By Pat Harty

Your Prep Sports 

IOWA CITY – One person doesn’t make a community, but one person can enrich and inspire a community in ways that are priceless and irreplaceable.

John DeMarco had that enormous impact on the Regina community, a one-man force of nature who touched countless lives during nearly 40 years as a teacher and football coach at Regina High School.

But now the Regina community is devastated as it tries to cope with life without DeMarco, who passed away this past weekend at age 73 after being hospitalized for COVID-19.

“There’s not going to be a way to replace him, there’s no way to replace him,” long-time Regina teacher Clark McFerren said of DeMarco. “John is irreplaceable.

“To my mind, it will be hard to ever look towards the gymnasium and not feel him.”

DeMarco was the first casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic in Johnson County, and it was hard for McFerren to not cry on Thursday afternoon as he talked about his close friend and co-worker.

“I say to myself, John you weren’t all about yourself, you were never about yourself,” McFerren said. “But you were always just number one. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. John you were always number one. But why did you have to be the first damn casualty in Johnson County?”

The Regina community is held together by its strong faith, but it’s still hard for McFerren to make sense of DeMarco’s sudden passing.

“I’m a person of faith, but sometimes, I just don’t understand what our Lord is doing by taking the very best, the glue that holds things together in the time of crisis,” McFerren said.

DeMarco started feeling ill last week and quickly regressed to where he had to be hospitalized.

“It was quick,” said Ed Wallace, who graduated from Regina in 1995 and was a team captain during DeMarco’s final season as head football coach in 1994. “He was at both hospitals here in town and he fought valiantly. He fought very hard through the illness, but it eventually got to him. It was less than a week of being ill before he expired.”

From an age standpoint, DeMarco was considered vulnerable to the highly contagious virus, but DeMarco wasn’t your typical 73-year old.

“The thing about John Demarco is he was an incredibly healthy man,” Wallace said. “This guy could bench press more than most high school linemen at age 73. He ran every day. He ate very healthy. He was the epitome of good health and nutrition going into his seventies.”

DeMarco grew up Brooklyn, N.Y., and played football for the University of West Virginia. He was married to former Iowa women’s gymnastics coach Diane DeMarco, and he started teaching and coaching at Regina in 1981 and then never left.

“John DeMarco was just an incredible leader for Regina, just an incredible icon within our community,” Wallace said. “He’s going to be deeply missed. He was the kind of coach any athlete would run through a brick wall for, a terrific motivator and he did a wonderful job of really developing a rapport with all the students going through all forty years of service for Regina.”

The impact felt from DeMarco's death has stretched well beyond the Regina community as coaches and friends from all over Iowa have reached out to express their sympathy. Wallace said former City High football coach Larry Brown and former West High football coach and Iowa assistant Reese Morgan are among those who have paid tribute to DeMarco

“He was a big booming presence, a big booming voice, and obviously, the kind of guy that just inspired a lot of student-athletes,” Wallace said of DeMarco. “But I think the message I want to convey is he just did a marvelous job with developing a rapport with athletes, non-athletes and maybe kids that had a disability or kids that had struggles. He just identified with them easily.”

DeMarco's ability to motivate and to inspire was apparent during pep rallies at Regina.

“He had no problem getting in front of a large school assembly and being the cheerleader and being that muscle man to get everybody excited,” Wallace said. “And the other thing is he would go down to the elementary (school) and get those kids excited in the gymnasum.” 

DeMarco loved the Iowa Hawkeyes and Frank Sinatra, and he would sometimes tease his students about their musical preferences by humming or singing Sinatra’s songs.

DeMarco and his wife also loved dogs and could often be seen walking their two dogs in town.

“For him to follow Diane at the University of Iowa, and, of course, he jumps on at Regina and he never left,” Wallace said. “These people are hurting. It’s just amazing.”

And while the Regina community is grieving and suffering from his loss, they can’t come together to mourn DeMarco’s legacy in a fitting way because of the threat of the virus.

So instead, his former students and fellow teachers have expressed their feelings on social media, but they look forward to when they can honor DeMarco’s legacy in public, and as a community.

“I think that’s the part that’s been most difficult,” Wallace said. “It’s just a very difficult set of circumstances and everything happened so quickly. He was still working at Regina as our esteemed P.E. teacher. It’s just one of those things you don’t expect. But I think the biggest thing is that all the recollections of him are exceptionally positive and that’s the thing that continues to resonate with all of us.

“We were unable to mourn properly due in part to Covid, so we’re showing stories about him. We’re sharing some back and forth about him on social media, and that type of thing. But we’re really looking forward to as a community to a day when we can really publicly memorialize him in a way that’s proper.”

Marv Cook has built Regina into a perenniel power as head football coach and the former Iowa All-America tight end, who grew up in West Branch, credits DeMarco for making his job easier.

“Coach DeMarco always greeted me with a smile, a pat on the back and a message of encouragement during my 14 years coaching at Regina,” Cook said. “I was blessed to have him acting as our coach in the school during the day and he always had a good feel of the mentality and focus of or student-athletes.

“His background, demeanor and mindset fit our student-athletes well and he was able to have a huge impact in the lives of all the students at Regina. John was a positive light for all those who came in contact with him.”

DeMarco had a nickname for just about everybody, including McFerren, and DeMarco also had a unique way of expressing himself with little sayings.

“One of coach’s favorite sayings was “keep the faith baby,” McFerren said. “That’s what he would say quite often, and he didn’t always apply that to religious matters. He applied that to everything, He was a die-hard Hawkeye fan and a die-hard Regina fan. He knew every kid in the school from ninth-grade on by name. He had a nickname for everybody, and sometimes he’d change it.

“And he had his moments. He could get angry at kids who were horsing around. But the thing about John was even though he could explode, the next day it never happened. The slate was wiped clean. You were given a fair chance. You were able to start over.”

McFerren became emotional on Thursday as he talked about the last time that he spoke with DeMarco just prior to spring break in March.

“The birds are chirping and things are changing all around, but there’s no chance really to mourn him,” McFerren said. “I mean the last thing I said to him was “God willing” because he’d always call me professor or Mister Bow Tie Man, and on the way out he said, hey, professor, have a good break, see you in nine days. And I said you betcha, God willing, which is what I always say. And I guess God was willing for a different thing.”

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