By Brian Zanzonico
Through the window of a school bus, he saw a quaint village he was determined to one day call home. In 1965, his dream came true when he and wife Joan bought a house in Malverne. Neylon quickly became an active member of the community, coaching boys' CYO basketball, becoming a leader of Our Lady of Lourdes Church and, years later, serving on the village's Board of Trustees and zoning board.
"Sometimes as a kid, you see something that you aspire to be," said Neylon's daughter, Tracy. "That's how he felt about Malverne. He felt part of it."
Neylon died at his home last week after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 70.
"He was a warm, big-hearted man," his wife said. "He was the kindest, most loyal and devoted man. You know, he never raised his voice to me in all the years we were married."
Neylon parlayed a stellar high school basketball career into a basketball scholarship at Hofstra, where he met Joan. The two started seeing each other - with Neylon caddying in Woodmere to earn money to pay for dates - and forged a close bond. But after college, they went their separate ways: Neylon entered the service and Joan traveled. Their time apart didn't last, however, and the couple eventually reunited. They married in 1963.
At the time, Neylon was a season ticket holder for the New York Titans football team, which later became the Jets. Joan hated the sport, and when Neylon came home with four season tickets one day, she was furious.
"I said, 'What are you doing with these?'" Joan recalled. "Then Chris said, 'I thought you might enjoy it more if we brought another couple.' That's the way he was."
When they first married, well before a son, Chris, and a daughter, Tracy, were born, Neylon coached boys' CYO basketball. He was also something of a pied piper to some of his young neighbors, often piling a group of them into his Mustang convertible, driving them through downtown and invariably stopping for a scoop of ice cream. When his children came along, he turned his attention to coaching both in basketball, and Chris in Little League. Joan, meanwhile, managed Tracy's softball team.
Tracy said that her father always put family first, often neglecting to buy anything for himself but always making certain his wife and children had the best. On days when Tracy returned to college after a visit, her father would have her car washed and her bags ready for the trunk before she woke up. When she was an athlete in high school, her father would leave his job as general manager of a heavy marine equipment supplier and show up unannounced at her tennis matches. "We were his whole life," Tracy said.
Neylon was an active member of Our Lady of Lourdes Church, helping with the reconstruction project after the church burned in the mid-1970s. He was president of the parish council, ran the annual bazaar for more than 20 years and was one of the church's first Eucharistic ministers. A member of the church's Men's Club, he almost never missed Mass, Joan said, and was there the day before he died.
"That Sunday, I needed help with collecting at the 11 a.m. Mass, and all I had to do was ask," said longtime friend Art Raymond.
Raymond and Neylon were regular golf buddies, and the sport was Neylon's favorite pastime. Just days before he died, Neylon, Raymond and a group of friends had their annual golf outing upstate. Neylon played many courses - including several in Ireland with his wife and friends - but none compared to his beloved Hempstead Golf and Country Club. "We made a lot of friendships at the country club," Joan said. "I always said we have two families, our Malverne family and our country club family."
Raymond said that Neylon tried to get tee times twice a week, even after he was diagnosed with cancer last year. Golf was an activity he shared with his friends, his wife and his children. "When he wasn't in the woods, he was a good golfer," Chris joked.
In addition to his love of church and passion for golf, Neylon was involved in village government. In the mid-1980s he was appointed to the Malverne Board of Trustees, and later served as the head of the village's zoning board.
His greatest love, however, was his grandchildren. Known as "Pop-Pop" to Chris's children, Casey, 5, and Connor, 4, who live in Virginia, Neylon never let the distance between them affect the frequency with which he would see them. "We'd go five weeks without seeing them, and he'd have to go to Virginia to see them again," Joan said.
Joan credited the Malverne police and the village's Volunteer Ambulance Corps with working hard to try to revive Neylon after he suffered the heart attack in their yard. Within moments of the rescue vehicles' arrival outside the Neylon home, Joan said, her yard and living room were filled with neighbors looking to help any way they could. A testament, she said, to a man who lived his dream by simply becoming one of them.
"Kind, loyal, devoted, conscientious, dedicated to religion, fun-loving," Joan said. "That's what he was. A good, decent, solid man."
Comments about this story? Mal-wheditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 240.
