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Football Italian Style
I decided that forty-two years of coaching football was enough. It was time to retire from the pressure filled world of college
football and move on to the next chapter of my life. What ever that might be. In 2006 I retired from the University of Minnesota
and my brother promptly invited my wife Jane and me to join him and his wife on an Italian vacation in September. The timing
of the holiday was set in order to get me away during the first two weeks of the football season. While in Italy, we discovered
that the Italians play American football and that the Warriors of Bologna needed a head football coach. It was an opportunity
to be a head coach again and to see Italy for free. I interviewed for the job and a few weeks later we were planning for a
four-month adventure to Bologna.
American football is played in the spring in Europe. Jane and I arrived in Bologna on March 1. I had one month to prepare
the Warrior team for the first game against the Marines of Lazio. It was apparent right away that the attitude toward football
was much different here than what I was use to back home. We were allowed to practice only three nights a week from nine to
eleven at night on a dirt soccer field. We were always at the mercy of the local soccer teams who had first dibs on the facilities.
The players ranged in age from 18 to 46 and they either had full time jobs or were students at the University of Bologna.
I had been told that even though I did not speak Italian, communication would not be a problem. I had also been told that
I would have four assistant coaches. My information was wrong in both cases. Some of the players could understand English
and they served as my translators for the rest of the team. Therefore, the communication of coaching was very slow. I did
get some help from my two American player-coaches, but in reality, I coached every phase of the game.
One of our Warriors was a bus driver and could make only one practice a week. One of our linemen was a bouncer at a local
nightclub and had to work every Friday night. Another offensive tackle worked on weekends and could only play in home games.
Football was not a top priority and this is difficult for an old American football coach to accept.
The anti-smoking movement has not caught on in Europe. Many of our players were big-time smokers and it was a shock to see
them smoking outside the locker room. Our away trips to places like Naples and Bolzano were interrupted with bus stops at
the auto grills along the autostradas to give our boys a chance to light up. The most difficult adjustment for me was the
sporadic attendance we had at practices. I scheduled a practice for one Saturday afternoon and only 17 of our 31 players showed
up. This was an unusual season that would demand flexibility and patience from the coach.
The Warriors Bologna played eight games in 2007 and won four. We made the playoffs but lost to the Lions Bergamo in the first
round, The Lions went on to win the Italian Football League championship and Jane and I flew back to Minnesota. The 2007 football
season had been a learning experience. I had learned to be a head coach again and I loved it. I had learned to admire these
Italian kids who played football only because they loved the game. Their only pay was a Warrior sweat suit and free beer and
pizza. I had learned that football remains the greatest team game ever invented, wherever it is played.
Howard (Moe) Ankney ’64 | Education
St. Paul, Minn.
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