Everyone's life has a story. In "Lives," we tell some of the stories about North Shore people who have died recently. "Lives" runs Mondays in The Salem News.
SALEM — An impressive number of dignitaries were among the hundreds of mourners who braved the broiling sidewalks outside the O'Donnell Funeral Home in Washington Square last Wednesday evening.
Among them was Congressman John Tierney.
But the last well-wisher who approached the family of the deceased spoke as much about the city's loss as any of the more high-powered or well-connected who preceded him.
He was a homeless man, in tears over the loss of his friend, Pep Cornacchio.
Cornacchio died of heart disease at the Lafayette Nursing Home in Marblehead on July 5 at the age of 89.
He lived his life by a code that has become solely synonymous with sport, which trivializes it. In his mind, sport, even with all the importance it played in his life for more than seven decades, was a periodic expression of a constant belief in the value of team.
That homeless man? He was from Salem, so he was OK, he was a teammate, and teammates stick together no matter what.
A superb athlete, Cornacchio starred on the gridiron, basketball court and running track in high school, and enjoyed continued success in football at the collegiate and semi-pro levels, where he was a running back with the old Ipswich Red Raiders.
But he will be forever remembered as the 20th century's Mr. Salem High Football.
He was the old guy in the black-and-red jacket holding the yard maker at the team's home games, and the one who flipped the coin before the annual Thanksgiving Day match with Beverly.
He rode the team bus to away games, and handed out awards when the season was over.
Step behind Bertram Field, the Salem High School football stadium, if you need any proof of his lasting heritage.
There, in a spot as perfect as can be, Pep Cornacchio Square is identified by a green-and-white sign. It really should have been the team colors, black and red, but there's probably some ordinance or bylaw that prohibits that.
Setting an example
Cornacchio was as affable and kind-hearted as can be, but he expected his team to always give 100 percent, and he could be rigid about it.
"He was a tough disciplinarian who demanded a tremendous amount from us," son Jim Cornacchio said. "You didn't mess with him. He was a coach, we were his players."
"The oldest kids were expected to set the example," daughter Patricia said.
He wasn't the kind of coach who just told his players what to do, he showed.
Jim and Patricia remember a Saturday when they and their five brothers and sisters were loaded into the car headed for their usual Saturday stroll through the downtown. A street person stepped off the sidewalk and tripped and fell, cracking his head in the process.
Cornacchio stopped the car, helped the man to a set of stairs and gave him his handkerchief to wipe away the blood. He called 911, and waited until the ambulance arrived to take the guy safely away.
He got back in the car, put it in gear and drove away without ever saying a word, but the lesson was clear enough.
His obituary included a mind-numbingly long list of civic and volunteer boards and committees he served on, and Jim said the family edited it down a bit.
But if you thought you joined one of those many teams merely to list your service on a resume, you made a mistake.
"You were expected to step up and do the work," Jim said.
'The perfect gentleman'
Beverly has a Pep Cornacchio type of its own, Mel Deveau.
Deveau, 98, said he first met Cornacchio 10 years ago when The Salem News got them together for a photo to run with a story on them as their cities' most faithful high school football fans. When Cornacchio heard that Beverly was going to name a street after Deveau, Cornacchio showed up at Beverly City Hall for the ceremony.
Deveau has a picture of himself and Pep in City Council chambers, smiling and holding the "Mel Deveau Way" sign. Deveau taped the picture to another photo of the "Pep Cornacchio Square" sign in Salem. Deveau chided Cornacchio that his was the bigger of the two signs.
"After we met, Peppy would drag me out to the middle of the field (at the start of each Salem-Beverly Thanksgiving football game) for the coin toss," Deveau said. "He'd introduce me to the referees. One time after the referee tossed the coin, Peppy said, 'Give that coin to Mel. He's been to every game since 1920.'"
Deveau said last year was the first time neither he nor Cornacchio could make the walk out to mid-field for the coin toss.
"Peppy was the perfect gentleman," Deveau said.
He would have liked that.
It's likely a whole bunch of Salemites didn't know Pep was christened "Joseph" until they saw his obituary. The nickname is short for Pepino, little one, his grandmother's name for him. Even fewer probably know that when the family arrived here from Italy, the surname was Cornacchia.
Pep's first-grade teacher for some reason changed the "a" to an "o' and his parents, eager for assimilation in their new country, figured if it was good enough for her it was good enough for them.
It's sometimes said the mold is broken after someone is born, and it's probably as true in Cornacchio's case as any other.
Few people have time for the kind of devotion to place and community that marked his life.
"He made Salem his backyard," Patricia said.
And the world, particularly the world of sports, has become the worse for the sense of hero-worship and individual achievement that has overtaken it.
The late Green Bay Packers' coach Vince Lombardi is as responsible as anyone for that, and his saying that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing, sometimes seems to the be the mantra even in youth sports.
Pep wouldn't like that. Sure, everyone wants to win, but the beauty and strength of teamwork is the belief that as a whole, we can achieve more than the sum of our individual talents and efforts ever could.
That's a value that endures long after a victory or loss.
A local merchant came to the rescue of the mourners standing in line at the wake last week in temperatures that hovered near the century mark. He sent over a supply of water and ice to help everyone cool off a bit.
Pep would have liked that.
It's what any good teammate would have done.
Staff writer Paul Leighton contributed to this report.
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