Legacy High School football coach John Isola and his daughters, from left, Siena, Jaden, and Gemma.
Sunday, June 12, 2016 | 2 a.m.
The Legacy High School football team cleared out of the weight room after practice last week, but all was not quiet. Giggles filled the building, with strands of blonde hair fluttering through the air as three little girls dashed across the locker room. Eyes covered, Legacy coach John Isola patiently counted while his daughters searched for hiding spots.
Isola’s 5-year-olds, Jaden, Siena and Gemma, tag along with dad to summer practice every day. The triplets have attended the Longhorns’ games since they were in strollers, and have learned to proudly hold up miniature “hook ’em horns” hand signals on cue.
It was a little over five years ago that Isola and his wife, Lisa, were struggling to have just one child. “We tried for four years to have kids, and then we decided to try in vitro,” Isola said.
Lisa was 39 at the time. After taking fertility drugs, she had only three viable eggs. Doctors advised the Isolas that they wouldn’t normally implant more than one egg in the uterus, but in Lisa’s case, the chances were so slim of one making it that they were considering using all three.
“Well, for as much money as I’m paying, we will do all three and hope we get lucky,” Isola remembered saying. “We found out about eight weeks later when they did the ultrasound to check for heartbeats that there were three.”
The doctor joked to the Isolas, “Get the minivan ready.” But on the brink of getting a head coaching job he had dreamed about, Isola wasn’t amused. “I was 43 at the time, and you’re telling me we are going to have triplets,” he said. “We were looking for one and now we have three, and that’s a whole other world.”
Isola’s coaching background helped him survive the early years of raising triplets. “The organization of 28 bottles and 32 diapers a day was on point,” he said. “I had it set up so that one got fed first, and a half-hour later this one got fed, and then another half-hour this one got fed, and then three hours later they got hungry in intervals.” Isola ran his household like he ran his practices. All the 28-year coaching veteran was missing was his whistle. “It was a process. It was feed, burp, diaper, feed, burp, diaper,” he said, laughing.
That obsessive personality and attention to detail helped Isola earn the head coaching job at Legacy before the 2014 season. The Longhorns have made the playoffs in both seasons under him.
“I’m building a program into how I want it to be, and each year it has gotten closer to that,” Isola said. “It takes time, and that is part of my passion. I want Legacy to be an elite high school football program, so I will put in the time.”
It’s time most fathers don’t have, especially fathers of triplets, but Isola said his wife understands his passion for football. “She is from Alabama, so she knows about football,” he said. “The culture of high school football and football in general is like a religion down there.”
Isola has worked with children for many years. In his own youth, he was a peer counselor at school, and in high school, he would go to middle schools and talk to kids during their lunch break as a peer-group facilitator. Now, as a football coach and full-time physical education teacher, he’s around high school students all fall and winter, with most of the summer off to spend with his daughters.
Even during the summer, Jaden, Siena and Gemma are at practice with their dad from 8 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Monday through Thursday. Spending so much time around the team, there’s no doubt these little girls know their father’s job. “Daddy is the big boss,” Jaden said, “but mommy’s a big boss too.”
Lisa, an art consultant at Kevin Barry Fine Art Associates, works 9 to 5 and has time to dress the girls in Legacy gear for Friday nights — and Alabama Crimson Tide apparel for Saturday afternoons.
While they love football, the girls’ favorite sport to play is soccer.
“I like soccer and kicking the ball in the net,” Gemma said. “And it was fun with Dad as coach.”
Isola reluctantly became coach of their soccer team. “That first game was rough. I was screaming instructions and yelling at Siena to stop sitting on the field,” he said. “I finally just said to myself not to care about winning or losing, and just let them chase the ball.”
While the triplets were unexpected, he considers them a blessing and can’t see his life any differently.
“I believe that I was meant to have triplets, because it’s such a special thing,” Isola said, “and God knew I could handle it because it’s how I’m wired.”
