By By Ryan McCord
Pride defensive coordinator and associate head football coach Greg Gigantino’s assignments go much further than framing blitz schemes or customizing dime packages.
Gigantino works vigorously to make sure his players take full advantage of their opportunities, commitment, and investment to the University. He can be analyzed not only as a football coach, friend and mentor, but as a student athlete investment broker. Unlike J.P Morgan or Charles Schwab, Gigantino works to better enhance a portfolio without receiving any personal incentives.
Gigantino’s coaching style is based upon equivalency, sprinkled with a little personality and topped off with an emphasis for his players to realize they have been offered an opportunity to succeed.
“You treat them all fair, but you can’t treat them all the same. Their goal each week is to get better and win,” said Gigantino, who was the assistant head coach at Cornell from 1997-2000.
The depth chart is empty heading into the first practice of each season and everybody must earn their position as a starter, no matter what happened the previous season or who looks good on paper.
“Every position is open every year; some are more wide open than others. The middle linebacker position has been open for the last four years, but Cole Haley has been winning it every year,” said Gigantino, who is currently serving his second tenure with the Pride.
With the recent NFL soap opera triggered by the selfish acts of former Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens grabbing sports headlines for the past week, Gigantino tried to make sense of what is becoming a contagious athletic state of mind.
“It’s a product of society and parents raising kids differently,” he said. “When I was playing and a coach asked me to jump, I would say how high. There’s no independency with our kids any longer and that goes for anybody, not just athletes. Someone is always telling them what to do, they’re never thinking on their own.”
As much personal satisfaction Gigantino gets out of seeing the majority of his players move on to the next level in their lives, the occasional deficiency hits him hard and sticks like bees on honey.
“They come here, you give them an opportunity and they don’t take advantage of it. That’s the thing that hurts me the most,” he said. “Then I feel like I personally let them or whoever down when things don’t go well.”
While Gigantino’s defense hasn’t exactly been keeping opposing offenses at a standstill this season, the Pride has managed to surrender two shutouts and keep the team alive in the majority of its games, all without the playmaking talents of preseason All-American tackle machine Gian Villante.
Gigantino and the rest of the Pride coaching staff may have the pleasure of coaching professional caliber talent over the years, but being a division I-AA program doesn’t mean superior athletes will just fall into their laps each year.
Simply put, he is easy to get along with, doesn’t tie his players down with an abundance of tedious rules and comes to his office each day prepared to make his players better.