BIRTHPLACE: Sagamore, Mass.

BORN: November 22, 1916

DIED: January 9, 2010

TEAMS/ASSOCIATIONS: Michigan Tech University, Michigan State University

For 28 years, Amo Bessone was known as much as a father figure as he was a hockey coach at Michigan State University.  Bessone, who coached three seasons at Michigan Tech before moving to East Lansing in 1951, was one of the most prominent leaders in the days when college hockey was organized, operated and regulated by the coaches. 

Building Michigan State hockey was an arduous task.  The Spartans endured 18 seasons in league play before rising above the .500 mark, but he tried to recruit the top regional U.S. players in those years against dominant foes.  Bessone's lifetime 367-427-20 record, doesn't accurately reflect his team's competitiveness.  His perseverance was rewarded in the 1966 season when his Cinderella Spartans won the NCAA Championship.  A year later, after placing fifth with an 8-11-1 WCHA record, Amo's Spartans nearly did it again, reaching the NCAA Final Four before losing in the semifinals. 

Bessone's colorful, cigar-chomping coaching career obscures what was also an impressive playing career.  Growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the 1920's Bessone played on the Old Bed pond at the Exposition Grounds with his older brother, Pete - also a Hall of Fame inductee.  Amo went on to play defense at West Springfield High School, Kents Hill and Hebron Academies in Maine, and also the University of Illinois. 

He played pro hockey, briefly, for the Detroit Wings in 1936, and later with Springfield in the American League, taking time out to be skipper of a PT boat in World War II.  After the war, Bessone coached hockey and assisted with football and baseball at Westfield High School, in Massachusetts, before starting Michigan Tech's hockey program in 1948.