When prompted to “describe Rocky in three words,” many of his closest colleagues and friends responded without hesitation: “Passionate.” Rocco J. “Rocky” Carzo, former Tufts head football coach and athletic director, died on Jan. 16 at 89 years old.
“Rocky bled brown and blue,” Head Football Coach Jay Civetti said. “I love the passion and the care that he [had] for Tufts … He didn't go here, but you would have thought that he did — I think he just fell in love with the place. I think it's cool that he continued to make sure that people loved and appreciated it.”
Carzo dedicated a 33-year tenure at Tufts, starting out as the head football coach from 1966–1973 before being appointed athletic director from 1973–1999. However, Carzo’s reach extended well beyond the football field and his office in the athletic center. He transformed a languishing Jumbos athletics department as women’s and intramural sports expanded in the 1980s, and made concerted efforts to improve the athletic facilities.
“He was a very vocal guy. He loved sport, and he loved the history of sport,” Martha Whiting, head women’s soccer coach, said. “His big thing was [the] student-athlete experience, and he was always on the side of the student-athletes, always pushing for them, always advocating for the student-athletes, which I thought was awesome ... You always knew that Rocky was in your corner.”
A Pennsylvania native, Carzo played fullback on the football team at the University of Delaware beginning in 1950. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1954 and a master’s degree in education in 1956. Carzo began his coaching career in Delaware while earning his master’s, becoming the Delaware assistant football coach after graduation from 1956–1959. Alongside this he also served as a Delaware lacrosse coach from 1958–1959.
When the opportunity presented itself, Carzo moved across the country to serve as a backfield coach for the University of California, Berkeley football team. In this role he was able to work alongside NFL legends like Marv Levy and Bill Walsh. Levy later coached for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills, while Walsh headed the San Francisco 49ers.
However, Carzo did not hesitate to return to the East Coast when the head coaching job at Tufts opened. Something about the Brown and Blue drew Carzo to Medford, Massachusetts, where he would spend much of his time advocating for Tufts athletics.
“I watched and learned as he built relationships,” Head Volleyball Coach Cora Thompson wrote. “He ALWAYS made time for anyone who needed to see him in his office. He built real genuine relationships and valued people first. People will follow you if they feel valued by you. As a leader, [he made us all feel] incredibly valued.”
“He was more concerned about the lessons that student-athletes could learn by playing sports. Winning was certainly important to him, and he wanted to win, but I think the lessons of sportsmanship, teamwork and leadership, those were the things that mattered the most to him,” Director of Athletic Communications Paul Sweeney said. “Within the department, he created a family atmosphere, where we all not only knew each other and worked with each other, but we knew each other's families, and we spent time together outside of the office.”
Carzo was not only a legend in the Tufts community, but also within the football world. Anyone who knew him could recall countless conversations he had with them – talking about sports, family and everything in between. He made everyone with whom he crossed paths feel seen, heard and valued.
“His interaction with people is something I try to make an effort to try, to get to know as many student athletes here as I can, because that's something that Rocky did,” Civetti said.
“He was very much about we're family, and Tufts Athletics is a family,” Whiting said. “The idea of being a family for me has carried through with my teams. We're very proud of the idea of being a family, and Rocky was very much in his line of thinking, ‘we're all in this together, let's support each other."
Beyond athletics, Carzo was an instrumental part of the Tufts in Talloires program. In addition to teaching there for nearly 30 years, he aided in getting Olympic events to take place at Talloires. Even after his retirement, Carzo still traveled back to France each summer to get the program "up and running," according to Civetti.
He held many other leadership positions beyond Tufts, including within the NCAA as the Division III vice president, the Eastern College Athletic Conference president, as well as served on college football rules and postseason selection committees.
“He was politically very savvy,” Executive Director of the Office of Alumni Relations and former Athletic Director Bill Gehling said. “He understood at the end of the day that it wasn't just about your argument, it was about making sure you got enough people to side with you over a contentious issue, and that doesn't always just come down to the strength of your argument. It comes down to getting people to hear you and also hearing them and understanding what it is that motivates them.”
“He was a guy that people listened to; he was aggressive but in a good way,” Sweeney said. “He had a sense of humor. He was funny. He worked hard — he wasn't afraid to roll up his sleeves and do the work with you. He wasn't just someone who would sit there delegating.”
His reach and impact can be seen in the celebration of his retirement taking place with three separate events: one with Tufts Athletics, one with the Tufts as a whole and the last one in a hotel ballroom with his family and friends. However, retirement is not where Carzo’s relationship with Tufts ended. He continued to sit in the football offices while he wrote his book on the history of the athletics department, titled “Jumbo Footprints: A History of Tufts Athletics, 1852–1999.” During this time, he passed along his extensive football knowledge to the coaches that followed in his footsteps.
“He would just come and sit in our offices and just listen, talk, ask questions, make us think about things,” Civetti said. “He was so, so smart when it came to football, he just saw it in almost like a mathematical way. I will definitely miss our talks, I definitely miss that time, whether it was about football or whether it was just about life."
Carzo’s passion, dedication and leadership also earned him numerous awards throughout his career. Carazo was one of the inaugural winners of the National Association of College Directors of Athletics Athletic Director of the Year Award, and he was inducted as a member of the NACDA Hall of Fame in 2000. Carazo was also inducted into the Tufts Athletics Hall of Fame in 2018, as a member of its inaugural class. He also earned the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame Distinguished American Award, one of the NFF's highest honors, in 1996. He was the 1998 recipient of the George C. Carens Award from the New England Football Writers for his lifetime contributions.
The Tufts community will miss the physical presence of Carzo in his office in the athletic department but his wisdom, ability to bring people together and loyalty to the Brown and Blue have shaped our athletic program to what it is today and what it will continue to be far into the future.
