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WARWICK—Coach Francis McGuire has a unique perspective on the Diocese of Providence, having lived through almost two-thirds of the diocese’s 155-year history. For the former athletes he coached during his decades of service with Catholic Youth Organization sports programs, however, the greatest lessons the 98-year-old McGuire offered were not historical—or even athletic, for that matter.
“The number one thing Coach taught us was how to be better Christians,” recalls Dr. Albert Alba, who played football under McGuire’s leadership. “He would begin every game by praying with us. I know that his example had a major impact on everyone.”
McGuire was born in 1927 in a rapidly expanding Diocese of Providence: massive waves of immigration had already established Rhode Island as the first state in the country to achieve a Catholic majority, hitting a record high that year of 128 parishes in only 1,034 square miles.
Although many of these parishes included thriving social and athletic programs for young Catholics, these were typically organized by national and ethnic heritage clubs such as the Polish Falcons or the Ancient Order of Hibernians. As a result, opportunities for statewide competition and fraternity between parishes were limited.
This changed with the emergence of the Catholic Youth Organization movement, first introduced in Chicago in 1930 by Bishop Bernard Sheil. Founded to provide an alternative to Protestant youth organizations like the YMCA, CYO arrived in Rhode Island in 1935 and rapidly became a key feature of Catholic life in the state.
Although the organization still exists in the form of the Catholic Athletic League, the postwar era represented something of a golden age for diocesan sports: at its peak, Rhode Island CYO groups included 500 teams playing basketball, football, and other sports. This was made possible by volunteers throughout the diocese, including McGuire’s work with the recently closed St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Warwick.
“I first got involved with coaching right after having kids,” he remembers. “I had been going to St. Francis for much longer, back when it was still a mission church instead of a full parish. I still remember Father Van Der Heyden coming down the dirt road on his horse to celebrate Mass with us.”
Although he attended La Salle Academy and Providence College, both known for well-regarded athletic programs, McGuire says he had only an offhand interest in sports before being asked to coach for the CYO.
“I had played some intramural football in college, but I wasn’t particularly good at it,” he admits. Although not much of a player, McGuire remains a devoted fan of the Providence Friars basketball team, and has been attending home games for nearly eight decades.
“After my children were born, my yard gradually became the neighborhood playground and I’d constantly be out with them playing what we called ‘birdie baseball’—like regular baseball, but smaller, and using a shuttlecock so we didn’t have to worry about a ball flying into the neighbor’s yard. So coaching seemed like a good way to help out at the parish.”
Bobby McGuire, one of Francis’s five children, recalls his father teaching his players both to work hard and pray hard.
“Dad definitely made us work, but we got results on the field,” Bobby says, reminiscing on CYO State Championships.
“He’d also make us all join together to say the Our Father before games, but he made sure we were praying for the safety of both teams, not just that we would win. It worked, too: I think he only had two players injured in his decades and decades of coaching.”
In addition to coaching, McGuire also served as a CCD and confirmation teacher at St. Francis, and was particularly involved with the parish’s SPRED program, which offers religious instruction for people with learning disabilities.
Given his “Ora et Labora” ethos, it is hardly surprising that McGuire is a member of the Benedictine Oblates. He also belongs to a small group from the former St. Francis Parish devoted to Our Lady of Fatima—a group which even managed to survive the closing of the church itself.
“We used to meet on the first Saturday of every month to pray the rosary at St. Francis,” he said. “When the church closed and we couldn’t get in, we’d just meet in the parking lot outside instead; we spent two-and-a-half-years praying in our cars like that. When Chesterton Academy bought the building a few years ago, Mike Casey [the school’s Executive Director] came out to check on the property and found us praying outside. He almost started crying when we told him the story of why we were there, and since then he’s made us a part of the Chesterton family.”
These Chesterton Academy ‘Prayer Warriors’ will be the subject of a future profile article in Rhode Island Catholic. Since the closing of St. Francis, McGuire has attended St. Joseph’s Church in West Warwick, where he remains an active parishioner. He already received a bit of recognition a few years ago when his former players hosted a reception for him at Warwick’s Greenwood Inn. In addition to a specially engraved plaque which they presented to him, these grateful former athletes also convinced Warwick Mayor Frank Picozzi to declare October 31, 2021, as “Coach Francis McGuire Day.”
As McGuire approaches his 99th birthday, however, he insists that the real joy of his decades of coaching comes not from victories or accolades but from the lives that he has been able to impact along the way.
“A few years ago, I was leaving Cambridge, Massachusetts, heading south, when this car started following close behind me, honking the horn over and over again,” he remembers. “I pulled over and this man came running up to me and, all out of breath, he says ‘Excuse me, Coach McGuire? You won’t remember me but you coached years ago in football back in Warwick.’ It turns out he’s a lawyer now and he made himself late for court just so he could stop and say hi to his old coach.”
“You never think that people will remember the things you do for them, but he did, decades later. You can’t go looking for that kind of thing. It just happens.”
