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The Daily OrangeSchonbrun | To the top and back
Less than two years after a Super Bowl win, Ryan LaCasse is back at SU
By Zach Schonbrun
Posted: 10/7/08, 12:41 AM EST Section: Sports
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He was on the delirious sidelines as the final seconds of Super Bowl XLI ticked down and pandemonium flooded into a celebration that became, he'd say, "a long few days."
And he may look at the ring, now in the fall of 2008, after his pre-dawn wake-up calls to arrive at work at Manley Field House at 7 every morning. Two years have transplanted him straight from college to luxury's lap, and back.
LaCasse, a former defensive end who graduated from Syracuse in 2006, a month after being selected in the seventh round of the NFL Draft by the Baltimore Ravens, is in his first year as a graduate assistant in the strength and conditioning program for SU athletics. He's splitting his time this fall between football, field hockey and finance (he is enrolled in the Whitman MBA program).
It's part of LaCasse's new plan, after his playing career stalled, at the age of 25, due to a foot injury - plantar fasciitis, a condition that affects the ligament in the heel and foot - that forced him to give up football cold. A year after lining up as a professional athlete, LaCasse was sending resumes out to college coaches around the country, looking for a graduate assistant position that would let him in.
"Your world changes really fast," LaCasse said, in a telephone interview. "It's definitely a life lesson, and you need to be prepared for it to change. Because as good as things can be going it can change in a heartbeat."
It was, as former SU head coach Dick MacPherson would tell him, a true affirmation of going "from penthouse to outhouse." But while LaCasse recounts his NFL experience with excitement, there's no hint of longing or remorse. He seems at peace with his fate, on track to a career in athletic department administrative work: the "non-glamorous" side of sport as he calls it.
LaCasse works in the weight room and on the practice field with the football team now, assisting defensive coordinator Derrick Jackson and spotting current players like Vincenzo Giruzzi, his former teammate. He spends time on the field hockey field, too, as the team's head strength and conditioning coach.
And he goes to class, after his early morning arrival at Manley, essentially resuming his duties as a student after a three-year hiatus.
Except no other SU student appeared in 12 games wearing the uniform of the Indianapolis Colts. He has Peyton Manning's number stored in his cell phone. He's dined with Dwight Freeney. And when the confetti began to sprinkle down from the top of Dolphins Stadium at the end of the Super Bowl, he was looking to the stands, trying to find his mother to bring her down onto a field of surreal euphoria.
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