By Chris Gionta
Once every preseason, on a steep, grassy hill just beyond Stagg Field, members of Springfield College's offensive line undergo an intense trial that tests their will, fitness and commitment.
The tradition’s name reveals its significance: Judgment Day.
As the late-summer sun beats down upon them and the humidity rips endless sweat from their skin, the Pride offensive linemen crouch into a three-point stance at the bottom of the slope. They burst forward and run-block their way uphill, ducking under chutes with metal bars, before slamming their bodies against the punching bag being held by a player at the end of the chutes.
“The chutes are meant to break you down,” senior guard Cam Borges said. “It’s fast-paced, high-tempo conditioning.”
Once they are done on the hill, the players trudge to the field and undergo a hard-hitting practice.
The battle-tested players endure the punishment not only to improve their performance, but also to take one step closer to earning a coveted honor. One of the highest achievements for a Springfield offensive linemen is to become something known to everyone else as a grotesque insect. To do so, they must complete two Judgment Days.
“Judgment Day is how you become a Roach,” Borges said.
Although it is an individual achievement, earning the honor is not possible without everyone working together.
“In order to get through it, you gotta get through it with your brothers. And that’s what makes us so close,” Borges said. “Everything that we do that stinks﹣we do it together, and that’s what I think is the best part about it.”
Springfield’s football program is known as “The Brotherhood,” and the offensive linemen take that to another level.
“The Roach itself is a brotherhood within a brotherhood,” senior right tackle Jon Weber said.
The tradition of The Roach has become a hallowed part of the program, but its origins were relatively humble – and date back to the implementation of the offensive system that has become synonymous with Springfield College football.
A Napkin Drawing At A Ski Slope
As they prepared for the 1987 season, Springfield football head coach Mike DeLong and assistant coach Rich Mannello wanted to improve an offense that had become stagnant.
“We were doing so much, and not any of it well, to be perfectly honest,” Mannello said.
DeLong and Mannello each played four years at Springfield. DeLong graduated in 1974, and Mannello finished undergrad in 1982 before coaching as a graduate assistant for two years.
The Pride brought DeLong on as a defensive coordinator in 1981, then promoted him to head coach three years later. DeLong hired Mannello as a full-time assistant soon after.
As all Springfield College coaches are, they were both teachers of physical education at the school, and one of their duties was helping bring students to a skiing class. Sitting in an indoor rest area at Mount Tom in Holyoke, Mass., their dialogue moved to the progression of Springfield’s offense.
“We made a decision [during] skiing class – Coach DeLong and I,” Mannello said. “He pulled out a napkin and basically drew up the full house wishbone, but what everybody’s evolved to – this wing set, if you would – and just talked about that type of offense.”
That offense was the quarterback under center with a fullback behind him, and two tailbacks behind the fullback on either side. The alignment was the main formation from which Springfield prepared to run its triple-option, which allowed the quarterback to hand the ball off, keep it, or pitch it to a running back trailing behind and to the side.
Switching to the system was a bold move, and required unwavering commitment.
“This is not a ‘stick-your-foot-in-the-water’ offense,” Mannello said.
Springfield alum John Strollo, then the offensive coordinator at Northeastern University, had a reputation for success with the triple-option attack. So DeLong and Mannello made the trip to Boston to absorb as much as they could from Strollo. Spring football season loomed, so it was time to determine if they would cannon-ball into that proverbial pool.
Since Mannello had a larger role on the offensive side of the ball, he stayed longer to watch Strollo’s practice. Afterward, he provided his thoughts to his head coach.
“I called Coach DeLong and told him all about [the triple option],” Mannello said. “And he said, ‘Good, you’re installing it Monday.’ And I said ‘Okay!’”
‘We Needed Something For Them To Rally Around’
The shift in the system forced Springfield’s coaching staff to view its personnel differently. The requirements at certain positions changed drastically, so DeLong and Mannello moved some players around. It enabled them to put more athletically-gifted men on defense.
The triple-option offense required fewer measurables from the offensive line, which was unique in several aspects.
“We had the guys in ‘too’s’ – the too heavy, the too short, the too small, the too skinny, the too stiff, the too slow,” Mannello said. “We took them all.”
Offensive lineman Eric Hackendorf told The Springfield Student in 1990, “We’re a bunch of misfit toys.”
The decrease in athleticism on the offensive line did not take away from the task on which it was about to embark. The new system necessitated an advanced level of cohesiveness.
“We had to do something. We had to get them to play as a group,” DeLong said. “And they needed a group identity.”
The lore of it all began with an idea that all offensive linemen could get behind – completely overpowering defenders.
“We needed something for them to rally around. So, that’s where The Roach was born,” Mannello said. “We just said, ‘Listen, you put a guy on his back, and if you do it the right way, his hands and feet are gonna go up in the air – it looks like a dead roach.’"
