Fittingly, Charliana Criscuolo was talking about her footballing past and preparing for her footballing future while getting her nails done two days before North Branford High’s senior prom.
She was in a living room last spring when Southern Connecticut football coach Tom Godek called, offering a position as the Owls’ team operations manager that she would accept and turn into so much more.
“We had been looking for help with equipment, filming, data entry,” Godek said. “Slowly and steadily she started to walk away from operations and little things like that, and all of a sudden she started to absorb the coaching stuff by being around her. We’re here today and it is moving deeper and deeper into our playbook.”
Criscuolo, 18, is perhaps the busiest person on the state sports scene, a nursing student and now, with her freshman year, Southern’s assistant wide receivers coach. She also remains the director of operations.
His evolving role on the Godek staff is one of the most unique experiences in college sports, the pursuit of a passion Criscuolo developed as a manager of multiple sports in high school – and an important showcase for the expanding opportunities for women in a college sport played by, and almost exclusively coached by, men.
Criscuolo understands that many young women may have an interest in football and knowledge of football – but not necessarily understand that they may have the opportunity to play football. His persistence in seeking employment and quickly becoming an indispensable member of the Southern coaching staff shows what is possible.
That is to say essentially: everything for which one plans correctly.
“It’s important for young women and young people to see that you can do it, that there are different avenues,” Criscuolo said. “I have never set foot on a pitch and played, but I understand and try to coach in a different way, bringing a new dynamic to training.”
To sum up what Criscuolo does for the Owls, it’s probably asking, doesn’t she does ?
She organizes and publicizes camps, runs a website, and remains active in social media outreach. She compiles statistics, assists with daily cleaning, refills decanters, transports equipment to and from facilities. She coordinates musters and team meetings, manages meal lists, and practices music and travel itineraries. The paperwork and emails, much of it recruitment-related, are seemingly endless.
These are just a few of its management tasks.
Criscuolo was promoted to the coaching staff, a role for which she receives a stipend, ahead of the Owls’ spring training session in March. Criscuolo coaches players through workouts. She reviews movies, asks questions and makes suggestions. She was involved in inter-game helmet talks at Spring Ball and is expected to be in the 2023 season. She calls in-game signals from the sidelines. She is at all the staff meetings that her schedule allows.
There were, initially, occasional questioning looks from players trying to get a sense of an 18-year-old – a freshman, no less – helping guide them through their sporting experience of Division II. Godek also assumes that there were probably some breathless snickers at times.
But one of Criscuolo’s gifts is his ability to communicate with these players. She quickly developed the confidence that is essential to any football operation.
“I love being involved in what’s going on in their lives, learning about them, making that connection,” Criscuolo said. “I can talk to these guys. Not all small problems need to be solved [offensive coordinator Chris Bergeski] or Godeck. Things can be manipulated. They have a million things going on. That’s what I bring to realize my voice and where I’m at as a coach, being able to improve myself in training by helping players with that aspect – not just the game, but making a difference in their personal life.
Criscuolo has a knack for creating more chances than it looks on the surface.
Looking for something to occupy her time and mind while going through a tough time in high school, she accepted a job as manager of the North Branford football team. By the end of her high school years, Criscuolo was the manager of the North Branford and Guilford football teams, as well as the North Branford men’s hockey, basketball and lacrosse teams.
“It was [initially] described as doing statistics and cleaning, nothing crazy,” she said. “But I realized they needed a lot more help getting organized. I did a real job. You need someone to be there for these guys and help the coaches, do stats and send emails. It was explained to me in high school that being a manager is the joke of high school. I did it because I loved it. I did it for me and because I was helping people. You can see at the end of the four years, the impact you have on [players]. I like to see that. That’s what I get out of it. »
Criscuolo’s main synthesis project focused on these experiences. She made a 10-minute video montage of players, parents and coaches talking about what her presence meant to their high school sports experiences.
Criscuolo applied to three colleges and emailed the head coach of those soccer teams directly last spring to see if she could continue working in the sport. When Godek went to Google Criscuolo’s name and came across the video on YouTube, he picked up the phone and interrupted his prom manicure. She was in prospect camp a few days later.
“Charlie really went head first and gave us everything she had,” Bergeski said. “If you look at it from a broader angle, society, sports, and opportunity for individuals everywhere is kind of a driving zone right now. Our conversations have been about finding a balance between being comfortable with our athletes and making sure she feels comfortable with the training part of things and being herself This is a business where you continually learn and try to find new ways to do things. The Xs and O’s are going to be the new side of things for her. I think our players have done a good job of adapting, respecting and listening. Her responsibilities have only increased .
It is not unusual for a student to be part of a coaching staff.
But generally, they are graduate students, aged 22 or 23. And they are almost always former players.
Criscuolo breaks barriers earlier than most, differently than most.
She befriended Michelle “Mickey” Grace, who was hired in April as an offensive analyst on UConn coach Jim Mora’s team. Grace’s hiring was celebrated as a breakthrough for women and women of color. When his story was shared on Twitter, Guilford High coach Anthony Salvati, a former North Branford assistant, took notice and linked it.
“Check out our former manager Charliana Criscuolo now as WR assistant coach at @SCSUFB!” Salvati wrote to Grace.
Grace contacted Criscuolo, who was invited for a day with UConn staff a few weeks ago.
Criscuolo will take an exam to enter Southern School of Nursing in the fall — around the time, of course, of the start of football season.
She refers to the football offices as her “quiet place”, which is amusing since such buildings are known as anything but. Football coaches are notoriously 24-hour workers.
“When I started, my main thing was camp,” Criscuolo said. “The coaches are here for days of 13 hours or more and my responsibility was only training. So if I wanted to earn the respect of the players, I was going to be there early in the morning, before everyone else, and be with the coaches when they left. Now that we’ve stepped into the coaching role in the spring, it’s not something common in the sport and something guys should get used to. There are bumps in the road, but I think a lot of them did a good job of helping me. They understood that I was putting everything in place.
Criscuolo is in the football offices before classes and after.
“She’s a really good student,” Godek said. “She will continue to grow and learn, like all of us. It’s about bouncing ideas off of each other. Everyone has ideas. You just want to work together to make the team better than it was the day before.
Criscuolo has plenty of time to refine his professional aspirations.
“I call nursing my backup plan,” she said. “It’s a pretty big back-up plan. But you never know what may happen or where I may go with this. Maybe work in [a neonatal intensive care unit] or labor and delivery, and do a little coaching in the afternoon. It’s my plan, but everyone tells me I need to sleep.
[email protected]; @ManthonyHearst
