In 1984, when Dominic Taddeucci ’85 was a junior at SCU, he spent the year studying in Italy, but he was still with the Broncos in spirit, especially when the football team went up against St. Mary’s. To show it, he created two large paper banners—large, as in three stories tall—emblazoned with “Go Broncos” and “Beat St. Mary’s”—and hung them from the Roman Coliseum. Then, after capturing the moment on film, he bundled up his artwork and shipped it home to San Rafael.
The banners lay dormant in Taddeucci’s garage for some 23 years, until last fall, when daughter Alexandra Taddeucci entered SCU as a freshman and a fourth-generation Bronco. (Her grandfather is John Taddeucci ’58 and her great-grandfather is Ed Malley ’29; her great-great-grandfather, Ferdinando Taddeucci, worked as a gardener on campus in the 1880s.) Alexandra literally took up the family’s Bronco banner and, just before the SCU-St. Mary’s men’s basketball game in February, unfurled her father’s masterpieces down one side of the tallest building on campus: Swig Hall.
Alexandra said her father was delighted with the tribute. “He still stops by SCU every chance he gets,” she says; naturally, he was there for the game this year. Which, alas, the Gaels won.—DK