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Vincent F. DiFazio: Sportive Personality

 

Sprinkled among the dark suits and dresses at a memorial Mass for Vinny DiFazio in September were a number of boys wearing baseball uniforms. Mr. DiFazio coached baseball, as well as soccer and basketball, depending on what his three children -- Joey, 15; Gina, 11; and Dana, 9 -- were playing.

"When he wasn't going to a game or home watching a game he was coaching a game," said his wife, Pattie.

The couple met 23 years ago at Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in Glassboro, N.J. He was a business major who was not quite sure what he wanted to do after graduation, Mrs. DiFazio recalled. But after working briefly as a salesman, and with some encouragement from a good friend from high school, Ken Barrett, Mr. DiFazio got a job on Wall Street.

"You have to be competitive, you have to be able to talk to people," Mrs. DiFazio recalls Mr. Barrett's telling her husband. "You would make the perfect broker."

Although the job was hectic and involved long hours, Mr. DiFazio, 43, appreciated the security that his job as a government bonds broker with Cantor Fitzgerald provided. But it was probably not his dream job. "My brother would have been a lot happier working 9 to 5," said his brother, Sal, "and coaching a different sport every night."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times