Dantonio shares memories of his father

A lot of stuff from Dantonio's presser and player interviews. If you haven't seen it already, Dantonio answered several questions on his father, and it was touching to see how much of an influence Justin Dantonio had on the coach's life. Dantonio will coach Friday, but this clearly has been tough on him and he will be coaching with a heavy heart.

Here is some of what Dantonio had to say on his father:

"First of all, just want to thank everybody for all their thoughts, their prayers, their kind remarks, their calls, everybody out there who touched base with our family. I also want to thank our coaching staff. Pat Narduzzi did a great job in my absence there and the rest of our coaching staff just keeping things, again, business as usual and keeping the system moving."

"My father was a great man. My father was a guy that always told me as he told me in the last few days, you've got to take the good with the bad. He always told me to complete my circles, in other words, finish something, what you started. He believed that if you had the right tool you could fix anything, and I think he was a problem solver. He was a long time educator."

"Well, you know, these are some spiritual things, but I have a priest that talks about some drop dead core values, and if things happen that maybe these are the things you want to take into - you want to think about, in this particular order. You want to think about spiritually where you're at, and you need to think about your immediate family, and then you need to think about yourself, and then maybe the fourth thing you need to think about is what you do. 

"But it's the way it's always been here, and I've always said it, is that if I have a problem, somebody else can be head coach for a day or two days or a week or two weeks or last year or whatever the case. I will do my job to the best of my abilities, but when a problem comes, I take care of my business with my family. I expect our players to do the same thing, and they have. I'm never going to hold back a young man by saying, `Hey, can you just stay for one more practice or can you come back another practice early?' They have an obligation to their family and that's No. 1."

"My dad continually said, even on the day that he passed, `What are you doing here, you need to get back to work.' But that's him. So by coming back last week, he was a little bit stable, I was honoring his wishes, and by coming back after he passed it was very surreal because it was very quick, and I was back. I was back doing what he wanted me to do. So I'm honoring his memory and his wishes by doing that."