Santavicca takes on ESPN announcing gig like calling plays for his football Rams

June is busting out all over, and Port Chester High School football prep time is about to begin for the upcoming season that starts Sept. 7 with a 1:30 p.m. home game against Scarsdale at SUNY Purchase.

Head coach Paul Santavicca's grid Rams will jump start the pre-season practices by participating in the Carmel 7 on 7 Passing Scrimmage and Lineman Challenge Saturday (6/15) beginning at 9 a.m.

So Santavicca will get an early start at calling plays for returning Rams like All-Conference backs Jaylen Cummings and Carlyle Taylor and stud linemen such as last year's co-captain Joe Rinello.

Par for the course

But play calling is par for the course for Santavicca, who also teaches math in the Port Chester School District and is used to various aspects of playing the numbers game from beginning to end in the classroom as well as on the football sidelines.

While he isn't thinking about giving up his day job, Santavicca is coming off a gig that had him play calling in a different kind of way.

Santavicca is fresh from a stint working as a play-by-play television announcer for ESPN.

So, in talking about what he did on his summer vacation, Santavicca can discuss the unusual twist that resulted in his winding up behind an ESPN microphone calling collegiate baseball championship games at Marist, his alma mater.

The old school ties

"Marist is like a second home to me," said Santavicca, a former high school and college All-America lacrosse player who starred for Marist, was a graduate assistant coach there and stayed in touch with many of the athletic types he met at the Poughkeepsie school, from the academic advisors to the athletic director to the football and LAX coaches to the sports publicity director.

When Marist Sports Publicity Director Mike Ferraro called him and asked if he would help him call several important post-season Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) baseball games on TV for ESPN, Santavicca wasted no time in giving what he calls "a resounding yes answer."

The upset special

That's how Santavicca wound up sharing the mike with Ferraro for the MAAC semi-finals between Quinnipiac and Detroit Mercy and Marist playing against Canisius as well as for the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) opening round between Marist and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

That's the same Tony Bennett-coached UMBC Retrievers team that will go down in hoops history as the first number 16 seed in men's collegiate basketball annals to beat a number one seed in the NCAA's Big Dance national tournament. They came away with an improbable 74-54 win over the top-ranked University of Virginia Cavaliers in 2018. And how improbable was that win? UMBC went into that game as a David and Goliath-like 20.5-point underdog, that's how improbable it was.

Heart left elsewhere

And, yes, Santavicca knew about that upset, and, yes, Santavicca knew that coach Tony Bennett was not the same guy as the crooner who will forever be known for that song about leaving his heart in San Francisco, not on some basketball court. The reason Santavicca knows things like that is because he did his homework before ever getting behind that ESPN microphone.

"I did not have any previous training other than my knowledge of the sport and conference, but preparing for the announcing gig was similar to preparing for a football game as a head coach and scouting your opponent as well as calling the plays for a game as a coach," Santavicca said. "So I was able to watch a couple of previous games of the teams that were playing in order to become further acquainted with their styles, seasons, rosters and coaching staff."

That kind of preparation and insight helped Santavicca impress ESPN, its viewers and the Marist brain trust to the point where there may be more gigs like that in his future.

The bonus

As a bonus, Santavicca had a chance to renew old school ties with athletic savants such as Keegan Wilkinson, the Marist LAX coach who mentored him during the two years he played for Marist, was an assistant coach with him there and even was his roommate for two years after that, as well as Jake Dembrow, the Marist football offensive coordinator, who came down to Port Chester to discuss possible Ram recruits with Santavicca, talk football as well as gain insights into other top-tier Section players.

While Santavicca enjoyed the ESPN exposure and the opportunity to pull a Tony Romo, the ex-Dallas pro-football quarterback whose expertise made him such a TV wow announcing pro-football games, he is more excited about getting his Rams ready for a season that includes games against Carmel, Yonkers Brave, Ramapo, Ossining, Yonkers Force and White Plains with a hopefully potential playoff run on the horizon, something that has happened during Santavicca's previous three seasons as the coach who turned around a losing Port Chester football culture.

Towards that end, Santavicca and his Rams will be holding informal workouts three to four times a week throughout the summer with their next formal training event scheduled for June 27-29 at the Block and Tackle Football Camp in Somers.

And, who knows, once football season ends and school is out, Santavicca just might be available for more Marist and ESPN TV gigs.