Carparelli named head of Football Bowl Association

Nick Carparelli never played the game. Football, at least.

He was a standout basketball player at Cheshire High, playing for his father and legendary coach Nick Sr., and a good baseball player, too. But he never played football.

“He should have,” former Cheshire and current Colorado State head coach Steve Addazio said. “What an unbelievable tight end he would have been.”

Carparelli might not have ever strapped on the helmet and shoulder pads, but he has certainly made a name for himself in the sport. He has been Bill Belichick’s director of operations with the New England Patriots and the prime football administrator for the Big East and American Athletic Conferences, among several other jobs.

Recently, Carparelli was named the Executive Director of the Football Bowl Association. Translation: He’s kind of a big deal in the world of college football.

“I’m extremely fortunate and privileged to have this job,” said Carparelli, who officially took over the position a few weeks ago. “College football bowl games are one of the great traditions in American sport, and for me to be the head of the association is really a privilege for me.”

The FBA is a non-profit organization established to help build up the traditions of bowl games, promote the positive aspects of the bowl system and individual bowl games, and help grow the enterprise.

“There’s no script for that, there are no daily tasks,” Carparelli noted. “But the reason I was so excited about the job is it gives me a lot of room for creativity and storytelling. I think probably the biggest goal I have is to tell more stories and better stories about the bowl games and the experiences people have participating in them.”

Carparelli takes over for Wright Waters, who was named the FBA’s first fulltime executive director in 2012.

“I think Nick is one of the special guys,” said Addazio.

“To me, he very easily could be one of the next great (athletic directors). He has a great understanding of college athletics and football. He has a unique background. I think in the position he’s in now, he’s tailor-made for that. Perfect, perfect fit.”

Not bad for a kid who never played the game.

Carparelli has very little say in which teams play in which bowls. Many of those are done contractually between conferences, anyway, so don’t go yelling at Carparelli if — and for now, it’s a

big if — UConn ever becomes bowl-eligible again. He doesn’t believe UConn going independent will hurt its changes if that day ever comes, however, especially with ESPN owning and operating 17 bowl games and always looking for matchups and geography that make sense.

“I’m very confident that if UConn is bowl-eligible, they will have a bowl to play in amongst those 17 games,” Carparelli said.

Former UConn coach Paul Pasqualoni, another Cheshire product, is confident that the FBA made a terrific choice for its new leader.

“There’s absolutely no one they could have hired who would have been more qualified to be the representative of college football to bowls than Nick Carparelli. He’s extremely intelligent, very well-organized. He’ll do a great job.”

Pasqualoni would know, as would Addazio. Both have long been mentors for Carparelli, and the trio shares a special bond: emerging from Cheshire — not exactly a hotbed on the American sports landscape — to make a truly profound mark on the world of college football.

‘COACH P IS PROBABLY THE CONNECTOR TO IT ALL’

Paul Pasqualoni graduated from Cheshire High in 1968, and after four years at Penn State (where he played under Joe Paterno), returned to his hometown to teach physical education. One of the schools he worked at was Highland Elementary School, where he shared an office with Nick Carparelli Sr.

“He helped me an awful lot,” Pasqualoni recalled.

Pasqualoni also served as Cheshire’s assistant football coach, but left in 1982 to take on the head coaching job at Western Connecticut State, shortly before Carparelli Sr. took over as Cheshire boys’ basketball coach.

Looking to bring in a young, energetic assistant,

Pasqualoni hired Steve Addazio, a Farmington product and former standout at Central Connecticut State, as his offensive line coach.

Pasqualoni left to become linebackers coach at Syracuse in 1987, but when Cheshire athletic director Wayne Candela was looking for someone to take over the football program, Pasqualoni suggested Addazio. Candela agreed, and Addazio was hired as football coach at Cheshire High, where he shared an office with — you guessed it — Nick Carparelli Sr.

After Pasqualoni left in 1991 to coach Syracuse (where he would win 107 games and six bowl games in 14 seasons), he hired Carparelli Jr. as a graduate assistant for recruiting and football operations. A few years later, Addazio joined the staff as tight ends coach.

“I think Coach P is probably the connector of it all,” Addazio said. “He started me in this business, and I’m very grateful to him for that. You couldn’t have asked for a better mentor, a better teacher than Coach Pasqualoni. He’s just one of the most respected guys in the whole profession.”

Addazio later left for an assistant’s job at Notre Dame, where he helped Carparelli Jr. become director of football operations and recruiting coordinator.

Carparelli took over as director of operations for the Patriots in 2001. He stayed for just one season, but what a season it was — the first of Belichick’s six Super Bowl titles. Carparelli was hired as an associate commissioner in the Big East, where Pasqualoni was still coaching Syracuse, and held the job for 12 years.

Perhaps here was never a more impactful confluence of the “Cheshire connection” than from 2011-13, when Carparelli Jr. was running football in the Big East and Addazio (Temple) and Pasqualoni (UConn) were head coaches in the conference.

“It’s kind of the big circle of life,” Addazio noted. “We’ve just all kept so intertwined with each other.”

FAR APART, BUT FOREVER CLOSE

Addazio coached Boston College the past seven seasons and hired Pasqualoni as his defensive line coach a few years ago. Carparelli Jr. spent the past six years running college sports marketing for Under Armour, which outfits both Boston College (among many others). Last season, Pasqualoni’s son, Tito, was a walk-on long snapper for the Eagles.

Circle of life, indeed. Nick Jr. recalls he, his

father and Addazio visiting Pasqualoni’s summer home in Charleston, R.I. a few years back. It turned into a contest of how many clams each one could dig up.

“Coach P was not gonna be denied on that one,” Nick Jr. recalled. “He knew every stone in that pond.”

Still, the group doesn’t get to see each other as much anymore. Carparelli Sr., 75, who retired as Cheshire basketball coach a little over a decade ago, is enjoying life on a lake up in Maine, “probably the safest place in the world right now,” according to his son.

Pasqualoni, who spent the past two seasons as the Detroit Lions’ defensive coordinator, is back home in South Windsor. This is the first spring in some 40 years he hasn’t had spring practices, organized team activities or something football-oriented keeping him busy. He won’t be returning to the Lions, but he says he’s not done coaching.

Addazio and Carparelli Jr. are both beginning their new jobs from home, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Carparelli Jr. has been connecting with bowl directors and other college football stakeholders by phone calls and Zoom meetings. Addazio, who was hired by Colorado State a couple of weeks after being fired by BC in December, has been at his Cape Cod home with his family most of the past six weeks. He’ll be flying back out to Colorado this week.

They may be miles apart, but only geographically.

“We’re very, very close, but very, very different,” Nick Jr. said. “I think the three of us have very different relationships with one another. Coach Pasqualoni was very much a mentor and father figure to me. As I’ve gotten older, we’re close friends, as well. Steve is also a mentor to me, but more like a big brother.”

“Nick’s family are big league people, Steve’s a bigleague guy,” Pasqualoni said. “I hired both of them, they helped me tremendously. They’re gonna have success, no matter what they put their hands on.”

And wherever their success may take them, they will always share a common bond.

“The epicenter of the whole thing was Cheshire, no doubt,” said Addazio. “It’s pretty cool, because Cheshire football is such an important piece of all of us. Cheshire athletics, the Town of Cheshire … they’re all really a big part of all this.”

“We were always fighting for our position in the college football world,” added Carparelli Jr. “I think we did a pretty good job of that over the years.”

Carparelli