Restic told his players that if Harvard was about challenging one to the best of his ability, why was football any different?

Schoenfeld said that Restic was “almost too smart for Harvard.”

“He’s probably the hardest ‘professor’ I ever had,” said Kubacki, who returned to Harvard in 1982 to assist Restic.

Restic believed that football was the tool to make one a better person, Kubacki said. He challenged his players to think on their feet but maintained that at the end of the day, it was one’s values in life—not taking shortcuts, giving the best effort, being humble—that mattered most.

“Joe was not obsessed by winning,” Caron said. “He was concerned about everybody graduating, never embarrassing the program.”

Prior to the 1993 season, Restic announced that his 23rd year with Harvard would be his last. The Crimson lost to Yale on Nov. 20, 1993, to finish in last place in the league—the worst campaign of Restic’s tenure.

“Once his career was over, it was over,” said Restic’s son David L. Restic. “He felt as though he did it, done that. He never really lived in the past and always looked forward into the future.”

Current coach Tim Murphy’s hiring was announced a month later. On Nov. 5, 2011, Murphy broke Restic’s all-time wins record after beating Columbia, 35-21, and collecting his 118th victory. In an interview with The Crimson a few days later, Restic praised Murphy for rewriting the record books.

“Timmy’s a great guy, an excellent coach, and he deserved to break my record,” Restic said.

“Joe was typical of ‘The Greatest Generation,’ an extremely accomplished guy who was the last one to let you know it,” Murphy wrote in an emailed statement. “To me, he was a simple guy in the best possible context. He loved his family, his country, and coaching college football.”

Restic is survived by children Kathleen, Joseph, Suzan, and David. His wife Marian “Bea” Restic died of colon cancer in 2008 at the age of 77.

A funeral Mass was held on Tuesday in Milford, Mass. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, memorial donations should be made to the American Cancer Society in Framingham, Mass.

—Jacob D. H. Feldman, E. Benjamin Samuels, and Robert S. Samuels contributed reporting to this story.

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.