The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Sunday Gravy: Cozza tributes still pouring in
Many thanks to all the local news stations, which once again dedicated an entire day’s worth of programming to let me know it was still snowing outside.
⏩ If an ESPN story is accurate, members of the Patriots team staff say there’s a massive power struggle between Bill Belichick and Tom Brady in New England.
Brady, bolstered by fame and success, has elevated himself to management sans the official job title. Belichick, doing all he can to avoid being usurped by his star quarterback, is said to be at the end of his rope. Rumors are flying that he’s interested in the Giants’ opening.
Of course, New England is still the top seed in the AFC and heavy favorites to win the Super Bowl. Again. If this qualifies as turmoil, may every other team in the NFL be as dysfunctional.
⏩ Anybody but Alabama.
⏩ Tributes and memories of Carm Cozza have come pouring in to Yale since the legendary football coach passed away on Thursday morning at 87. He was universally beloved, particularly by the thousands he coached during his 32 years at the helm.
Rival coaches around the Ivy League admired and appreciated him, perhaps none more than Harvard’s Joe Restic.
“Carm once told me that he could have had his varsity practicing next to Harvard’s the day before The Game and know that nobody on the Crimson side would be trying to steal a peek,” wrote retired Boston Globe sports writer John Powers. “Fantastic mutual respect there.”
Cozza was stern, but knew when to keep things loose. When tempers flared during one steamy summer practice, Cozza disappeared only to return driving an ice cream truck.
His athleticism was also stuff of legend. He often ran sprints against his fastest players and easily kept pace. Jack DeGange covered Yale for the New Haven Journal-Courier and met Cozza, then John Pont’s assistant, on the first day of preseason practice in 1963.
“A photographer took a picture that ran with my story; it captured Carm leading John as they demonstrated a power sweep (or some such play),” DeGange wrote earlier this week. “John was the whippet-fast QB and Carm was leading the way with an intense glare. There was no question, to me, that they were the two best athletes on the field.”
And former Register reporter and copy editor Bob Barton noted Cozza’s knack for setting his best players up to succeed.
“Carm coached in an era of two- and three-sport athletes,” Barton wrote. “Often he would move players from their high school positions — Calvin Hill from QB to freshman LB/FB and then varsity left half; John Spagnola from LB to TE; Dick Jauron to I-formation fullback for a couple of seasons and then to left half.”
Carm’s recruits also kept other sports supplied. The lineup for the Darling-Viola NCAA baseball game in 1981 included several football players like Joe Dufek, Rich Diana in center and even Darling, a monster back as a freshman.
⏩ Central Florida declared itself football’s national champions after completing a 13-0 season, but that’s not this team’s legacy. It’ll be remembered as the last and best argument for expanding the College Football Playoff to eight teams.
UCF deserved a shot — though not necessarily at the expense of the four teams that made the playoff, or Ohio State and Wisconsin, which also narrowly missed the cutoff. Eight allows the five conference champs and a group of five champ a chance to play for a championship.
But 16 teams would be even better.
⏩ Kudos to UCF coach Scott Frost for staying with his players through bowl season. He’d accepted the Nebraska job a few weeks ago. Every football coach in America preaches commitment and finishing the job. Rare are the ones who practice what they preach.
⏩ These NFL playoffs are intriguing only because they’re filled with teams who haven’t been here in a while. Eight of the 12 teams didn’t make the postseason last year; seven have never won a Super Bowl.
⏩ The Super Bowl is in Minnesota. The Vikings have never won a championship. It’s a perfect story line. A little too good. NFL conspiracy theorists will be out in force if it happens.
⏩ Cozza spent 32 seasons as Yale’s coach, but never formally applied for the job. Joe Paterno, then a Penn State assistant, was runner-up for the Yale job that went to Pont in 1963. When Pont left for Indiana two years later, the search committee to find a new coach was torn.
Sam Chauncey, former secretary and vice president of Yale, was on the committee and recalled the scenario in Rich Marazzi’s book, A Bowl Full of Memories.
“Half of us were enamored with Carm but felt we had an obligation to ask Paterno. We didn’t necessarily want him but felt it was appropriate to contact him since he came in second when he hired Pont,” Chauncey told Marazzi. “(Yale athletic director) Delaney Kiphuth and I were in the Carm camp. When Delaney offered Paterno the job, he did so without much enthusiasm.”
Penn State, based on Yale’s offer, promised to make Paterno head coach when Rip Engle retired. So Paterno remained at Penn State. Yale hired Cozza.
⏩ It’s been so cold the boy is willingly putting on his coat and hat to go outside.
⏩ Did anyone in Los Angeles notice the Rams made the playoffs? Do they realize the Rams relocated back to their city two years ago? Do they know what the NFL is? All legitimate questions.
⏩ On a random Sunday morning when I was in elementary school, I discovered Cozza was a fellow parishioner at Holy Infant Church in Orange. There he was; the coach we read about in the paper every day; the guy winning all those football games before enormous crowds at Yale Bowl.
I was awestruck, surely in the same way a thirdgrader living in State College, Pennsylvania would have to seeing Joe Paterno kneeling at the next pew; or a kid in Tuscaloosa observing Nick Saban make the sign of the cross.
Years later, as the beat writer for Yale football, I got to know Cozza personally. He was retired, but regularly attended the weekly media luncheons. We talked mostly about football. But, almost without fail, he’d inquire about my family or the job or some other detail just to be sure everything was OK with me.
I was as awestruck as an adult as I was at 9. And not solely because he was a Hall of Fame coach who accomplished great things on the football field, but because was as caring and classy and genuine as anyone I’ve ever met.
He’ll be missed.