One of the patriarchs of a football-coaching family, Frank Girardi has been so ingrained in football for so long that he isn’t necessarily subjected to a commonly shared parental experience of watching one of his sons during a game.
Nervousness.
“As a father, I really never had the butterflies that some people have,” said Girardi, a New Kensington native and Valley alumnus. “I have always just gone to the game, and I’ve known that they would do their best and if it’s their best, there is nothing more that I can do.”
Even at the Super Bowl.
In recent years, Girardi’s youngest son’s best often has been good enough for him to end up a world champion.
New Kensington native David Girardi is gunning to join six Kansas City players and several other members of the coaching staff in earning a fourth Super Bowl ring if his Chiefs can beat the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night in New Orleans.
Girardi, who is in his second season holding the title of quarterbacks coach, is this weekend part of the Chiefs offensive coaching staff during a Super Bowl for a fifth time over the past six seasons.
It’s become quite the annual cause for celebration for a family with deep roots and strong ties to the Alle-Kiski Valley.
“It seems to be happening over and over again,” newly hired Burrell football coach Dom Girardi said of his brother coaching in a Super Bowl. “But we will take it.”
Frank and his wife, Barbara, graduated from Valley in 1972. Among Frank’s many coaching stops over a decades-long career were at Burrell and Highlands. The elder Girardis maintain a residence in the area, though they spend much of their winters in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Before getting hired at Burrell last month, Dom was the head coach at Highlands for five seasons beginning in 2017. Middle son Michael also has been involved in coaching. Frank’s brother and nephews, too, are football coaches in Arizona.
All those influences helped lift David Girardi to his role with the Chiefs, an organization he joined in 2018 as an offensive quality control coach.
“It’s always great to see your son on the field participating at whatever level it is at that time, whether it was youth up to high school and college, and I always got great pride out of any of my sons at any of level,” Frank Girardi said this week after landing in New Orleans for the game. “It’s just kind of surreal sometimes thinking that my son is quarterbacks coach for the Super Bowl world champions and coaching probably one of the best quarterbacks to have played the sport.”
That, of course, is Patrick Mahomes, the (to date) three-time Super Bowl winner and two-time NFL MVP for whom David Girardi serves as position coach. Girardi, likewise, is serving on a staff under one of the greatest head coaches in pro football history, Andy Reid.
And in a sign of the respect Reid has for Girardi and the trust from him that Girardi has earned, Reid delegates some high-leverage and high-profile duties to David.
“He does have some pretty significant responsibilities of red-zone play-calling,” Frank Girardi said, “so when (the Chiefs) get in the red zone, a little but, yeah, maybe then I tense up with those butterflies.”
Frank and Barbara have trekked to four of the five Super Bowls their son has coached in. Coincidentally, the only one they missed was the one played closest to one of their residences. In February 2021, while the covid pandemic maintained its hold on the country, attendance was limited for Super Bowl LV in Tampa.
Kansas City, you might recall, lost that one, the only Super Bowl the Mahomes-led Chiefs played in and did not win. That means David Girardi’s parents have a perfect Super Bowl record when watching from in the stadium.
“That’s kind of why I felt I had to go to this one as well,” Frank Girardi said.
Family and work life intervened to prevent David’s brothers from being at Caesars Superdome on Sunday. Dom plans to enjoy traditional Super Bowl food while watching on television with his wife, Tanara, and four children.
Sometimes, Dom said, watching his brother’s team reminds him of watching football as a kid with his brother. Having seen so many of Mahomes’ magical late-game heroics in Kansas City wins hearkened Dom back to an old NFL Films vignette he can remember watching along with his younger brothers. It featured Joe Montana leading a 92-yard drive in the final 3 minutes for a comeback San Francisco 49ers victory in Super Bowl XXIII.
“Someone was talking about how Montana had the confidence that he was gonna do it and how that permeated to the teammates in the huddle, and then they knew that he was going to do it,” Dom Girardi said. “And then the fans in the stands realized that they were gonna do it, and then eventually even the other team realizes that they are gonna do it.
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“I thought about that during the Super Bowl last year, sitting up there and (the Chiefs) are down at halftime and then start getting into that second half and the game starts winding down to what you know is going to be the final drive or two in the fourth quarter or overtime, and being a fan in the stands I remember sitting there and really kind of having this feeling that, ‘They’re gonna do it. Pat’s gonna do it.’”
He did. With an assist from Girardi’s brother, at that.