Barry Gallup: The Heart of BC Football
September 14, 2014 | Football
By Reid Oslin
For more than 40 seasons, Barry Gallup has been making major contributions to the Boston College football program through his roles as student-athlete, assistant coach, ace recruiter, football operations director and currently, in his recent assignment as associate athletics director in charge of football relations.
In this newest undertaking, which he adopted with the arrival of head coach Steve Addazio in 2013, Gallup works with BC's football alumni as well as incoming and enrolled student-athletes in an effort to maintain the long-established spirit of the Boston College "football family." He helps to ensure that all who wear BC's Maroon and Gold become fully aware of the numerous advantages that come with a Boston College education.
Among the programs that Gallup has developed is a successful alumni mentoring effort that brings graduated players from a variety of professional fields back to campus to share their experiences with BC's current roster members. In the past several years, alumni who have made their mark in such varied professions as broadcasting, manufacturing, financial services and law enforcement have met with undergrads to explain their own academic choices and career paths.
He also plans and implements a variety of alumni outreach efforts: Team reunions, alumni golf tournaments, homecoming events and twice-weekly e-mail blasts to ensure that former players remain close to the current football program.
"Barry has so many experiences and so many contacts," explained Addazio in assessing Gallup's success in the outreach venture. "There is no better person to tie the alumni back into our program. He has played with them; he has coached them.
"You want your alumni to be part of the program, part of the excitement. There is nobody better than Barry for the role that he has," Addazio added.
Addazio also noted that Gallup continues to have a great rapport with student-athletes, often counseling and supporting them in their lives beyond the football field. "They feel comfortable sitting down with him - talking about football things and non-football things," the head coach said.
"He's a resource on a lot of different topics for the coaches as well. He's been a coach - including having been a head coach [at Northeastern from 1991-1999] - so he brings a lot of experience to the table.
"He wears a lot of different hats for us," Addazio stated. "And they are all important hats."
"We actually did a lot of things back at Swampscott that we still do as a team now," he explained. "We would all go to Mass together before games; we would have dinner together in one of the parents' homes; the whole team would go together to the town's Pop Warner League games. Stan was a phenomenal high school coach.
"I was a good student and my mother wanted me to go to an Ivy League school," he admitted. "I was recruited by Harvard and Dartmouth and visited West Point in my senior year. I almost went there."
Instead, the tall and talented end decided to prep for an additional year at Deerfield, an experience that he says changed his life.
"They had a legendary headmaster there, Frank Boyden. He would have the entire team over to his home the night before a game and he would wind up giving a pep talk. Saturday mornings would include scheduled classes before games. It turned out to be a great year for me academically and athletically, and it was a tremendous influence on my life," Gallup said. "I was fortunate enough to get accepted at Harvard and Dartmouth, but in the end, I wanted to go to BC. I had grown up a BC fan and when I visited BC, [team captain and future BC Hall of Famer] Charlie Smith was my host. I knew that four or five captains in a row at BC had been ends, and also, I wanted to stay close to home."
Gallup went on to become the career receiving leader for the Eagles, catching 87 passes under coaches Jim Miller and Joe Yukica.
"Joe was another one of the people who had a tremendous influence on me," he said. "He brought a great respect to the program. And, he hired a terrific staff. A lot of them went on to become head coaches themselves, including Bill Bowes [UNH], John Anderson [Brown], Bill Campbell [Columbia] Pete Carmichael [Trenton State], and, of course, Jack Bicknell [Maine, BC], just to name a few.
"At the time, football was different. You played a nine-game schedule and there weren't as many bowl games. But I liked that in those days you could play two sports and I had the privilege of being on the basketball team alongside guys like Terry Driscoll, Billy Evans and Jim Kissane and playing for Coach Bob Cousy."
After graduating in 1969 with a degree in marketing, Gallup enlisted in the Massachusetts National Guard. He was also given a tryout by the then-Boston Patriots, but after returning from Army basic training at Fort Dix, N.J, some 30 pounds under his former playing weight, he quickly realized that his playing days had come to an end.
In 1970, Yukica hired Gallup as an assistant freshman coach. He taught elementary school mathematics in his native Swampscott and coached the basketball team at Chamberlayne Junior College in Boston to supplement his income as a part-time football staffer.
"Then, defensive line coach John Petercuskie decided to take a job down at Princeton, and Joe offered me the defensive line coaching job at BC," Gallup recalled. "I had never coached the defensive line in my life, but over the next six or seven years - and thanks to the great coaches Joe had on his staff - I learned a lot about being a good football coach."
Among the players under Gallup's tutelage in those years were Peter Cronan, Fred Smerlas and Joe Nash - all of whom went on to long NFL careers.
Gallup was the only staff holdover on Ed Chlebek's staff, and after three turmoil-filled years, Chlebek moved on. "Then Jack Bicknell came," Gallup said. "The 80s were just magical years for Boston College football."
A great part of the magic was due to Gallup's tireless recruiting. He discovered such Eagle legends-to-be as future Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie, tight end Scott Gieselman and fullback Steve Strachan - all of who had been overlooked by other major college football schools.
"The 80s were just great," he said. The excitement of all of those big wins - the two Alabama games, Clemson, Texas A&M, North Carolina - was unbelievable. Everybody still talks about the Miami game - and that was great - but we had already been offered the Cotton Bowl invitation and there was no pressure on either side. That was a great time."
Gallup said that he takes great satisfaction in seeing how the players from that era have been successful in their own lives as well.
"It is great to see how successful those classes were after football in terms of their families, careers and loyalty to BC. There are so many rooms in the Yawkey Center that are named by players from that era.
Gallup married Victoria Lancaster - administrative assistant to then-BC basketball coach Gary Williams - in 1984. Bicknell, who Gallup says was one a great influence in his life, was best man at the ceremony; Williams was one of the wedding ushers.
In 1991, Gallup was hired as Northeastern's head football coach and later served in a dual role as NU's head coach and athletic director.
"One of the things I had learned from both Joe Yukica and Jack Bicknell was to hire good people," he said today. Even with limited resources, Gallup was able to recruit an all-star staff, including two current NFL head coaches, Joe Philbin of the Miami Dolphins and Doug Marrone of the Buffalo Bills.
"We had a lot of fun. I think that we turned things around, made things better there," Gallup said of his Northeastrn tenure. But when alma mater called again, he eagerly returned to Chestnut Hill in 2000 as assistant (later associate) athletics director for football operations under coaches Tom O'Brien, Jeff Jagodzinski and Frank Spaziani.
When Addazio took the BC reins late in 2012, he looked to Gallup for a new role in alumni outreach.
"I look at it like a family," Gallup said. "I try to put together the past, the present and the future. We speak to all recruits - in a group or individually - about BC's football history, our mentoring program, and what some of our former players are doing now. I love it when we bring the former players back and they can tell their stories to our current players."
Gallup also offers his long experience in the college game to his fellow staffers on topics ranging from recruiting, scheduling and game-day operations.
"Steve has been great," Gallup said of his new boss. "I can't keep up the pace that I did 10 years ago, but I still enjoy the work. I will probably retire in two more years."
"I love my role now," Gallup said.
That feeling is mutual throughout the entire Boston College family.
