Bob Margarita, 87; Bears star was longtime coach at Stoneham High

Bob Margarita, the former star halfback at Medford High and Brown University, was on top of the professional football world in 1945 after finishing third in rushing in the National Football League for the Chicago Bears.

But Mr. Margarita, who died last Monday at home in Stoneham at age 87 from complications of pneumonia, had a more important priority - family.

He left the Bears the following season to take an assistant coaching job at Harvard University and be closer to home to help care for his first son, Bobby, who was fatally afflicted with spina bifida.

Legendary Bears coach George Halas was aware of the situation, according to Mr. Margarita's son, John of Gardner.

"Halas asked my dad to come back for the team's championship run in 1946 after Harvard's season was over. He also sent a check to help with Bobby's care," John recalled. "My dad talked it over with my mom, and he appeared in Chicago's last couple of games, although a chronic ankle injury limited his playing time."

Mr. Margarita, who at 28 was the nation's youngest head coach at a major college, at Georgetown University in 1949, was also an assistant coach at Yale University and Boston University. He was head football coach at Stoneham High School from 1964 to 1973, where he taught history through 1987 and was equipment manager until 2002.

In that latter capacity, Mr. Margarita, who took great pride in wearing his 1946 Bears championship tie clip, was accompanied by his dog, a yellow lab named Root Beer, who had no problem finding the way to the equipment room.

"My dad told me that he went to Stoneham for a job, but found a home, and that it was the best move he ever made," John Margarita said.

Mike McLaughlin, offensive coordinator at Woburn High who played on Stoneham's 1972 Middlesex League Championship team, said Mr. Margarita was "a tremendous role model, a humble man who was demanding but fair. He's one of the big reasons I'm coaching today. He taught us a love and respect for the game."

Mr. Margarita, a talented watercolorist and avid reader, had a good thing going at Georgetown, which twice defeated Boston College and the College of the Holy Cross and went to a bowl game during his two-season tenure. The program was dropped in the spring of 1951. Mr. Margarita went back to Harvard, but still found time to help his former Georgetown players find new teams.

One was a freshman quarterback from Allentown, Pa., Jim Stehlin, who never forgot Mr. Margarita's kindness. Mr. Margarita arranged an interview for Stehlin with Brandeis coach Benny Friedman, and Stehlin went on to a Hall of Fame career at the Waltham school. "I learned so much about football from him," recalled Stehlin, a Groveland resident and the longtime Newburyport High coach. "You never heard a cuss word from him, and I was lucky to be around him. Years later I found myself coaching against Bob when Newburyport played Stoneham, and I don't know anyone who ever had a bad word for him."

Mr. Margarita, an All-Scholastic running back and catcher on the Medford High baseball team that advanced to the state finals at Fenway Park, played two seasons of football at Brown before serving with the Army Air Force. He was an honorable mention All-American as a junior, despite missing much of the season with an ankle injury.

Mr. Margarita set a school record that stood for more than 50 years when he rushed for 233 yards in a 1942 victory over Columbia.

Discharged after reinjuring his ankle, Mr. Margarita returned to Brown on crutches and graduated in 1944, the same year he was drafted by the Bears. In 1945 he was named to the News All-Pro Team and the United Press Second Team.

A charter member of the Medford High, Brown University, and Stoneham High Athletic Halls of Fame, Robert Henry Margarita was inducted into the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1986.

In 1972, he received the Association of New England Football Officials Award for "high ethical standards and teaching the game to boys."

"It was the biggest thrill of my time in sports," Mr. Margarita's family recalled him saying. "It was not a playing award, but it was the essence of what it meant that made me feel so good."

He was married to the late Miriam (McGillicuddy). In addition to his son, Mr. Margarita leaves two other sons, James of Hampton, N.H., and Daniel of Stoneham; two daughters, Jean Conlon of Concord, N.H., and Mimi of San Ramon, Calif.; and seven grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said today at 10 a.m. in St. Patrick's Church in Stoneham. Burial will be in Oak Grove Cemetery in Medford.