Cervetto announces retirement

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  • Norma and Bob Cervetto were joined by many friends and family members at the 50- yard line at the beginning of the season when the field at Dublin Secondary School was named in their honor. Coach Cervetto has announced his retirement after a 41-year career, 11 of which were spent as Dublin’s Head Football Coach/Athletic Director. Paul Gaudette | Citizen staff photo
    Norma and Bob Cervetto were joined by many friends and family members at the 50- yard line at the beginning of the season when the field at Dublin Secondary School was named in their honor. Coach Cervetto has announced his retirement after a 41-year career, 11 of which were spent as Dublin’s Head Football Coach/Athletic Director. Paul Gaudette | Citizen staff photo
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After more than four decades in service of the Erath community and its kids, Dublin’s storied Coach Bob Cervetto is ready to hang up his headset.

“I think it’s really the right time to start dating my wife,” Cervetto joked. “The question was posed, ‘What happens if she doesn’t want to date you?’”

Cervetto said that there is a place reserved at the “Pearly Gates” for his wife for accommodating him and his demanding schedule as a coach for the last four decades. It’s the reason that he insisted that she be named when Dublin secondary’s Bob and Norma Cervetto Field was christened at the beginning of this season. Coach Cervetto said that

Coach Cervetto said that until the pandemic this year he hadn’t missed a single game in his 41 years of coaching - a career that spanned two schools and numerous triumphs.

After Cervetto graduated in 1980 he got a job at Franklin Middle School in Abilene. He taught there briefly before finding a job at Stephenville and moving five miles outside of the Dublin city limits, where he has lived ever since.

Cervetto served as a Jr. High athletic coordinator at Stephenville, finding a lot of “success with special teams” and working with kickers who really loved that part of the game.

For 10 years, he served as a assistant principal.

“I had one foot in the grass and one in the carpet,” he remembered.

In his time with Stephenville, he saw teams go to four state championships and got to coach the 1994 Texas High School Coach Association (THSCA) All-Star Game. In 2000, he was elected to the THSCA Board of Directors. “At that time, I was probably the only Jr. High Coach to serve that position,” he said. “It was pretty awe-inspiring to get those votes from the region.”

Cervetto would eventually transfer to a building principal position, where he was serving in 2010.

“In November 2010, I didn’t know which direction I was going to go,” Cervetto said, indicating he thought it was time to retire then. “It was then that I found out about the opportunity at Dublin.”

Cervetto was informed that Dublin was in need of an AD and was interested in joining the school and building up the program, which hadn’t seen much success in a long time.

When Cervetto went in for an interview, Norma asked if he thought he would get called in for a second.

“I told her, ‘I wouldn’t interview me,” he joked.

He was quickly called back in and started a decade-long career that brought a losing team to several play-off games. This came through coordination with all of the coaches in the district and inspiring athletes to continue to better themselves in the offseason.

Strength and conditioning has been growing in attendance every year with record numbers hitting the weightroom and track this summer to prepare for the fall.

Among his staff is Coach Greg Hardcastle, who has been with him since 1992. (Hardcastle actually served as a student-teacher under Cervetto in 1990.)

Hardcastle will be taking over the program when Cervetto retires in June and the current AD thinks it will be in great hands.

“Greg is one of the smartest guys I know,” Cervetto said. “He’s been right there making sure things happen; I was never worried that things weren’t getting done.”

“The leadership is in place,” Cervetto said of the program. “When coaches were out [for quarantine], kids kept practicing and never missed a beat.”

Fostering these relationships with his coaches and players is Cervetto’s favorite part of the job.

He especially loves getting to see former students and see the success they found in life and meeting their children and even grandchildren.

These encounters come often since he has stayed in Erath for his career.

“It’s not often in coaching that you get to stay in one area for this long,” he remarked. “Norma and I feel blessed that we get to stay here for as long as we have.”

He said he was also appreciative of getting to come to Dublin, admitting that he didn’t know the town much before taking the job, even though he lived right by it.

“It’s a great place to live and I’d have never known that had I not got the chance to coach here,” he said.

Cervetto said he was asked why he was choosing to retire now, after such a tough season.

“You look and on paper you see a 1-8 record and it looks like bad timing,” he said. “I say it has nothing to do with that; I contemplated [retirement] last year.”

Then the COVID pandemic started and schools started to see how difficult operations were going to become. This coupled with opening a new stadium that would allow the district to host many more events as well as other challenges inspired Cervetto to serve one more year.

“I saw a lot of things happening and told [Dublin ISD Superintendent] Dr. [Rodney] Schneider that I needed to be here this fall,” Cervetto said.

It’s been a tough season with players having to switch teams as athletes and coaches enter and leave quarantine.

He’s seen a lot of little triumphs amidst the hardships though and he’s excited for all the successes that have been built up: a district able to host not only Dublin’s events but play-off games for schools who seek out Dublin’s facilities; teams in multiple sports who have advanced into play-offs and who want to participate; and a community and staff who rally around them and support their success.

Despite his results, Cervetto is a humble man who will downplay his role in building the program to where it is, but those who know the man know that his humor, optimism, support and leadership were an integral piece of the puzzle.