The 1976 Grand Rapids High School football team went undefeated during the regular season, won the Iron Range Conference, was ranked No. 1 in Class A and met Cloquet in the Prep Super Bowl for superiority in Northeastern Minnesota.
Grand Rapids coach Mario Lucia and star senior quarterback, son Don Lucia, were part of one of the school's best teams that season. Mario Lucia would coach one more year before stepping down in 1977 after a combined 20 years with Bigfork and Grand Rapids and a mark of 113-47-5. He died July 29 and services were held Monday at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Grand Rapids. He was 82.
"My dad was old school, he was very much a disciplinarian and very well-respected," Don Lucia, 52, the University of Minnesota men's hockey coach, said Wednesday. "He grew up in tough times and was working at a very young age and never played high school sports. But he loved sports, and one of the great thrills of my life was to play for him."
Mario Lucia taught for 38 years, as a history teacher for 14 years in Bigfork and for 24 years in Grand Rapids, from 1967 to 1991, as a physical education and health teacher. At Grand Rapids, he followed Noble Hall as football coach, who was 113-57-7 in 24 seasons. Lucia was inducted into the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2008. He also coached track and cross country.
In the 1976 Prep Super Bowl, before a crowd of 3,500 at Griggs Field, Cloquet defeated Grand Rapids 35-14 and went on to finish second in the Minnesota Class AA title game to White Bear Lake, 14-13 in overtime. Grand Rapids had a 9-1 record.
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Lucia grew up in Hibbing, graduated from Hibbing High School in 1946 and enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving with the occupational forces in Japan. He attended Eveleth Junior College and in 1953 graduated from Hamline University in St. Paul, where he played football.
More than 250 friends and family attended Monday's funeral, which coincided with the 58th wedding anniversary of Mario and Harriet Lucia.
Afterward, Sammy's Pizza was served to celebrate Lucia's Italian heritage. He is survived by his wife, two sons and seven grandchildren.
"I've had a number of my dad's former players tell me how much of an affect he had on their lives," said Don Lucia. "It was a different era, and he was tough on them, but there were good life-lessons learned."
