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While driving home from work on June 17, 2020, Sean Torregiano got a call from Steve Mahar Jr. It was about 4:30 p.m., and Mahar was in Cape May, New Jersey, on his senior trip. Mahar had just gotten a call from his mother, Jennifer Coccia, and was screaming and sobbing, Torregiano said. Mahar doesn’t remember the phone call — too much was going on. He just remembers that he was on the road back home to Rochester, New York within 10 minutes of his mother calling.

Torregiano couldn’t figure out what was wrong. All Mahar could muster was “My dad, my dad, it’s my dad.” Steve Mahar Sr. went to work that morning, a typical Wednesday at his contracting and electrician job, which he’d held self-employed for over 25 years.

“My dad died,” Mahar told Torregiano, his high school offensive line coach.

Mahar remembers the last texts with his father surrounding a conversation about their relationship, how from the outside looking in it was “funny sarcasm.” His dad died at 51 years old, following a heart attack, one month before Mahar went to Syracuse to begin football workouts.

For the next two years at SU, Mahar mostly appeared on special teams. Though his dad wasn’t there, his mother and grandmother traveled down to watch, something they continue to do when his mom isn’t working. This year, he’s part of an experienced tight end room, hoping to become a larger part of the passing game.

“I got to step up to the plate or this sh*t gonna eat me alive,” Mahar said he remembers thinking.

The Orange’s sophomore tight end chose SU over schools like Buffalo and Boston College. Mahar wanted to be close to home, though Syracuse didn’t utilize tight ends and BC offered him a spot in around 15% of its formations, according to Torregiano. He impressed in training camp, flashing his ability to be a slot receiver threat and his skill as a blocking tight end.

Mahar went to SU football games with his dad, going to his first in 2013, when Syracuse blew out Tulane. Mahar remembered being awestruck while looking around the Dome.

A confused Torregiano asked Mahar why he chose a school that recruited him as a tight end, slot receiver and “glorified H-back.” Mahar told Torregiano that he was going to run around and “whack” people. Mahar couldn’t be happier.

In high school at the Aquinas Institute of Rochester, Mahar was tall and awkward in his movements. His primary sport was basketball, and it was clear to head coach Derek Annechino that he hadn’t experienced a lot of time in the weight room. The coachability was there, the height was there—he just needed to learn how to catch, block and move within his body. The basketball player cosplaying as a football player quickly turned into a Swiss Army knife for Annechino.

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“He stood out,” Torregiano said. “Even though he kind of looked like a baby deer, didn’t have much of a clue what he was doing. He just knew, ‘I got to handle this guy’.”

Aquinas didn’t use tight ends before Mahar came up to varsity, preferring four-wideout sets. But Mahar fit the bill, especially as a blocker. His size helped him slide in seamlessly with the offensive line, aiding Aquinas’ run game. Mahar also fit in easily as a slot receiver, the position in which Annechino said he received the most touchdowns.

Former teammate Jack VanDenBush said Mahar excelled as a receiver, using his long legs and tall frame to become “very deceptively fast.” Former Aquinas quarterback Tyler Szalkowski said Mahar was his first option when he scrambled out of the pocket, and stood as either a first or second option as a receiver.

“(Mahar) gives your offense a lot of dimensions,” Szalkowski said. “I mean, it makes your life a lot easier as the quarterback.”

Mahar spent the individual drills of practice with the linemen, using the 45 minutes to learn run and pass block schemes. He’d sit in the chutes for about 15 minutes each day, practicing staying low and driving through a lineman.

With his knees bent, Mahar would duck walk everywhere. Catching always came naturally for Mahar, so he mainly focused on blocking in high school.

“At the next level, you can’t block, what was the point?” he said.

In Mahar’s junior season, Aquinas (12-1) stormed through the regular season. A No. 5 seed entering the state championship, Aquinas faced No. 1 New Rochelle High School. It was loud, Mahar said, in the same stadium he’d watched Syracuse defeat Tulane five years ago.

Jordan Forrest, now an offensive threat for Holy Cross, played running back for New Rochelle. Mahar didn’t put up many statistics, helping instead against Forrest as a defensive end. His speed and ability to stay low allowed him to take up blocks and kick out pulling guards.

Annechino remembers being wowed by the New Rochelle players’ size, specifically Forrest, and thinking they’d be in for a rough day. But Aquinas — with Mahar’s defensive help — won by a touchdown, fulfilling a four-year process that began when the team finished 1-8 in Mahar’s freshman year.

A week before Aquinas’ sectional final game the following season, Mahar got gator-rolled on a tackle, his foot trapped underneath the defender. Mahar heard a pop, but tried to play the next week. Each time he practiced, he put his foot in the ice bucket for 30 minutes, and even after that he had trouble moving it. Eventually, Matt Rollins, Aquinas’s team trainer, recommended surgery, ending his basketball season as well.

So Mahar had a few screws and a piece of metal put into that ankle the following January. He committed to Syracuse and went up early for training with sights set on the following college season.

Mahar Sr. bought an old yellow school bus with a few mechanical issues that he and his son easily fixed. They planned on gutting the inside and transforming it into a luxury tour bus, one the entire family would tailgate in for Syracuse football games.

They only got around to removing the seats.

“That probably made me the best person I can ever be, just looking out in the world as a grown man,” Mahar said. “I grew up so much in these last two years.”

Published on August 28, 2022 at 11:57 pm

Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt