University of Connecticut Athletics
Honorary Blue-White Spring Football Game Coaches Announced
3/10/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Honorary Spring Game Coaches Announced
STORRS, Conn. (March 10, 2008) - Two former University of Connecticut head football coaches and a pair of former Husky student-athletes who played for them will serve as honorary coaches for the UConn Blue-White Spring Football Game on Saturday, April 19.
The game will be played at Rentschler Field and kickoff is slated for 12:00 p.m. with parking lots opening at 9:00 a.m. Both admission and parking are free.
Former UConn head coaches Larry Naviaux and Bob Casciola will each guide a side along with their former players Ray Tellier and Brian Usher.
Last spring, former Husky head coaches Rick Forzano and John Toner were among the honorary coaches along with former players Gary Blackney and Rick Robustelli.
Naviaux was UConn’s head coach from 1973-76, a run which included the 1973 Yankee Conference Championship. Naviaux was raised in Lexington, Neb. where he lettered for four years at Nebraska from 1955-58, starting at halfback for the Huskers. He worked as an assistant coach at Nebraska, Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette) and Boston University before taking over as BU’s head coach in 1969. He guided that 1969 Terrier team to a 9-1 mark and a berth in the Pasadena Bowl, earning himself AFCA College Division Coach of the Year honors. After UConn, Naviaux entered the insurance industry in Connecticut, from which he has recently retired. Casciola was Naviaux’s predecessor in Storrs as he guided the Huskies from 1971-72.
A native of Hyde Park, N.Y., Casciola was an All-Ivy League tackle at Princeton where he played on teams that won a pair of Ivy League Championships. Casciola served as an assistant coach at Dartmouth and Princeton before coming to UConn as an assistant coach under John Toner in 1969, succeeding him when Toner left coaching to serve full-time as UConn’s Director of Athletics. Casciola spent five years as head coach at Princeton at 1973-77 before moving into the private sector with First Fidelity Bank of New Jersey. In addition to holding several college football broadcasting roles, he got back into sports full-time in 1987 as the executive vice president and C.O.O. of the New Jersey Nets. In 1991 he became the executive director of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, becoming the organization’s president in 1995. Casciola received the NFF's Distinguished American Award in 2004 joining a list of former recipients that includes Vince Lombardi, Bob Hope, Pete Rozelle, Joe Paterno, Wellington Mara and UConn’s own John Toner.
Tellier was Casciola’s starting quarterback with the Huskies, lettering from 1970-72 following a stand-out prep career at Notre Dame of West Haven. After graduating, he served as an assistant coach at several schools before taking over as head coach at Rochester in 1984. Tellier guided the Yellowjackets to a 9-1 record in 1987 and was named the AFCA’s Regional Coach of the Year for Division III. From there he went to New York City to serve as head coach at Columbia, a position he held from 1989-2002, becoming the second-winningest coach in Lion history. Since turning over the coaching reigns he has continued in athletic administration at Columbia as an associate athletics director.
Usher played for both Casciola and Naviaux, lettering from 1971-73 as a linebacker. He remains a familiar face around the program serving as Associate Director of Admissions for the university. The former all-state pick at Stamford High School returned to his prep roots after graduation as an assistant coach at Westhill High School and later as head coach at since-closed Rippowam High School, both in his native Stamford. He led Rippowam to the 1980 Class L State Championship with an 11-1 record. Usher returned to UConn as an assistant coach in 1982 under Walt Nadzak and remained until 1989 under Tom Jackson, eventually rising to associate head coach and defensive coordinator and helping the Huskies to four YanCon titles.
Bob Casciola and Ray Tellier (14) pose together.
Larry Naviaux receives the 1973 Yankee Conference championship trophy from Dick MacPherson, coach of 1972 champion UMass. MacPherson would later serve as head coach at Syracuse from 1981-90 where he mentored future UConn head coach Randy Edsall.
