Pelini's father passes away

By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star

Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 - 10:58:46 am CST

The Pelinis will be preparing for Nebraska’s bowl game with heavy hearts.

Husker head coach Bo Pelini’s and defensive coordinator Carl Pelini’s father, Anthony, died on Tuesday night in Akron City Hospital in Ohio.

There will be a Holy Rosary on Friday night at Fox Funeral Home in Boardman, Ohio.

Nebraska is scheduled to leave at noon Friday for Jacksonville, Fla., site of the Gator Bowl.

Bo Pelini has credited his dad as someone whose tenets helped guide the way he lives today.

“They sacrificed everything for us,” Bo said when speaking of his parents last year. “He didn’t push us into anything. We played when we wanted to play, but if we were out there, we better conduct ourselves the right way. We better act a certain way. If we didn’t, that’s when we heard it, and he’d get that fixed in a hurry.”

Anthony Pelini fought in World War II, receiving both a Purple Heart and a Meritorious Service Medal for his service during his time in Europe. After that, he went to Ohio State on the GI bill.

He wed Mary Catherine in October 1955. Married for 46 years before her death, they had eight children — five boys and three girls. Everyone of them earned a college degree. He also had 26 grandchildren.

Anthony worked as a pharmaceutical salesman for more than 30 years before retiring in 1991. He was a parishioner of St. Dominic Church in Youngstown, Ohio.

Though he was not an athlete like his sons, Bo has said his father never missed one of their games.

In the summer, just before Father’s Day, Bo shared a story about how his dad hung a baseball from the ceiling in the family’s garage, mapping out a batter’s box so his sons had their own makeshift batting cage.

“(Dad) didn’t sit there and watch me practice, but he’d have things to say like, ‘This is how you practice, This is what you do. You’re not just going to show up and be good.’”
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Sounds like we lost a great man, father and soldier. Thoughts and prayers with Bo, Carl and the rest of the Pelini family.

 
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Thoughts and prayers to the Pelini's. Anthony Pelini your legacy will live on in your family. You raised some good men and women.

 
It's a sad day in Husker Nation that Bo and Carl Pelini lost their father today. For my family's dinner pray tonight, I'll have my grandma (cause she does the pray every year) say a pray for these two men and that our prayers will be with the Pelini Family.

 
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our thoughts and prayers are with the pelini family as they deal with this tough event at such a tough time.. my little brother is in kate's class and was devastated we my dad told him kate's grandpa passed away.. God Bless.

 
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