In case you’re wondering who The Prof is or was, he was the man who, more than any other, was responsible for persuading the world’s greatest footballer, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, otherwise known as Pele, to go to New York and play for Cosmos.
The Prof’s proper name was Professor Julio Mazzei. He was born in Brazil of an Italian immigrant family.
He was given the nickname The Prof in New Jersey because of his advanced degrees in physical education, coaching, and sports and recreation — a bachelor’s degree from the University of Sao Paulo, and postgraduate qualifications from Michigan State and the University of Paris.
But he was much more than that. For a start, he was Pele’s closest friend, mentor and advisor (“People assumed we were joined at the hip,” he once said jokingly). It was their mutual participation in soccer that brought the two men together.
I first came across The Prof in the Cosmos changing rooms at Yankee Stadium. We stood within a few feet of each other, but because there was a lot going on we weren’t introduced on that occasion.
Several years later I took an Aer Lingus flight to New York for an arranged meeting with Pele and the professor in Pele’s office in Warner Communications’ headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza. The Prof turned out to be a very personable, smiling man wearing a big grin and thick glasses. His greeting was a warm hello and a full on Brazilian hug.
I was there seeking Pele’s help with my proposed football museum project, and I had brought with me an Ireland-shaped clock courtesy of Telecom. It was graciously received. A surprise to me was Professor Mazzei almost immediately bringing up my Guinness World Records. He added that he had recently been a counter at Ronaldo’s sister’s attempt to set a ball control (keepy uppy) record for women.
Chuckling (he had a delightful sense of humour and loved a joke) he said he was damn glad he hadn’t been a counter at my final record — 4 hours and 3 minutes!
We chatted and discussed and gossiped for about an hour in Pele’s and the Prof’s office, and then he said he’d booked lunch for me, Patti Coyne and himself at a 5th Avenue restaurant.
Patti was the daughter of a good friend of mine, Mike Coyne, and it was Mike’s wife Eileen who had arranged my meeting with Professor Mazzei. Eileen worked for Warner Communications and New York Cosmos head honcho Steve Ross.
All through the very pleasant lunch, the Prof regaled us with stories about his and Pele’s travels. Some of them were hilarious — as for instance when he described how Pele resorted to disguising his appearance when he went out on the streets of New York. They wanted to avoid a stampede in the event of the world’s greatest footballer being recognised. Wigs and glasses were brought into play — and they worked. UNTIL…
Pele emerged from his hotel and, on an impulse, decided to have a shoeshine by one of the city’s shoeshine boys. He sat in the high chair looking down at the boy who, every now and then, squinted upwards to look at his customer. Then out of the blue the kid said:
“You’re Pele!” The disguise was blown!
The Prof also told us about the occasion on which he and Pele were invited to dinner at the palace of a very important Middle East prince. Everything went fine until each had a dish put down in front of him that had what looked like black golf balls in it. The Prof asked a guest beside him what they were, and was told they were animal testicles, a delicacy in that country.
Pele heard, and stared as the Prof put one gingerly into his mouth where he held it for several seconds before gulping it down. It stuck for a moment in his throat and his neck looked like he had an oversized Adam’s apple!
No way was Pele going to put one of these things in his mouth! But Prof told him he had to eat it; otherwise he would cause great offence and insult their host. Pele eventually closed his eyes, popped the testicle into his mouth, and only barely succeeded in stifling the instinct to retch as it went down into is stomach.
“You should have seen his expression!” Mazzei said, and collapsed in laughter.
He and I became close friends over the years, and I still have, and wear, a rather lovely embroidered tie I admired on him one day, and which he gave me as a gift. The Italian Football Association had presented it to him.
There were other gifts too, like Santos shirts, home and away, signed by Pele, and a 3-foot x 2-foot picture of Pele, signed to me
“From your friends Prof and Pele.”
I still miss The Prof. He was one of a kind, and the sad thing is he succumbed to the cruellest disease of all — Alzheimer’s.
