John Cacace loves adventure, and he loves to travel. He has backpacked in Tanzania, owns a boat, enjoys lobstering and skiing, and — during the pandemic — drove across the country with his family in an RV where they saw incredible sights like Mount Rushmore.

Most of all, he loves teaching and coaching.

Cacace teaches Algebra I and Calculus at Watertown High School, and is also the head coach for the varsity football team.

“I teach math, and math’s important,” he said during a recent visit to the Raider Times newsroom, “but I think it’s most important to give kids a good high school experience, have them feel connected to Watertown High, to build confidence and push kids to be their best. Give them praise and have them graduate to go out and do great things.

“If I can be a tiny piece of that, it makes me feel good at the end of the day.”

Cacace grew up in Westchester County, about 30 minutes from Manhattan, and studied engineering at the University of Michigan. During his sophomore year, he met his now-wife through mutual friends. She is also a math teacher.

Cacace said he loves being a Michigan alumni, and he had a great experience there because of all the freedom and the academic opportunities it provided—as well as its amazing sports programs.

He moved to Boston in 1999, and went to Harvard for graduate school.

Although he was trained as an engineer, Cacace quit his engineering job to pursue his passion: working with young people. He wants to help the next generation grow into strong individuals who work well with others.

“I like to interact with people,” he said. “I like working with young people, trying to get young people to be better people.”

Cacace played football in high school, but he didn’t see eye to eye with his coach. Now he wants to give his students/athletes what his coach didn’t give him.

He worked at Newton North before getting a job at Watertown High. At Newton North, where he started in football as a volunteer coach, he learned a great piece of advice about kids from the head coach:

“He told me, ‘It’s not about teaching the subject, it’s about teaching the students.’ ”

While at Newton North one summer, he traveled to Africa with his wife and a group of 17 students for 30 days on a backpacking trip, building leadership skills through travel and adventure.

“The whole thing [was student-run] — they decided where we went, when we left, how we spent our budget,” he said. “We had a different leader every day. One of the first days, we didn’t eat for the entire day, and the kids asked, ‘When are we eating?’ and I went, ‘I don’t know, you guys are in charge,’ and it was just kids problem solving and getting around.”

As a coach, Cacace likes building and putting teams together. In 2017, the Raiders football team made it to the state semifinals after pulling off multiple upsets in the playoffs.

He said his favorite years have been the ones spent coaching and teaching in Watertown.

“I enjoy the culture,” he said, “I think it’s a very diverse and accepting place.”

(Story reported and written by Adam Patterson, Adelle Sheynkman, Ari Stepanian, Ben Heep, Daniel Heep, Emilio Berndt, Kristina Dorian, LiaLah Mawanda, Lori Avakian, and Nola MacKenzie.)

–March 31, 2022–