Giovanni-Johnny Piazza: a story, a story-teller

      We knew him as Johnny Piazza, but that's only part of the story. At home growing up he was Giovanni Piazza, and that is Chapter 1.
    Our high school friend, our star fullback/linebacker in 1963, and "Mr. Woodlawn" in the 1964 yearbook, had 70 years of stories stored up.
    So he put together his story -- and his many stories -- in a book, From Giovanni to Johnny, and I think that it is "a good read."
    It is a good read especially if you were a Woodlawn Knight in the 1960s. But it is a good read for anyone because it is about life in general.
    It is, as one of our mutual friends said, "an honest book. His recall of high school was spot-on; I was surprised he had kept all that within himself all this time. ... He kept this spark alive for 50 years. 
    "He captured the feeling of a period; it is a good period piece."
    This self-published, 222-page book is about Shreveport and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and then about Johnny's nearly four-decade career as a high school teacher and football coach.
    You will find that, in the end, he has great fulfillment from his career and from his marriage to Rosario, his wife of 28 years, and his children. 
    It is a plain-written story -- with lots of funny tales -- of a second-generation Italian kid growing and trying to find his place in his world. This is a book without harm, without malice.
     Makes one realize (again) that among your high school friends most are just casual friends -- or maybe acquaintances -- and you don't know what really is going on in their lives.
     To me, Johnny Piazza was quiet and polite, a team leader good enough to earn a college football scholarship, and one of the most popular kids in the WHS Class of '64.
      But read the book and you find that despite the outward camaraderie, there was much insecurity that he kept well-hidden. 
      His home life often was a tough one with his World War II Army veteran, policeman father. Johnny calls him his "oddfather" and says his mom was the soft touch. Johnny  came up in "Little Italy" of Shreveport, his Catholic roots showing, and he was teased endlessly about his Italian (more specifically, Sicilian) heritage.
     The "nice guy" we knew actually was a prankster and a bit of a troublemaker early in school; his junior high and high school dating life was a mess; his football playing days were challenging but satisfying; and his adjustment to being an ex-player took a while, as did his finding his career.
      Don't think we ever had a conversation of any detail or substance until Sunday night when we talked for 40 minutes about the book, about Woodlawn, and about our lives.
       "I was retired and I thought I had some good stories," Johnny said, "and I wanted to share some of the fun I had in high school and then as a teacher and coach."
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       The book captured me in the first sentence of the introduction with a reference to The Beatles' song In My Life, one of my favorites. Johnny goes on to say that the book is "a shout out" to "the people who made my life so wonderful."
      He makes it fun by interjecting trivia-quiz questions (provides answers pages later) and short poems. There are many pop-culture references -- chapters on '50s/'60s music,   television, sports and automobiles. 
       There are lines from popular songs throughout the book.
       There are what I consider courageous chapters on the civil rights movement, the role of minorities in our society, abortion, the hippies, the Catholic church, women's rights and wrongs, and "Barbie." And one less serious one, a farce, on -- yes -- McDonald's.
        Much of the early portion deals with growing up in the neighborhood -- first in the Italian section a block from Texas League Park (later SPAR Stadium), later from deep in Cedar Grove, and all the trouble kids can find. Playing football in the street and on the playgrounds was foreshadowing.
       To be honest, the book includes some ethnic names, locker-room language and jokes, bawdy sexual references (body parts, bathroom humor) and a really smelly chapter on his summer work as a sanitation worker (garbage man).
        And there is an eye-rolling chapter on his U.S. Air Force Reserves' basic training and duty.    
        There are some corny plays on words ("eargasm," "eleckissity," "I don't know jack about Jill," great sets of "ears," "two silhouettes on the shade," "Rigor Mortis dance"). 
        I'm just saying, be warned.
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       For our Woodlawn friends, Chapter 11 is titled "Finding Camelot." 
       As an eighth-grader, he declined an invitation to attend the all-boys Catholic school in town (Jesuit), a decision he later regretted. In 1961, he originally was zoned into the well-known, highly regarded old-line high school -- yes, that school on Line Avenue -- and started there in the 10th grade.
       He stayed one long day, asked about football and was refused, realized it wasn't for him, and began skipping school. Found out, he confessed to his parents, and they went to the school board -- and arranged a transfer into the district where most of his junior high school friends were, the new school near Cedar Grove.

