NORFOLK, Va. — He's coached the likes of 3-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander and current Kansas City Royals manager Matt Quatraro. Tony Guzzo helped lay a foundation for Old Dominion University baseball and had a major influence of players that came through it. The former head coach passed away Thursday morning in his Norfolk home at age 75.
Guzzo was hospitalized late in the summer and his health deteriorated in recent weeks, said current Monarchs head coach Chris Finwood.
“He was having a hard time and is in a much better place,” Finwood said. “He was a mountain of a man and was bigger than life. He meant so much to so many people.”
Guzzo was the head coach at ODU from 1995 through 2004 and he took three teams to the NCAA Tournament. He was 303-252 at ODU before stepping down as head coach.
After graduating in 1972 from East Carolina University, where he played baseball and football, he was named head coach at Norfolk Catholic High School, his alma mater.
After winning four consecutive Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools titles and going 86-33 with the Crusaders, he returned to ECU as a graduate assistant before being hired as the head coach at North Carolina Wesleyan in 1979.
He was 102-66 in four years at Wesleyan and took the Battling Bishops twice to the Division III World Series.
From there he moved onto to VCU, where he was 329-300-1 from 1983 through 1994 and won three conference tournament titles in his last six seasons.
Finwood talked him into coming back as an assistant coach at ODU in 2017. Guzzo is survived by two children, Anthony Jr. and Gina, who both live in Williamsburg. Funeral arrangements are pending.