Frank "Porky" Vieira, 91

The Best…

…Obituary I Read This Week

“Legendary University of New Haven baseball coach Frank 'Porky' Vieira passes away at 91” — by Mike Anthony, The New Haven Register, April 26, 2025

Truth be told, this was the only obit I read this week. And my reaction to it was more about the subject — the death of Frank “Porky” Vieira at age 91 — than the piece of writing itself.

Vieira was the kind of guy for whom the term “local legend” was coined.

Born and raised down the road in Bridgeport, where he was a 5-foot-6 scoring machine on the basketball court, he found his true calling as the baseball coach at the University of New Haven.

He led the Chargers for 44 years, from 1963 to 2006, winning more than 1,100 games, twice reaching the NCAA Division II College World Series final, and sending off dozens of players to the pros.

He’s enshrined in the National College Baseball Hall of Fame, the New Haven Athletics Hall of Fame, and the Quinnipiac Athletics Hall of Fame (he graduated from Quinnipiac in 1957 and, remarkably, is still the school’s all-time leading scorer in men’s basketball).

Beyond the accolades and accomplishments, though, what really made Vieira a local legend was that he was a character. A real, son-of-immigrants, raised-in-the-Depression, honest-to-God, old-school character.

As Mike Anthony writes in that Register obituary, “He had the most distinctively coarse vocabulary but never used the F word. Few, if any, people on the Connecticut sports scene ever walked or talked like Vieira.”

Just the nickname alone, “Porky,” speaks of a colorful but bygone time. Vieira’s parents left Portugal and landed in Bridgeport, where they toiled in a brass-works. According to writer Tim Crothers in his 1990 profile of Vieira for Sports Illustrated, young Frank grew up in Bridgeport’s predominantly-Italian neighborhood known as the Hollow, where he was called “that little Portugy.” In time, that became “Porky,” a moniker that stuck.

He had dreams of NBA stardom (he’s said to have once outscored Wilt Chamberlain in a high school all-star game), but an untimely injury led him into coaching. And the rest, as they say, was history.

I interacted with the man twice.

When I was around nine years old, I went to his summer baseball camp, which was held at the University of New Haven. I don’t remember if I learned anything new or if my skills improved at all, but I do recall him informing us that “hustle” was a requirement at his camp. If you were moving from one station to another or taking the field for a game or even heading for a water fountain, you jogged or you ran. Under no circumstances did you walk. Ever.

Like I said, the guy was old school.

My second interaction with him happened on March 31, 1994, at the field that bears his name in West Haven.

His University of New Haven ball club was hosting Quinnipiac in an early-season tune-up. I was in 9th grade, spending the week following around New Haven Register sports reporters as part of a new “external studies” program at my school. (The creator of that program, my wonderful teacher Carol Ross, also recently passed away.)

I was accompanying a Register writer who was covering the game that day, to learn how a real sportswriter did the job.

I remember it being a typically chilly early spring Connecticut afternoon, and I recall the sight of “Coach V,” then 60 years old, resplendent in his Chargers uniform — just like his players.

Old school.

A short time later, I wrote about my experience at the Register for my school newspaper, The SPI. When I dug up that article on Sunday (thanks to my mom for meticulously maintaining my personal archive), I discovered that Vieira and his personality had left me so charmed that I began my story with him:

Frank “Porky” Vieira, coach of the University of New Haven baseball team, sat in the dugout, smoking his pipe, mulling over his 32 years as coach at UNH.

“The jitters are still there,” he said of home-openers. His team had won theirs against area-rival Quinnipiac College. He sat and talked about teams past, and this year’s team. He smiled, while telling of his pitcher, Jarod Smith. He became serious as he spoke of hit-and-runs and stolen bases. He is a reporter’s dream: A brilliant baseball mind with an old-fashioned personality.

The knowledge.
The honesty.
The language.
The pipe.

Just the type of interview for a young reporter-to-be to observe.

(Could have used a bit more editing but not bad for a 14-year-old.)

When I read that, I felt a deep connection with my younger self. I don’t think I could have articulated it then, but I had a strong desire to meet unusual people and to write their stories seriously but with a bit of wit.

More than 30 years later, that remains the case. I’m still attracted to telling the tales of oddballs, weirdos, and, well, characters. Porky Vieira was one of the first.

RIP, Coach V.