Being an athletic director at a college or university is a demanding job, and likely few can say they did it better than Joe Iacobellis.
Iacobellis officially retired from Capilano University in June, making this the first time in 40 years that the Blues have begun a season without having that man and his trademarked moustache on the job in some capacity. Iacobellis claimed three Canadian championships and 11 provincial titles – in two different sports – as a head coach, and dozens of other provincial and national medals were won under his watch as athletic director. Entire programs were built from scratch, teams crafted from nothing by an energetic man with a shoestring budget. Scholarships were created, rising from basically zero when Iacobellis arrived to a robust system that now supports more than half of the student athletes on campus.
All of this was accomplished by Iacobellis with a hard-working, bare-bones staff around him. It was a herculean effort, and one that few could ever replicate. In fact, Iacobellis contends that it would be unwise for others to follow a similar path, to spend a life barrelling towards goal after goal at breakneck speed without ever stopping for a timeout. On this, like most things, he speaks from experience: he very nearly worked himself to death. Literally.
The story of how one man surrounded himself by athletic greatness and then nearly ran himself into the grave is quite the tale. The story of what he did when he got back on his feet is pretty sweet too.
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Joseph Iacobellis was born in Italy but didn’t take up organized sports until his family moved to Canada when he was five. Growing up in East Vancouver he played everything: soccer and baseball as a child, with volleyball and basketball added to the mix at Templeton secondary.
After high school it was off to the University of British Columbia.
“My parents instilled an emphasis on education,” he says. “A lot of the immigrant parents did in those days because they never had a chance back in the old country to go to school past sometimes elementary. … My mom and dad said there’s no other way you’re going to go – you’re going to go to university and you’re going to study hard.”
Iacobellis was good at school, and school was good to him. In the summer of 1974 he was travelling Europe with friends before starting a master’s program when he got a phone call. An instructor in a volleyball coaching course had noticed his talents, leading to an interesting proposition for the young student.
“I was in Belgium and I got a call from UBC, asking me if I wanted to coach the women’s varsity volleyball team,” he says. That’s how, as a master’s student, he ended up in charge of the UBC Thunderbirds, one of the country’s top university teams.
It was just a one-year gig, though, so the next year he found himself in the athletic department at Langara College, and in 1977 landed a job at Capilano College. The job he was hired to do was massive: create men’s and women’s volleyball programs from scratch, while also coaching men’s soccer and teaching in the recreation department. No problem.
“It was a lot of work, but in those days I was single so I worked 60 hours a week,” he says. “Every night coaching, weekend coaching, teaching during the day. … I didn’t have a life, I just worked.”
Success came quickly. In his first five years on the job, his men’s soccer team won three provincial titles. Iacobellis had an eye for talent, as well as a private reserve of soccer stars thanks to his connections to the Italian community in East Van. The coach, who speaks fluent Italian, had no problem attracting the best young Italian-Canadian players in the Lower Mainland to join his immediately competitive Capilano program.
“Joe always said that those are the kind of guys that are tough in the trenches,” says Milt Williams, Capilano’s current athletic director. “They’ll go to war for you. A lot of those East Van guys were pretty tough – that was his brand of soccer.”
Former players recall a coach who was always cool on the sidelines. In the 1990 national championships held in Granby, Que., the Blues were somehow booked for a 9 a.m. game on the first day of the tournament after arriving at 11 p.m. the night before. Not surprisingly, the Blues fell behind in the must-win game, which began at what felt like 6 a.m. for a team still on B.C. time. They were down 3-0 at halftime.
“All the heads are down,” recalls Iacobellis. “The guys aren’t happy, I’m not happy. But we grouped together at halftime and I said to the guys ‘You know, if they can score three goals in one half, we can score four goals in one half.’ … The guys started to wake up. Like, literally wake up. We started scoring goal after goal after goal. We won the game 5-3.”
The Blues went on to claim their second national title.
Paul Dailly, who now coaches Capilano’s men’s soccer team, was a star player on the 1990 team as well as the 1991 team that also claimed a national title in Nova Scotia. In the 1991 championship final the Blues went up 4-0 against Sheridan College and Iacobellis decided to let his bench players get on the pitch to experience the thrill of playing in a final.
“I was so confident, I turned to the bench and said ‘Who wants to play?’ And of course all the hands went up,” says Iacobellis. Dailly was in the thick of the action on the field as Sheridan quickly blasted in two goals to cut the deficit in half.
“It was like, ‘What is going on?’” says Dailly. But the coach kept his chill. “Calm down, guys. Everything is cool,” was his reply. “I just made a couple of changes again, stabilized the back four and we were good to go.”
Those wins helped the Blues claim the national Soccer Supremacy award as the best team in the first 25 years of CCAA play. Capilano actually took home the honour in men’s and women’s soccer, with coaches Frank Pup and Doug Abercrombie guiding the women’s program, created by Iacobellis, to great success.
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The success on the field was unmatched, but those who worked with Iacobellis say that he was equally dedicated to getting his athletes to succeed off the pitch.
Retired academic adviser Jeri Krogseth started at Capilano in 1985 and recalls many visits with Iacobellis to the homes of prospective student athletes.
