Football player dies protecting sibling

NEW YORK — The New Jersey football player fatally stabbed by a stranger in a late-night Manhattan street dispute stepped up to keep the peace and protect his older brother in the moments before his death, the victim’s father said Saturday.

Victim Rocco Rodden, 17, was “the light in the darkest room, the eye of the tiger, the life of the party, the biggest warrior and protector there was,” said devastated dad Douglas Rodden, 53, to the Daily News” … It’s a tragedy. The family is broken because, you know, he died in his brother’s arms.”

The father last spoke with his slain son a few hours before the stabbing, reminding him to be careful on his night out in the city.

Rodden, who was in the city with his older brother and sister, instead suffered a fatal 6-inch deep wound when stabbed at 1:49 a.m. on Thanksgiving after leaving a private party at the Live Ax NYC restaurant, with authorities saying the suspect and his friends were also inside before the fight erupted on the street outside.

Suspect Gianluca Bordone, 19, of Oyster Bay, Long Island, was arrested about a mile away after fleeing the scene in a taxi following a failed attempt to bolt aboard a party bus, officials said.

“He was a great kid who lit up a room whenever he came in,” said Dan Marangi, his head coach at St. Joseph’s Regional High School in Montvale, New Jersey. “He was always welcoming and always up for a good laugh and a good time and cheering guys up. You couldn’t say a bad word about him.”

According to prosecutors, the 6-foot, 280-pound victim and the defendant became involved in a fight while drinking on the street outside before Bordone pulled the knife and stabbed Rodden along with his 19-year-old sibling. A criminal complaint said that video showed the suspect first swinging the knife at Rodden and then doing the same to his brother.