Miss and Mr. Woodlawn, 1964:
Sheila Mondello, Johnny Piazza

        His introduction to Woodlawn (page 72) will please just about any ex-Knight. Believe me.
        His loves: He goes into some detail -- but nothing explicit -- about girls he dated (the names are changed). These are nostalgic tales, and Johnny is self-deprecating, almost to a fault, and you can feel his pain at the breakups.
         His friends: His closest friends -- in football and off the field -- are Jack and Mitch, with the woebegone Don as an accomplice in mischief. They had some crazy adventures.
        Also mentioned are the "very truthful" Thomas as their designated straight guy, and Warren as part of a double-date Natchitoches Christmas Festival trip.
         Some photos from that time are there; those of us involved then know the last names. 
         Football: In 1963, Piazza was our best running back and one of the best players on that 8-3-1 team (an indication of how strong Woodlawn's program -- from 1961 to '69, that was the worst record of any team).
         All three losses were by one touchdown to strong opponents -- Bastrop, Byrd and Class AA state champ Minden. The tie, 7-7, was in the state playoffs at East Jefferson (Metairie) on a memorable day: Nov. 22, 1963. (East Jeff won the first-down tiebreaker, 6-5, to advance.)
       Johnny had a tough act to follow; the fullback from 1960 to '62, Tommy Linder, was Woodlawn's first outstanding running back who received an All-American honor and a college scholarship.
        Johnny's football recollections are not exactly what I remember, but I won't nit-pick here. As our friend Warren said, "You are probably the only one who would know those things anyway."
        In a very short chapter, Johnny pays tribute to our quarterback, Trey Prather (with his photo), and his death as a U.S. Marine in the Vietnam conflict. He mentions the other Woodlawn grads killed there, and follows with a chapter on the ugly Vietnam war. Very touching.
        Piazza earned a football scholarship to then-Northeast Louisiana University. He redshirted as a freshman, and paid the price for facing the varsity in scrimmages as new coach Dixie White, who had been an assistant at LSU, began to toughen the NLU program.
       But Jack and Don, who had gone to NLU with him for football, left after a semester, and Johnny -- heartsick for home and a girl he left behind -- decided he'd had enough, too. 
       Coach White told him he was the No. 3 running back on the depth chart for spring training 1965 when Johnny went in to tell him he was leaving. White was not happy.
       Eventually, after a wayward year or two, Piazza returned to NLU, his football desire gone but with new determination to earn a degree and become a teacher and coach.                
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       And he did. As the book winds down, you sense the pride, pleasure and dedication he took in those jobs.
      There are plenty of stories about teaching American History, geography, civics and drivers' education (separate chapter) and his relationship with administration, fellow faculty and students.
      And on coaching. After nearly three decades as a freshman coach and then defensive coordinator at Southwood, he became head coach at -- as he writes it --  HHS.
      That's Huntington High, and the challenge he took on for five years there was as a white head coach at a predominately African-American school. 
       He three times had applied, and not received, head-coaching positions in Caddo Parish. But this turned out well. 
       After three sub-.500 seasons, the Raiders in 2002 had a 9-3 record and in 2003 went 8-5. No other Huntington teams in the school's 44-year history ever won that many games. 
       In 2002, Huntington won a playoff game for the first time since the school's lone playoff victory in 1980. In 2003, it won two playoff games. 
       In those years, Piazza points out, "We beat every Shreveport-Bossier public school we played." In the 9-3 season, two of the losses -- regular season and playoffs -- were to state superpower Evangel Christian, the private school which beat everyone else, too. 
       And in his personal life, Johnny also "hit it lucky."

Warren Gould, with Rosario and Johnny Piazza.

       He met Rosario, a native of The Philippines visiting the U.S. on a visa, through a date set up by a Filipino student of his. They clicked, and when she went home, he soon followed for a visit. "We got serious there," he recalled, and he asked her to marry him.
       Agreed. They filled out the necessary papers and in the summer of '89, she returned to the U.S. as Mrs. Piazza. 
       They have a daughter, Nicolette, 24. Johnny has two sons from a first marriage -- Chris, 45, and Benji, 43. And through a family connection, they have an "adopted" granddaughter, Sophia.   
      And now Johnny -- the little Italian kid grown up -- has a book.
     "I achieved a lot more than I ever thought I would," he  summed up Sunday night.
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To order the book: https://www.amazon.com/Giovanni-Johnny-cultures-setbacks-laughter/dp/0692594957