A Quiet Intervention

by Sallyann Roberts Moore

He wasn't in it for the thanks. As a teacher, football coach, and guidance counselor, his greatest reward came from helping the students he encountered during his 35-year career. An occasional letter, phone call, or post-graduation visit assured him his efforts were on target. But it wasn't until December 2001 - nearly 18 months after he'd retired - that John F. Marchetti M'70 learned just how much his quiet brand of intervention meant to one student.

"I can still vividly remember the incident," says Michael E. McGuinness '82, recalling the day Marchetti approached him in the hallway of South Windsor High School handed him an application for admission to Fairfield University, and suggested that he apply. "I was definitely not planning to apply to Fairfield."

In fact, McGuinness, a Connecticut native whose college applications were going to secular institutions both near and far, knew very little about Fairfield. Surprised by Marchetti's gesture, the then-high-school senior took the application home, where his mother reacted positively. "She liked its Catholic nature," says McGuinness, whose family is Catholic, "and its location - about an hour from home." Her positive reaction coupled with an easy application prompted McGuinness to apply.

Sounds like a scene that plays itself out daily in high schools across the country, right? Not entirely. At South Windsor High, counseling assignments were distributed alphabetically. McGuinness wasn't assigned to Marchetti. Marchetti did serve as an assistant coach during the four years McGuinness played center for the Bobcats football team. But he didn't directly coach McGuinness after freshman year. And while Marchetti knew the family, he wasn't a regular visitor in the McGuinness home. So why go out of his way to help?

"He was such a good kid, I wanted the best for him," says Marchetti, who describes McGuinness as a down-to-earth student who worked hard. "His heart was always in the right place." That also explains why Marchetti handed him an application for the Connecticut State Scholar program in homeroom later that year; the award would subsequently cover about 15 percent of McGuinness' college costs.

You can probably guess the rest of this story: McGuinness enrolled at Fairfield, where he played football for four years, captaining the Stags team as a senior. Along the way, he met his wife, Mary (Kelly) '83, and they later began a family. McGuinness, who majored in biology, worked in increasingly more responsible positions in the computer field, primarily at Massachusetts-based Parametric Technology Corp., before becoming president and CEO of NuGenesis Technologies Corp., a Westborough, Mass., supplier of scientific data management software, in 1998. And Marchetti became little more than a faded memory. Well, not quite.

"I consider going to Fairfield one of the best decisions I made," McGuinness, a member of the University's Board of Trustees, says, acknowledging that he would probably have gone elsewhere had it not been for Marchetti. "I often thought of telling him, but one thing leads to another, and you just never get around to doing it."

Except that McGuinness did get around to it late last year when, in conjunction with his leadership pledge to Our Promise: The Campaign for Fairfield, he decided to name the Walsh Athletic Center's football coaching suite in honor of Marchetti. Making the decision to take part in the campaign came easily for McGuinness and his wife, who have been active alumni since graduating and are committed supporters of education-related causes. "I think Fairfield is a unique place to be involved," says McGuinness. "It's a very good school and you can see the impact of your involvement overnight."

But having a room named in their honor - well, that was another matter entirely. Like Marchetti, they preferred quiet intervention. So it was that McGuinness informed Marchetti of their decision to name the suite in his honor. "You may not remember this ..." begins the letter that would ultimately reconnect counselor and student after nearly 20 years, continuing a few paragraphs later with "... but I recently came upon a way to say thanks for what you did in the normal course of doing your job."

"I was amazed when I read the letter," Marchetti says. "For him to come up with this was very touching. It's always nice to find out later that you had an impact on someone."