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‘You wanted to emulate him’: The Paul Pasqualoni...
Forty years ago, Chris Rippon began his college football career as a defensive back at Southern Connecticut State University.
The Owls’ head coach was George DeLeone. Serving as an assistant on DeLeone’s 1978 Southern staff, in his first coaching job above the high school level, was Paul Pasqualoni. For the next two-plus decades, where Pasqualoni went, Rippon followed.
When Pasqualoni left Southern to take the head coaching job at nearby Western Connecticut State in 1982, Rippon joined him as a grad assistant. Rippon himself then inherited the Western program in 1987, when Pasqualoni accepted a job as the linebackers coach at Syracuse. Six years later, in 1993, Rippon reunited with his coaching mentor, now the Orangemen (later renamed the “Orange”) head coach. He and Pasqualoni would remain together at Syracuse until 2004, when the school let Pasqualoni go.
“He did things so professionally,” Rippon tells The Athletic of Pasqualoni. “He cared about you and your family, he was going to do everything right, you were going to be held accountable. You knew exactly where you stood and what you were supposed to do.”
Following that Syracuse split, Rippon went on to coach at Ole Miss, Rutgers, Marshall and Columbia. He’s currently back at Mississippi as a special teams consultant and the program’s associate athletic director for community relations.
He also is just one of a sprawling number of coaches to find success after spending time under Pasqualoni’s guidance. The Paul Pasqualoni “coaching tree,” as it were, is an overlooked, wholly unappreciated phenomenon, but has branches extending into all ranks of the sport — the NFL, college and high school.
“There was not ‘because you had a title, you were entitled,’ ” Rippon says. “(Pasqualoni) led the way by example. He was just that kind of person, you wanted to emulate him as a professional.”
Forty years ago, Chris Rippon began his college football career as a defensive back at Southern Connecticut State University.
The Owls’ head coach was George DeLeone. Serving as an assistant on DeLeone’s 1978 Southern staff, in his first coaching job above the high school level, was Paul Pasqualoni. For the next two-plus decades, where Pasqualoni went, Rippon followed.
When Pasqualoni left Southern to take the head coaching job at nearby Western Connecticut State in 1982, Rippon joined him as a grad assistant. Rippon himself then inherited the Western program in 1987, when Pasqualoni accepted a job as the linebackers coach at Syracuse. Six years later, in 1993, Rippon reunited with his coaching mentor, now the Orangemen (later renamed the “Orange”) head coach. He and Pasqualoni would remain together at Syracuse until 2004, when the school let Pasqualoni go.
“He did things so professionally,” Rippon tells The Athletic of Pasqualoni. “He cared about you and your family, he was going to do everything right, you were going to be held accountable. You knew exactly where you stood and what you were supposed to do.”
Following that Syracuse split, Rippon went on to coach at Ole Miss, Rutgers, Marshall and Columbia. He’s currently back at Mississippi as a special teams consultant and the program’s associate athletic director for community relations.
He also is just one of a sprawling number of coaches to find success after spending time under Pasqualoni’s guidance. The Paul Pasqualoni “coaching tree,” as it were, is an overlooked, wholly unappreciated phenomenon, but has branches extending into all ranks of the sport — the NFL, college and high school.
“There was not ‘because you had a title, you were entitled,’ ” Rippon says. “(Pasqualoni) led the way by example. He was just that kind of person, you wanted to emulate him as a professional.”