Mannello went to the drawing board – literally. He sketched a cockroach with an offensive lineman inside of it, and put it on the cover of a manual for the new group.
“We had these guidelines – how you get in The Roach, how you get a full sticker, how you get a half sticker,” Mannello said. “It was pretty neat.”
After five consecutive losing seasons heading into 1987, Springfield had winning campaigns in four of the next five years.
“Instantly, we started to play better on offense,” DeLong said. “We were much more explosive. And plus, we were able to control the ball.”
The misfits were doing their part, and the triple-option proved to be a system worth keeping, rather than one to hand off or pitch.
Maintaining the Standard
In the summer of 1989, Mike Cerasuolo stepped on to campus for his first preseason – unaware of the long-term impact he was going to have on the Springfield football program.
The Algonquin High School graduate was ecstatic, as many offensive linemen are, to participate in the run-heavy scheme Springfield had installed just a couple of years prior.
“I think any offensive lineman would tell you that that’s what they want to do, all day, every day, is run-block, because it’s a mindset,” Cerasuolo said.
One of the men coaching the offensive line that year was original Roach member Mike Fair.
“Having him as a coach obviously helped establish the standard and expectation that you had as a member of The Roach,” Cerasuolo said. “That was really special, being coached by people that had the foundation of what The Roach stood for, and what it meant, and every day held a standard that they wanted all offensive linemen at Springfield College to have.”
Cerasuolo ended up being a fantastic contributor to the offensive front. He was a two-time Division II All-New England selection, and a 1992 Associated Press and New England College Football Writers' Association All-Star.
Despite his excellent playing career for the Pride, his most significant impact on the program revolved around what he originally came to the College for: to coach. Along with being one of the best centers Springfield has seen, Cerasuolo had an acute focus on managing the game from the sideline after he was done battling in the trenches.
“I was very fortunate to play for a tremendous high school coach that got me involved in the game as far as understanding it a little bit better, and how to coach, and that drove me to want to be a coach,” he said.
He went on to be a graduate assistant at Ithaca before working at the University of Maine, SUNY Cortland, Lebanon Valley and Mansfield. In 2001, Mansfield’s head coach left for another job and Cerasuolo started interviewing at other schools.
However, a casual conversation with his former head coach﹣who was looking to fill his offensive coordinator opening﹣led Cerasuolo to his next job.
“[I] just happened to be talking with Coach DeLong one day and he asked if I had an interest, and I said, ‘I hadn’t put much thought into it, to be honest with you,’” Cerasuolo said. “But I said, ‘Yeah, hell yeah, I’d love to have the opportunity.’”
The Roach inductee was elated to get back to the place where he embarked on his college football journey.
“I just think any time you come back to your alma mater, there’s a little bit more drive to it,” Cerasuolo said.
The system was a natural fit for Cerasuolo, since it was the same offense he helped lead on the field for four years. The triple-option was in its 15th year on Alden Street at the time, and the same was true for The Roach.
“I think those values were instilled in me when I played here, so I’ve taken those with me every step of the way,” Cerasuolo said. “I’ve only tried to raise that standard every day as well for myself, for the kids on the team, and the kids want that.”
DeLong retired after the 2015 season, and Cerasuolo was soon promoted to head coach. He remains in charge today with a 45-20 career record as well as back-to-back NEWMAC championships in 2021 and 2022.
‘You Gotta Get Through it With Your Brothers’
On the first day of their first preseason camp, players in the offensive line group get indoctrinated into the Springfield College tradition, and soon after that, they get evaluated on their commitment to it.
“As a Roach, we get a manual [on] day one that’s about [four or five inches] thick. And you have to read it by the next day, because they test you on it, and they want to see who believes in it,” senior guard Cam Borges said. “And everything in [the manual] talks about how to be a better man, how to do everything the right way, how to protect each other.”
Soon enough, they are introduced to the chutes – metal tubes with a bar below which players must do their three-point stance. A couple of feet further is another metal bar slightly higher. The linemen go through their run-blocking form below those bars, with the intention being to keep them as low and explosive as possible.
“My favorite part [of being an offensive lineman] is run-blocking and going through the chutes at Springfield with my friends,” senior right tackle Jon Weber said. “And Judgment Day.”
To be officially inducted into The Roach, a player has to complete two Judgment Days, two full preseasons, one spring season, and a conditioning-heavy “Brotherhood Challenge” in that spring – all without an injury during them.
The point of enduring all the punishment is to prepare the Pride's offensive line to run the ball on just about every play. Springfield had 62 rush attempts per game in 2022, and that was the lowest such number in half a decade.
“We run the ball every single play, so guess what? We better be good at what we do,” Borges said. “In order for us to be good at what we do, we have to be the toughest guys out there.”
