Archdeacon: Love for America and football, a coach becomes a citizen

After two seasons on the Alter High School football sidelines, Renaissance man Marco Del Freo fulfills another dream.

Right after the moving ceremony, he posed for a photo that symbolized everything.

He had his right arm around his wife, Maggie. Behind him was the U.S. flag. In his extended left hand he held his Certificate of Naturalization. And over his suit coat he had slipped on his brown vinyl Alter High School vest with the gold Knights emblem over the heart.

As we celebrate the birth of our nation this Fourth of July, let’s do it with an old friend and a new American citizen.

Marco Del Freo – the Italian Renaissance man whose love affair with this country began when he was a teenage fan of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry movies and Jack Lambert, the snarling, snaggletooth Hall of Fame linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and most recently included two years as an Alter assistant football coach – realized his longtime dream 10 weeks ago.

He became a United States citizen.

“I was born Italian so I didn’t do anything to become Italian,” he said. “And I feel Italian, too. But there is a ‘too’ there, an also, because I discovered myself as an American.

“Taking the oath, that wasn’t a joke to me. It was something I chose to do. Being alive means making choices, and I did make a choice. I chose to be an American.”

The citizenship ceremony was April 26 at the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in downtown Chicago, which is not that far from where the American-born Maggie lived in Evanston.

Her family was in the audience, as was part of Marco’s adopted Ohio family: University of Dayton professor Bob Penno, his wife Julie and their daughter Tricia.

The family has a special bond with Marco and Maggie.

After studying abroad in Italy, Tricia fell in love with country and returned to find work. That was a struggle, and it was only because of a chance conversation with a friend back in Chicago that she got the slimmest of connections to Marco, an international journalist who had done a story on the court system in Illinois.

Tricia called him out of the blue, he invited her to dinner and soon after he and Maggie forged a friendship with her. She ended up helping them launch a bed and breakfast in northern Italy and also assisted them with their three children. In turn, Marco lived with the Pennos when he coached at Alter last year and the year before.

And just a couple of weeks ago, Bob took a group of students on a study-abroad trip to Italy and, in the process, he and Julie spent a weekend with Marco and Maggie at their home in Salsomaggiore.

As for the citizenship ceremony, Bob said it’s the third one he’s witnessed over the years, the other two being here in Dayton with U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice presiding.

“If you ever have a chance to attend one, they are wonderful,” Penno said. “It’s a very humbling thing and the people are so grateful. At Marco’s ceremony there were 140 people from 43 different countries.

“The first thing the judge said was how grateful he was to be a part of it. He said, ‘I’m not sending anybody to jail. Nobody has to change money today. This is just a great event.’

“We sat a couple of rows behind Marco in the back of the court, and he had a childlike excitement about him. Here was this huge person and he was almost giddy at becoming a U.S. citizen.

“He loves America. Honest to God, he loves America.”

Love of America, and football

A naturalization ceremony shows America at its inclusive best. It trumpets what binds us together in a national creed born of hope, not the fear, exclusion and banishment that some use as political currency these days.

“It was really moving to see all the different people who decided to do it because it was a good deal,” Marco said. “Many people came here because they had to leave their own countries. And there were people like me who think of it as just a ‘coming home.’”

In the process our nation gets a great addition from a guy like him. He’s 59 and brings along a lifetime of rich experience.

He speaks Italian, English, French and some Spanish. He studied medicine at two universities, served in the tank division of the Italian army and worked more than a decade as an international journalist and photographer, covering wars, politics, entertainment and sports.

Over the years he profiled everybody from Miles Davis, Grace Jones and Diana Ross to 28 Nobel Prize winners. He wrote a book on a trip to Antarctica.

Some of his journalistic forays in the U.S included stories on the Illinois courts, reports from a New York City firehouse and coverage of the space program from Houston and Cape Canaveral.

As a young man he loved American football. He played on an Italian team for several years and, when on assignment in the U.S., he joined a semi-pro team in the Bronx.

He even got a brief look by the New York Jets – after bulking from 230 to 275 pounds on a diet of liver, banana and egg smoothies – and that effort ended up being chronicled by the New York Post.

Years later when he came to Alter – green card in hand, with hopes of being a college coach in the future – he already was working toward his American citizenship.

The Pennos – whose sons had starred as Alter football players – introduced him to Knights’ longtime coach Ed Domsitz, and the two men hit it off. Marco began coaching junior varsity, but as the year progressed he was brought up to assist with the varsity and do strength training.

It ended up a magical year for the Knights, who went 14-0 before losing the state championship game 21-14 to Cleveland Benedictine at Ohio Stadium. Last year – with Marco coaching the varsity defensive ends – the Knights went 11-2.

Once the season ended, he began focusing on meeting the last of his requirements for citizenship.

Meanwhile, for the past two years, Maggie had remained in Italy, where they had begun an olive oil and hot pepper business.

“She really is my hero in all of this,” Marco said. “She had to bear most of the work while I was gone.”

That’s why he’s now back in Italy taking over some of the burden. Because of it, he won’t return to the Alter sidelines this season.

“I still have the Alter people in my heart,” he said. “Everyone there was so good to me and I miss them. They had their summer camp last week and I felt a little lonely without them.

“When I told them I would not be able to come back and Coach Ed wrote me and said: ‘Remember, there is always a place for you here. I’d be more than glad to have you back on my coaching (staff).’

“And one day I hope I’m able to do that.”

Accepting rights and responsibility

Marco called me the other morning from Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. He was people watching and about to head into the New York Public Library, which borders the park.

He had spent the past few days in New York attending the Summer Fancy Food Show, the largest specialty food and beverage exposition in America.

He had teamed up with Majani chocolates, the celebrated Italian candy maker which first opened a shop next to the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna in 1796. He said some of the products of his hot pepper business – like oils and honey – had been mixed into the chocolate and, as he explained it, the combination “can be melted into a bowl of milk and it becomes a double hot chocolate, so to speak.”

The offering went over well at the Fancy Food Show, he said.

Following the three-day convention, Marco decided to spend several more days in the city, seeking out some business leads and visiting some of his old New York haunts. While the memories were rekindled, he embraced the experiences a bit differently.

He’s no longer the outsider. He’s an American citizen appreciating his own country.

“Becoming a citizen wasn’t something I took lightly,” he said. “I took in the full meaning of the oath (The Oath of Allegiance), including being ready to take up arms to defend the Constitution. All of this is very important to me.

“And this year I will get to vote. It’s an important election and I’ve even tried to go back to some of the old magazines I used to write for in Italy to see if I could write a regular column about my experience and getting to vote for the very first time.”

Marco also made sure to extend his New York stay through today.

He wanted to celebrate the Fourth of July here as a new American citizen. He plans on watching tonight’s Macy Fireworks Show, the largest fireworks spectacle in the nation, and had already scoped out a viewing spot along the East River.

After that he’ll catch a middle-of-the-night, red-eye flight back to Italy.

He was even looking forward to that.

“I get to use my new blue American passport,” he said proudly. “I really do feel American now.”

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