By Tom Baker
Assistant secondary coach Mike Zegarelli has been with the Utica College football program for the past 11 years. He is also known as ?Coach Zig.?
It is not just a nickname of convenience; it is a term of endearment from the young men he has coached and mentored in a career that spans over 35 years in the Utica area.
?Coach Zig is a legend in Utica,? Lake said.
Zegarelli was born in St. Mary?s, Ohio, a little mid-western town with a population today of just over 8,000 people. Zigarelli is the son of an Air Force member originally from Utica. His family moved back to Utica after his dad?s tour of duty was finished just as Zegarelli was entering high school. As a freshman, he enrolled at Utica Free Academy and joined the football team as an offensive fullback and defensive linebacker at a level where many players play both ways in a style known as ?Iron Man? football.
For Zegarelli, it was a different game back then. There were not as many rules to protect the players and tactics were different on both sides of the ball. But more importantly, he was taught not just how to play tough, but how to play smart. He learned these lessons from two coaches he attributes his own coaching style to.
?My freshman coaches really developed me into the type of coach I became and still am today,? Zegarelli said. ?Larry Custadero and Ronnie Mancuso really inspired and molded me. Custadero was a no-nonsense coach who taught me how to play grit-teeth hard and Mancuso taught me strategy, like how to look past what was right in front of me and look beyond the line of scrimmage for those extra yards into the secondary.?
Zegarrelli had high hopes for his football career after high school. He hoped to one day play for Ohio State and maybe even become the shortest guy to play in the NFL. Upon graduation from UFA in 1973, he aspired to become an Ohio State Buckeye, but Zegarelli?s uncle told him that no matter how big his heart was, his body would not withstand the punishment of players at that level.
?I guess I got a little mad when he told me that,? Zegarelli said. ?But, after a while, I said okay and enrolled at the University of Findlay back near St. Mary?s.?
At Findlay, Zegarelli played alongside two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin, who was the team?s running back at the time.
?I tease my son Michael when I say ?yeah, they picked him over me,?? Zegarelli said.
While Griffin was rewriting the record books on Division I football fields across the nation, Zegarelli was playing outside defensive linebacker for three of his four years of eligibility for the University of Findlay Oilers, missing his senior year due to a concussion and a separated shoulder.
He graduated in 1977 with a bachelor?s degree in sociology and a minor in criminal justice. Returning to Utica that year, he took the civil service exam for the Utica Police Department, passed and waited to be appointed. During that time, with a love for football still in his heart, he volunteered and was accepted as an assistant coach at Thomas R. Proctor High School in Utica.? He applied for the assistant coach?s job officially the next season, still waiting for a call from the UPD; he was not hired by Proctor, but transferred to his high school alma mater, UFA, to coach the 1980 junior varsity squad. Zegarelli, along with Coach Larry Brown, led the junior varsity Titans to a 5-2 winning season.
Zegarelli stayed as an assistant coach with UFA over the next several years until the 1987 convergence of the three Utica public high schools ? UFA, Proctor and John F. Kennedy. ?The new Utica football team hired former Buffalo Bills assistant coach Art Asselta as the new head coach. The team played at Proctor High School and the former UFA Titans, Proctor Panthers and Kennedy Trojans became the Proctor Raiders.
Zegarelli, along with the other coaches vying for the limited positions, were working as volunteers waiting for the final selections to be made.
During this time, Zegarelli encountered a player who was the son of the acting school?s superintendent. When Zegarelli tried to motivate the player in his own old school manner he had become known for over the years, the player mentioned it to his father, who called Zegarelli to his office.
After Zegarelli explained his no-nonsense attitude to practice demeanor and attitude, the superintendent offered Zegarelli a job teaching special education classes and a position as a coach with the football team.
?I thought I was going in to be fired for sure,? Zegarelli said. ?And I wasn?t even officially working there yet. I was a volunteer at the time, but that?s how I got hired.?
With no results after many applications to the police department, he began his career as a special education teacher with one condition: he needed to complete his education by earning a master?s degree in special education, which he did over the next four years as a part-time student while teaching classes at Proctor and coaching during football season. He achieved his advanced degree in 1997.
The late ?90s also brought the player who would be named the best defensive lineman in the state by Prep Football Report to the Proctor Raiders, current New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith. Zegarelli watched Smith achieve 20 sacks in his senior year and go on to be recruited to Zegarelli?s first school of choice, Ohio State.
Ernie Jones was another great defensive player who played for Proctor during this time, who went on make his first college tackle with the University of Oregon Ducks on Brigham Young quarterback, Steve Young. ?Later, Jones would be selected in the NFL draft and after a trade deal end up with the Denver Broncos, who won the Super Bowl for the 1998 season for the second year in a row.
When Jones was honored by Proctor High School and later inducted into their Hall of Fame, he made reference to Zegarelli in his acceptance speech.
?While many deserve it, only a few can be privileged enough to win a Super Bowl ring,? Jones said. ?I?d let Coach Zig hold it if I wasn?t so worried I wouldn?t get it back.?
By 2000, the coaching staff at Proctor was replaced after several losing seasons and Zegarelli was re-assigned to Donavan Jr. High School. He coached the defense and they went .500 their first season at 3-3 before going 5-1 the next season. He did something no one had done before ? he accepted Georgia King, a young lady, on his team who played at guard.
?She was the best,? Zegarelli said. ?She did what we told her to do.?
In 2001, Zegarelli applied for a position with the then two-year-old football program at Utica College, but did not make the cut. However, the college took him on as a volunteer as an assistant offensive line coach. The second season he was hired on as an offensive line coach and the third season as a defensive linebackers coach, coaching at the college level ? the same position he played as young man at the University of Findlay.
?Coaching college ball I learned things about strategy I never knew at the high school level,? Zegarelli said. ?It?s faster, it?s smarter, it?s more advanced ? physically, mentally and strategically speaking.?
In 2007, current head coach Blaise Faggiano was hired at UC and he kept Zegarelli on as an assistant.
?When I first came to Utica College I interviewed all the coaches on staff,? Faggiano said. ?What I?ll tell you now is the same thing I said back then: Mike Zegarelli is as loyal as they come; he is as hardworking as they come. No job is either too big or too small for him to tackle; he just bleeds blue and orange.?
Zegarelli?s biggest thrill these days is to be coaching alongside his former UC players, current UC defensive coordinator Will Pluff and graduate assistant safeties coach, Lazurus Morgan.
?These guys are former players I used to coach and now they are my colleagues,? Zegarelli said. ?That is a very rewarding feeling for me.?
Source: http://uctangerine.com/coach-profile-mike-zegarelli/
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