Although it is an unusual offense relative to the modern game, the style of play attracts The Roach.
“If you’re an offensive lineman, you want to run the ball every single play,” Borges said. “It’s the nature of it.”
Along with the extreme toughness displayed throughout the season, The Roach requires its members to carry themselves appropriately off the field to uphold the representation of the group.
“You also have to be a high-character guy,” Borges said. “They’re not going to take a guy that’s gonna bring down the culture of what it is. There have been plenty of guys that I’ve seen not get in due to who they were.”
When Induction Day arrives, so does one of the best moments of players’ football lives.
“I think getting inducted into The Roach this year was definitely my most proud moment of any football career, let alone college,” Weber said.
“You see the tears coming down these dudes’ eyes,” Borges added.
The induction is not only an honorary symbol for Roaches as football players, but it symbolizes something they pride themselves on as human beings. The attitude and perseverance are commodities they carry long beyond their playing careers.
“You’re gonna keep these standards for the rest of your life,” Borges said. “You never gave up when things got hard. When things hit the fan, you stayed the same person. And that’s the type of man I want to be my whole life.”
Today’s Roaches
Cockroaches are beings no one wants to see﹣the same way a NEWMAC defense does not look forward to lining up against the Springfield offensive line.
The Pride’s 2022 season began with a 42-14 win over Western New England, as Springfield racked up 433 rushing yards. Six different ball carriers tallied at least 45 yards on the ground, and they all found the end zone.
Running back Dante Vasquez had 116 yards from scrimmage in the victory, with 87 coming off rushes.
“The Roach did amazing like they always do,” Vasquez said after the win.
A few days later, Lou Cocozza, Chris Eichler, Vinny Ruggiero, Borges and Weber were honored as an offensive line unit as part of the D3Football.com National Team of the Week.
It was an impressive accomplishment, but low on the list of priorities for The Roach.
“I thought it was cool, but nothing other than that,” Weber said. “I really thought it’s just a stepping stone to where we wanted to be, which was [making] the playoffs again, winning games, and getting farther than [2021].”
While weekly awards may not win championships, it was a reminder that The Roach had something special. The line was an assembly of fifth-years and seniors who had developed unmatched chemistry.
“I’ve been with these guys for four years now,” Weber said. “You can almost finish their sentences and stuff like that… and it’s like yin and yang together.”
Weber started 21 of the Pride’s 23 combined games in 2021 and 2022 as a consistent right tackle. He hails from Averill Park, N.Y., and initially needed a slight push toward the gridiron at a young age.
“I wasn’t doing good in a class when I was in middle school, and the varsity football coach was my teacher,” Weber said. “So, I bet if he gave me an A, I would play football for him. I got an A.”
In his early playing days, Weber flipped between tackle and guard on offense to nose tackle and defensive end on the other side.
Weber developed an excellent skill set playing high school football at LaSalle Institute in Troy, N.Y., so he looked at schools to potentially compete at collegiately. A solid Physical Therapy program was his main concern, and Springfield had what he wanted in that respect. Weber was initially recruited to play on defense, but switched to offense in his first preseason.
“I remember coming into camp freshman year and I saw these crazy dudes on a hill, and I was like ‘What the hell are they doing?” he said. “A week later, I was over there with them on the hill.”
Cam Borges was directly to Weber’s left on the line of scrimmage for most of their junior and senior years, and started 19 of 23 games over the last two seasons. The Providence, R.I., native began playing football thanks to his mother.
“It was big in my family to make sure her children were active doing things. We were playing sports because it kept us [from] of doing bad things,” Borges said. “She believes sports was a pathway to where we needed to be.”
In his extended time playing the game, he did not change positions often. This was despite a relatively short stature﹣capped at 5-foot-10 in college﹣compared to the rest of his peers on the gridiron.
“I was always an offensive lineman, but I was always a small offensive lineman,” Borges said.
During his formative years, he had his share of role models within the sport.
“I was always granted really good football coaches in my time growing up – people who taught me the foundation of the game,” Borges said.
A couple of those coaches had ties to the Triangle. Geoff Marcone, a former graduate assistant at Springfield, was Borges’ head coach at La Salle Academy in Providence. Borges went to Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., after his time at the academy, which was where he met 2013 Springfield graduate Brodie Quinn, who was a strength coach at Hotchkiss.
Quinn still has a direct influence on Borges.
“He was my role model ﹣ he’s a guy that I’ve lived with,” Borges said. “The past couple years, he takes me in every summer to go out and live with him, train football.”
Borges committed to Tufts University prior to meeting Brodie and his father, Springfield College Athletic Hall of Famer, Jack Quinn. The Quinns offered Borges a different perspective and changed the course of his future.
