Over 28 years, Bessone was known as much as a father figure as he was a hockey coach at Michigan State University. Bessone, who coached 3 seasons at Michigan Tech before moving to East Lansing in 1951, was one of the most prominent leaders in the days when college hockey was organized, operated and regulated by the coaches.

As fiercely competitive as Amo was behind the bench, he was a warm and friendly person away from the game. His weekly routine for any home hockey series at Michigan State was to compete heatedly and often successfully throughout the games, after which he and his wife, Mary, would entertain the opposing coaching staff at his home for a post-game party. The good-natured arguing and second guessing proved he could keep the game in proper perspective.

Building Michigan State hockey was an arduous task. The Spartans endured eighteen seasons in league play before rising above the .500 mark, but he tried to recruit the top regional U.S. players in those years against dominant foes. Bessone's lifetime 367-427-20 record didn’t accurately reflect his teams' competitiveness. His perseverance was rewarded in the 1965-66 season when the Spartans rose from sixth place, 9-11 season in the eight team Western Collegiate Hockey Association and went all the way through a Cinderella play-off run. MSU won the NCAA Championship, and needed the two victories in the final four to finish above .500, with a final 16-13 record. A year later, after placing fifth with an 8-11-1 WCHA record, Amo's Spartans nearly did it again, reaching the NCAA final four before losing in the semifinals.

Bessone's colorful, cigar-chomping coaching career obscures what was also an impressive playing career. Growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the 1920s, Bessone was known as "Betts" when he played on the Old Bed pond at the Exposition Grounds with his older brother Pete, also a Hall of Fame Enshrinee. Amo went on to play defense at West Springfield High School, Kents Hill and Hebron Academies in Maine and the University of Illinois. He went on to play pro hockey, briefly for the Detroit Wings in 1936 and later with Springfield in the American League, taking time out to be skipper of a PT boat in World War II. After the war, Bessone coached hockey and assisted with football and baseball at Westfield High School in Massachusetts before starting Michigan Tech's hockey program in 1948.