“The kids all wanted to come to Cap because they knew that that was the place where they’d get the best soccer experience – but they weren’t all good students,” she says with a laugh. “He wanted the student to come to play, but he also wanted to assure the parents that this was not just soccer. … He wanted the parents to understand that the soccer experience was good, but the kids would get an education out of it as well.”
He didn’t succeed in getting all of his athletes to finish their studies, but he did everything in his power to try. Krogseth was assigned to track struggling students and get them back on task if their studies lagged.
“He had a high standard,” says Williams, who has worked alongside Iacobellis since joining the Capilano athletic department in 1992. “Winning is definitely important, but graduating is more important. That was Joe’s main emphasis. … For Joe, that’s where he got his kick.”
The focus for Iacobellis was on the struggling students as much as it was on the stars, says Williams.
“Joe rooted for the underdog a lot of times,” he says. “He worked tirelessly at that, for students to have the best experience they could have. …Time and time and time again students would come back and thank him.”
Thanks to his own experience as a student, Iacobellis knew the importance of higher education. “Athletics is important, but at the end of the day athletics is going to end and you’re going to have to have a career,” he says. “I put a lot of emphasis on trying to get the kids to maintain their marks and come out of the university or college system with a piece of paper, with something tangible that they could use to get a job.”
In 1990, Iacobellis succeeded Neil Chester as athletic director and the successes piled up as fast as the new responsibilities.
“Unless you’re passionate about athletics, you would never do this job,” he says. “It’s just so time-consuming, and a lot of hard work. You’ve got to love it because you won’t do it unless you love it.”
Krogseth was enlisted to coach the school’s golf team for a couple of years, against her better judgment. “Joe was a difficult man to say no to,” she says with a laugh, and recalls that no matter how busy Iacobellis got as athletic director, he always had time to help others.
“If you needed to talk to him, you wanted to ask about something – he found time. And you never felt like he was ruffled by it,” she says. “Some people – because they’re ‘so important’ – yes, they can find time but you know that it’s really an effort that they’re doing it. That wasn’t Joe.”
Iacobellis kept going – 22 years as the athletic director. Days, nights and weekends were spent on campus, often with his wife Laura and daughters Laurren and Chantelle missing him at home.
“Oh my God. If I added it up, it would be a lifetime,” he says of the time he spent away from his family. “Pretty well every weekend I was at a game or in the Sportsplex, eight to 10 months of the year.”
He rarely took vacations, instead spending his summers upgrading his coaching skills during his early years at Capilano, and in the later years just taking care of all of the administrative duties that he and others piled on his plate. Those around him could see what a strain the work was taking.
“He was a workaholic,” says Williams. “Everything was for sport and for athletics and for the university – constantly having to do more with less.”
“I think it’s true of a lot of people at the university,” says Krogseth. “They all really care about what they’re doing and they just keep doing it. I think Joe had difficulty saying no to other people as well. … He’s very obliging, and if he took something on he wanted to finish it and do it well. Maybe it was too much for one person.”
“He worked himself into the ground,” says Williams. “He tried to do everything and it just caught up with him.”
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It was 2012, and Iacobellis excused himself from yet another administrative meeting because he was feeling awful. A colleague drove him to the hospital. Iacobellis, his head spinning, was told he’d had a stroke. He didn’t leave the hospital for a week, and barely set foot back on campus for a year. The physical and mental recovery took two years. It was a lot of time for Iacobellis to think about his life. Many factors can go into a stroke, but Iacobellis believes the workload he took on played a part in his.
“I put so much into my work, I would really say that I was negligent in giving myself a balanced life,” he says. “When you love to do something, it’s not work. You love to do it, you do it. But then you realize as you get older, ‘Oh, wow.’ Maybe you’re still trying to do too much. Sixty-two. Sixty-three years of age. Maybe you should kind of let go a little.”
Iacobellis never let go – he says he’d still be holding on if not for the stroke – until his body made him relax his grip. He’s happy it did.
“I think for a guy like me something like this has to happen before they change their life because you just keep on rolling,” he says. “I’m a changed man. I see life very differently now. I smell the coffee much more than I used to.”
He’s left the program in good hands with Williams, who is only the third athletic director in the 49-year-old school’s history.
“You only build solid programs through consistency, so having the same people for so many years they build history, they build consistency and they have a chance to put their vision into play,” says Williams. “Joe certainly did that and he achieved a tremendous amount because of that. … A lot of the people that are leaving (Capilano) now who have been here a long time, they’re taking the history with them but the passion is still here so we can build on that passion.”
As for Iacobellis, he’s now cycling every day, and learning how to cook. “I’m spending more time with my wife, and she loves it,” he says, his smile growing wide. “I’m just doing a lot of things that make my life richer.”
You still can’t keep him away from Capilano home games, though. “He has season passes for everything,” says Williams.
Life is different, but those who have admired Iacobellis for all he’s built still see him as someone who is winning.
“He’s more relaxed, happier. But still incredibly sincere – a wonderful friend,” says Krogseth. “I’m not sure how many regrets he’s got because he just accomplished so much and he’s so loved by so many people.”