“Jack and Brodie – they saw a lot from me in the beginning,” Borges said. “And they believed in me, and they said, ‘Go to Springfield College. Go take an opportunity there. This is where we went – our lives have changed. We see that you’re the type of person that would fit in there.’”
He understood what he was signing up for on Alden Street. The alums he interacted with did not sugarcoat what his experience was going to be, but Borges was up for the challenge.
“It was gonna be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said. “And I was actually told that in the recruiting process, that if you want to play football, why wouldn’t you want to do it at the most that you could do it? With the most potential and getting the most out of it? I’ve always heard that Springfield College football was the hardest thing that I was gonna do.”
Borges’ journey with the Pride did not get off to the best start, as he suffered a hip labral tear during his first year. Yet, after waiting in doubt, he received an invite back to camp for his sophomore year – though the 2020 season was canceled because of COVID. When competition returned in 2021, he was Springfield’s starting right guard.
Yet, his largest impact on campus may be away from the gridiron. Borges’ work with student-athlete mental health advocacy led him to two nominations for the annual Allstate/American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Good Works Team.
Left tackle Lou Cocozza was the most decorated player of the group. Cocozza, who entered his fifth year with the Pride as a preseason Division III First-Team All-American, grew up in Barnstable, Mass., and playing up front ran in his family.
“We were all offensive linemen. So, as soon as I started, I didn’t get to play running back, quarterback,” Cocozza said with a smile. “I went straight to center when I was young because that’s where my dad played.”
He arrived at Springfield in 2018 and was not high on any depth chart. However, from 2019 on, Cocozza played in all 33 of Springfield’s games.
“At one point, he was a fifth-string nose guard, and now he’s an All-American,” Cerasuolo said.
To Cocozza’s right was graduate student Chris Eichler. The Northvale, N.J., native played eight games during his sophomore year, and then all 23 games the past two seasons. Eichler also earned First-Team All-NEWMAC honors in both 2021 and 2022.
Snapping the ball was center Vinny Ruggiero, who hails from New Rochelle, N.Y. He was a consistent starter during his junior and senior years, and was named Second-Team All-NEWMAC in 2021.
Ruggiero’s determination was displayed in the first game of the 2022 season when he broke his left hand in the second quarter and did not miss a play. The following Tuesday, he was in a cast, which was still not enough to keep him off the field for any time.
Cocozza and Eichler were inducted into the Roach prior to 2022, while Ruggiero, Borges, and Weber along with Matt Moura, Richard Boni, Billy Lavigueur, Kevin Lind, Patrick Enright, Anthony DeVito, TJ Depasquate and George Anastasiadis were inducted in the last year.
The Roach Lives On
Rich Mannello’s football life came full-circle when his son, Stone, played at Springfield College.
Rich’s coaching career at Springfield came to a close in 1989 when he left for Northeastern University, He went on to start the football program at King’s College and coach there for 19 years. In 2015, after several years out of football, he took over as head coach at Dallas High School in Pennsylvania, where he remains today.
The demanding schedule made it more difficult for Rich to see Springfield games, but he was pleasantly surprised to witness the growth of his creation upon his return.
“I had not been to Springfield in 30 years because I had always coached,” Mannello said. “And I’ll never forget walking through the tailgate section. I think someone had cupcakes with roaches on the top of them for the frosting, and I said ‘Oh, my! This thing has really gone to a whole ‘nother level,’ which is neat.”
Mannello’s and DeLong’s innovation is still showing its effect 36 years later. The triple-option and The Roach remain part of Springfield football lore not only because of the tradition – but also because it works.
“They win a lot of football games, and it’s not magic,” Mannello said.
Cocozza, Eichler, Ruggiero, Borges and Weber have all played their final snap on Stagg Field. They feel bittersweet to leave The Brotherhood, but understand The Roach is in a good position to continue success.
“We’re gonna lose six or seven seniors that started on the offensive line this year, but I bet you the offensive line next year will be just as good because that’s the expectation,” Borges said.
Much of that can be credited to the consistent value the group gives each player, no matter their year or spot on the depth chart.
“We do everything as an upperclassman that the underclassmen do,” Borges said. “We want to make sure that they feel comfortable, because one day, they’re going to be an upperclassman, and there’s going to be a wide-eyed freshman that walks in that has no clue what he’s doing and guess what they’re going to do? They’re going to take them with them.”
Along with putting opponents on their back, setting up running backs to cross the goal line and winning games, future Roaches will reflect on their experience the same way as Borges.
“I’m going to be okay, I’m going to be successful one day, and I know I have the opportunities to do that, but it’s because of this,” Borges said.” If I went anywhere else, if I did anything differently, I don’t think I’d be the man I am today.”
Credits:
Chris Gionta and Springfield College Athletics