Thomas A. Fizzano, retired co-owner and vice president of Fizzano Brothers Concrete Products, has died at 91

Thomas A. Fizzano, 91, formerly of Ridley Park, retired co-owner and vice president of Fizzano Brothers Concrete Products, football star at Ridley High School and what is now Widener University, Army veteran, and former coach of the 13th Infantry Regiment football team, died Thursday, Aug. 8, of end stage renal disease at Riddle Hospital.

Mr. Fizzano joined his Crum Lynne-based family business in 1957 after playing football in high school and college, and coaching soldiers in a military football league in Ulm, Germany. He served as branch manager at Fizzano Brothers in Wilmington for a time, became company vice president in charge of product transport, and embraced the job so fully that he went to the office nearly every day for six decades until the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He valued the idea of carrying on something his father and uncles started in 1935,” said his daughter, Christine Fizzano Cannon. “It gave him so much pride.”

The company flourished during Mr. Fizzano’s tenure, selling concrete and building supplies, managing its family real estate holdings, and supporting local organizations. He and his younger brother, Joe, also a vice president, were athletes in high school and college, and the company sponsored a semipro baseball team, the Fizzano Block, in the 1960s. His brother died in 1990.

Former colleagues called Mr. Fizzano a “patriarch of the concrete industry” and “a gentleman, mentor, friend, and family man” in online tributes. One said his “wisdom helped shape one of the industry’s leading companies.”

In high school, Mr. Fizzano was a nimble tackle on Ridley’s powerhouse football teams in the late 1940s. He played with future Ridley coach Joe McNicholas, helped win the 1948 Suburban League championship, and graduated in 1950 with a football scholarship to the University of Delaware.

He transferred to Widener, known then as Pennsylvania Military College, after two seasons and starred as a senior on PMC’s 1954 undefeated team. He served two years in the Army after college as a public relations officer in Germany, and, using the skills he refined at PMC as a team leader and football strategist, lost just two games in two years as coach of the 13th Infantry Regiment football team.

“Tom really put himself into coaching,” Dick Szymanski, an NFL star in the 1950s and ‘60s, and a soldier player for Mr. Fizzano in 1956, told the Delaware County Daily Times in 1968. “He was the excitable, fiery type who died 1,000 deaths in a close game. He knows football and especially how to handle men.”

Szymanski told the Daily Times that Army brass didn’t want Mr. Fizzano to leave when his tour was over. “I don’t think it was all because of his football coaching ability,” Szymanski said, “but rather because he was a natural leader of men.”

Back in the Delaware County, Mr. Fizzano turned down a job with the FBI and joined the family business. His son, Tom, later followed him into the company.

“His life was a vibrant mosaic of experiences and achievements,” Mr. Fizzano’s family said in a tribute, “a blend of destiny and determination, commitment to family, wisdom, and compassion.”

Thomas Anthony Fizzano was born Aug. 19, 1932, in Crum Lynne. He and his brother worked shifts at their mother’s grocery store on Miller Street in Crum Lynne, and they learned how to organize and work with people.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in business at PMC and entered the Army in 1955 as a second lieutenant. He married Christine Myers in 1963, and they had son Tom and daughter Christine, and lived in Ridley Park and Glen Mills.

Mr. Fizzano owned racehorses and was a popular fixture at local tracks. He enjoyed poker and blackjack, and beat his daughter in gin rummy games until recently.

He followed politics and current events, and told spellbinding stories in a gravelly voice about his days in the Army, memorable subway rides in New York, and other adventures. A longtime friend called him “an unassuming, genuine, elegant, regal, and classic gentleman through and through” in an online tribute. Another friend said: “One of the sweetest people I have ever met.”

He had a kidney removed years ago and thrived much longer than doctors predicted. His father and brother died young, and Mr. Fizzano told his family that his greatest achievement was sharing so long in their lives.

“He said he lived a charmed life, and he had such gratitude for every day,” his daughter said. “He said: ‘I want to be there for my family.’ Never has a daughter or a father been more loved by the other.”

In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Fizzano is survived by five grandchildren and other relatives.

Private services are to be held later.

Donations in his name may be made to Shriners Children’s Philadelphia, 3551 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19140; and the Wounded Warriors Project, Box 758516, Topeka, Kan. 66675.