In this September 1995 file photo, Jamestown assistant coach Joe DiMaio, right, and head coach Wally Huckno, middle, celebrate with Cory Itson after the latter scored a touchdown during a football game at West Seneca East. P-J file photo

On the first day of his freshman year at Jamestown Community College in 1965, Bob Schmitt arrived for French class and sat down next to a guy by the name of Joe DiMaio. The connection between the teenagers — one from suburban Buffalo (Schmitt) and the other from Jamestown (DiMaio) — was immediate. Before you knew it, Schmitt had a standing invitation to DiMaio’s house for spaghetti dinner every Sunday.

A lifelong friendship had been forged.

Whether it was on the Jayhawks’ basketball team — Schmitt was a player, Joe was the manager — on the softball field or, years later, in weekly gatherings with old teammates, the pair became inseparable.

And when DiMaio married Cheryl Carr on June 23, 1973, guess who was the best man?

That’s why Schmitt spoke in a sometimes halting voice from his winter home in Florida earlier this week, just days after DiMaio died unexpectedly at 78.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Schmitt said. “He meant so much to so many different people.”

Below is just a sampling of just how much.

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Wally Huckno, the Hall-of-Fame football coach at Jamestown High School, met DiMaio when the latter walked into Lincoln Junior High for the first time in 1972.

“At that point, he had hair down to his shoulders,” said Huckno, who was then an English teacher at the school. “I looked at him and thought, ‘Well, I wonder where they picked up this guy.'”

As it turned out, it was a match made in heaven.

Although DiMaio had limited football playing experience, he quickly picked up the nuances of the game and became a valued member of Huckno’s junior high staff and, later, as an assistant coach on the JHS varsity for 23 seasons and three state championships.

“Joe joined the staff and it was obviously the best of the very best hiring I could ever do,” Huckno said. “He wasn’t an assistant coach, we were co-coaches. He was so knowledgeable and willing to do anything.”

Huckno said he received the news of DiMaio’s passing from Sam Restivo, one of the greatest players in Jamestown history, who showed up at his front door Monday morning.

“Early on, he was a father figure, but later on I’d talk with him like I would talk to my brother or close, close friend,” Restivo said of his relationship with DiMaio.

During COVID, in fact, Restivo said he would show up at DiMaio’s home one morning a week, they’d watch SportsCenter on ESPN and they’d “share everything, good and bad.”

“He had his chair, I had my chair, and I got to know Joe intimately,” Restivo said. “I got to know about his politics, his family, his children and his grandchildren.”

Fittingly, Restivo will be one of the speakers at DiMaio’s funeral, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Strider Field. His eulogy will include references to “Tuesday’s With Morrie,” the best-selling book by Mitch Albom, which tells about a series of visits Albom made to his former Brandeis University sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, as the latter was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

“I’ll reference Mitch and Morrie, (because) I had Joe DiMaio,” Restivo said. “(Mitch and Morrie) were different circumstances, but they had the same kind of respect, loyalty and love that I shared (with DiMaio).”

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Steve Rauh (JHS, Class of 1996) remembered the first day of double sessions before the start of the 1995 season in a Facebook post earlier this week.

“Proud, chests out and still beaming from having gone undefeated and winning the state championship our junior year,” Rauh wrote. “Then, in an instant, that feeling of accomplishment was gone, ripped from us as his voice screamed and echoed like a drill instructor at boot camp.”

That “voice” was a familiar one.

“It was Coach DiMaio making us realize that last year no longer matters,” Rauh wrote. “That, so far this year, we haven’t won anything. For the next few weeks all we heard was his voice (that bellowed), ‘No one is going to work harder than us this year! No one!”

As it turned out, DiMaio wasn’t kidding.

“We were pushed like never before,” Rauh said. “Little did we, or anyone else, know, but it was in that moment and the accompanying weeks before the regular season even started that we had already gone undefeated again and won our second straight state championship. Coach DiMaio simply wasn’t going to accept anything but our best, because he knew what we were capable of as a team.”

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Chris Olsen (JHS, Class of 1982) described DiMaio as “the epitome of a perfect coach,” adding he was “tough, but fair; demanding but a tremendous motivator; intense, but kind.”

A prime example of that kindness came in 1979 when Olsen’s father, Ted, was stricken and died while playing a softball game in Jamestown.

“Coach drove me to and from the WCA Hospital the night my father died at Jones & Gifford,” Olsen recalled. “In those difficult moments, he told my sister, Cindy, ‘(To) carry on and live and keep doing all the things you know your dad would want for your lives.’

“Somehow in the most difficult times, Coach D was at his very best. At the right spot, at the right time, quietly lending a hand.”

Olsen learned later that his family’s story wasn’t unique.

“Coach D was quietly there for many in our community,” he said, “lending a hand or a pat on the back at just the right moment. (He) was, and shall remain, a cornerstone for the Jamestown community and all who were fortunate enough to know him.”

Earlier this week, Olsen saw a sign in a store that read, “Good coaches change lives.”

“All the clerk could do was watch as I knowingly (nodded) my head, ‘yes,’ and wiped away more than a few tears,” he said.

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Following his retirement from teaching, DiMaio was elected to the Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education in 2004, spending 12 years as a board member and serving as the board’s president for four of those years. He also was a board member of the New York State Association of Small City School Districts, including one year as president of the organization; was the recipient of the New York State School Boards Association prestigious Everett Dyer Award for Distinguished School Board Service; and was honored in 2015 by the Western New York Educational Service Council with an Award of Excellence for Board of Education Member.

In other words, DiMaio was an “all-star” in fields other than in the classroom or on the gridiron, confirming that his character — defined as “doing the right thing when no one is looking” — was in operation 24/7. That prompted Rauh, who now lives in Florida, to note in his Facebook post how “grateful” he was to have had the opportunity to visit with DiMaio in his most recent trip to Jamestown.

“It was good for my soul,” Rauh wrote.

Being in DiMaio’s orbit, which always seemed to include a handshake, a smile and/or a hug, has been a good game plan. Now, in his memory, we should try to execute it to the best of our ability.

Noted Ken Ricker, the JHS girls varsity basketball coach, in his Facebook post: “(DiMaio) is on the Mount Rushmore, not only of coaches in Jamestown, but also of humans. (I’m) not sure anyone else ever has been on both.

” … All of us who were blessed with Joe in our lives know that we have to love more, work harder and always have that Raider Pride. I love you, Coach.”