Eugene Edwards was ‘just that kind of person’
Danbury community commemorates life of former high school football coach
DANBURY — Former Mayor Mark Boughton can still picture Eugene "Gus" Edwards walking in a hallway at Danbury High School — holding a pen, and typically a legal pad.
“And he’d say, ‘Where you been? Where you been? Check in,’” Boughton said.
Checking in meant that the longtime football coach, teacher and guidance counselor was asking him to swing by. And Boughton would. Those checkins might “just be to talk,” or Edwards would see how Boughton was doing and whether the young teacher needed something.
“You could talk to him about anything, he was just that kind of person,” Boughton said.
Edwards died Saturday, according to an online obituary . He went to the hospital after a fall, and later died, according to his daughter, Robin Edwards. He was 87.
In his life, Boughton said many knew Edwards as a coach — a role in which he “was a motivational, driven person.”
“But I don’t know if everybody knew what a compassionate man
he really was, how intelligent, brilliant — he was brilliant — I don’t know if they really understand that cause he had a rough and gruff exterior,” he said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and he really had a large impact certainly on my life on picking out what you wanted to do, going for it, and just never quitting.”
Boughton — who was a student at Danbury High School while Edwards was a coach, and later was on staff at the school at the same time as him — said he would go to see Edwards to get his thoughts for big personal decisions.
“If you needed really good, deep advice about whether to get married, or about, are you saving enough for a house, or what career track should you take — Coach Edwards was there,” Boughton said. “And he always encouraged people to look into themselves and to dig deep.”
Dean Esposito, a Brookfield resident and chief of staff to Danbury’s mayor, first met Edwards when he was a high school sophomore. He’d later join the varsity team Edwards coached.
Edwards had been “instrumental in helping me personally,” Esposito said.
“Gus Edwards was purely tough love,” he said. “… I had some personal issues in my life with my family, my father was sick, and I was having a tough time and got in a little bit of trouble. And he pulled me in, straightened me out, and from that point forward, I have to tell you, I appreciate what he did for me back then every day since.”
And when players were on Edwards’ team, they “had to produce” — mostly on the field, Esposito said, but players had to keep
their grades up, their “shirt ironed and your pants pressed.”
Edwards had helped provide guidance when his father was ill, Esposito said, adding he’d acted “like a second father to [him].”
And as the years passed, they grew to be “close friends,” Esposito said.
“He’s just a really good guy,” he said.
When Danbury High School’s current head football coach, Augustine Tieri, took over the program a few years back, he met Edwards through a breakfast — which Tieri said was called “the old timers breakfast” — at Elmer's Diner in Danbury.
“And without a doubt, you could tell he was at the head of the table for sure,” he said.
Tieri said he “got to really speak to him” and listen to stories. He also heard Edwards’ players share their experiences, and “speak of him with such admiration.”
Coming out of that breakfast, Tieri said he had “a different aura and feeling of responsibility” of how he’d lead the program.
“That was a pivotal moment for me,” he said. “And without a doubt, it was just, you could tell he was a man who had impacted so many people’s lives through football. And it’s something that obviously any football coach should aspire to do, but he did it at the highest level.”
Edwards’ daughter, Robin Edwards, said her father “was someone that was always there for everyone,” a person you could count on.
Her father cared about and loved those in his family, his community, she later said.
“And he would want them to carry on, continue living a life serving the strong core values that he personified,” she said.