at Hickory Grove.
"My dad had the key to everything," Marc said.
That meant he could open the gym so Klatt and his friends could shoot hoops.
"I was always around something with a ball. That's why I am doing what I am doing today," Klatt said while sitting in his office and helping head coach Rich Alercio prepare Castleton for its first football season.
Klatt shares his temporary office in Woodruff Hall with graduate assistant Scott Girolmo.
They share more than an office. They have a passion for football as well as a background of growing up around the game because of their fathers.
Stephen Girolmo is the head football coach at Livonia High School in western New York State. He's been at the helm of the Bulldogs for 24 years and Scott's senior season, he was his father's starting quarterback.
"I grew up around it and I just loved everything about it," Scott said.
"I was born in the middle of a football game. I was kind of brought up around it. I was a ball boy from when I could walk and then when I was old enough, I filmed.
"I was always wanted to play for Dad. There were a lot of dreams around it."
He not only got to play for him, he also coached with him for a year.
Scott went to Cortland State, where he played defensive back, and now he helps Klatt coach the Spartans DBs.
Howard Klatt is now 75 years old and Marc understands much more about his father today then he did while growing up.
"Until I was 21, I had a fear of my father," Marc said. "He was a real stern man.
"When he worked on post moves with me in basketball, he would just beat on me.
"Now, I know what he was doing. It was not to make me a great basketball player. He was developing mental toughness in me and getting me to learn tolerance.
"Now, I know there isn't a more loving man anywhere."
Marc was a running back for the Huskies and one of his two other brothers was a quarterback.
"He would change the plays as my dad sent them in. That is funny to this day," Marc said.
Marc said his father had two pieces of advice for him on game day during football season.
"He would tell me to play with reckless abandonment.
"And the second thing he would tell me was that the first hit had to be your best hit because that set the tone and sent the message for the rest of the game.
"Sometimes he would come into the school to find me and tell me that."
When Marc was in the military, he got his degree in criminal justice. The well-chiseled 39-year-old is easy to picture as a law enforcement officer.
It's just that he couldn't picture it. The thought of being around athletics never left him.
"I told my wife (Colleen) that all the time I spent around athletics were my happiest days. The memories of it were so vivid. I wanted to coach," Klatt said.
He was on the staff at NCAA Division II St. Cloud State in Minnesota when Alercio called him and asked if he would be interested in coming to Castleton to help launch the program.
He and Colleen decided to come to Vermont and it did not take long for him to embrace his new surroundings.
"We were driving into Rutland for the first time and we said that this is what we were looking for," Klatt said.
Girolmo and he will soon be leaving their makeshift quarters downstairs in Woodruff Hall as the football staff moves into gleaming new offices that are nearing completion in Glenbrook Gym.
But they will continue to share a love of their fathers and the direction they helped steer them as they make a life in football.
"We're products of our environment," Girolmo said.
"Mom wanted me to be a doctor, but Dad said let him be what he wants to be."
Klatt and Girolmo are exactly what they want to be and that will be the source of plenty of reflection for them this Father's Day.
tom.haley@rutlandherald.com
38