That thick, wavy black hair as soon as had no place atop Tino Sunseri’s head.
Lengthy earlier than he arrived in Westwood as UCLA’s offensive coordinator and a GQ cowl candidate, his father made him shave that superb mane, the higher to guard his head in order that it might match snugly inside his helmet as a younger quarterback.
“I always had an emphasis of, ‘Hey, I don’t care how your frickin’ hair looks or what women think,’” Sal Sunseri mentioned. “The bottom line is, I wanted him to be secure.”
That is how the Sunseris function. Success means sacrifice. It’s why Anthony Sunseri, Tino’s grandfather and the household patriarch, would rise at 5 every morning to organize for one more day of working the household’s Italian deli and grocery retailer in Pittsburgh. The person who known as himself Tony Macaroni wouldn’t come house till after 5 within the night, solely to sort out a stack of payments and different obligations simply in order that he may get to mattress and rise to do it another time.
“The bottom line,” Sal mentioned of his father, “he would say, ‘If you can’t get up in the morning, you ain’t worth a s—’ .”
Tino was on the transfer virtually from start. The son of a school and NFL coach who schlepped him from Pittsburgh to Iowa Wesleyan to Illinois State to Louisville to Alabama A&M to Louisiana State to Michigan State to the Carolina Panthers by the point he was in center faculty, Tino grew up with a sporting items retailer’s value of drugs and a deep appreciation for the gamers who wore all these helmets and jerseys.
Maybe the primary teaching adage Tino realized was that in case you win, you keep. Should you lose, you progress.
A uncommon respite got here when Sal spent seven superb years as line of defense coach with Carolina. His spouse, Roxann, would make 150 meatballs with garlic bread that Sal would distribute a couple of days after wins. Although meant for the defensive linemen, Sal would be sure to squirrel some away for different gamers similar to working again DeShaun Foster.
“They’re a 10 out of 10,” Foster mentioned of the meatballs.
It was within the Panthers locker room that Tino, accompanying his father to work with broad eyes, first encountered the participant who would at some point develop into his boss. Reserved as he was, Foster discovered it simple to befriend the middle-school boy who dutifully slipped on rubber gloves to select up jockstraps and jerseys.
“He would come up to you as a young kid that looked up to all these NFL players, that was having all the success,” Tino remembered, “and would take the time to be able to talk to you, spend time with you and was really, really genuine.”
Greater than 20 years later, Sal was lounging on his sofa when he bought a name from Foster, now UCLA’s coach, asking if he may have Tino’s cellphone quantity. The request got here only some months after Foster and Tino shared a hug on the Rose Bowl, the primary time that they had reconnected since Foster’s time with the Panthers. Tino’s Indiana Hoosiers, thanks largely to the efforts of the quarterback he coached, had simply walloped Foster’s Bruins.
Throughout their transient alternate, Foster informed Tino that he would rent him sometime. That day was ahead of both may need imagined.
Pittsburgh quarterback Tino Sunseri performs towards Rutgers in November 2012.
(Keith Srakocic / Related Press)
The primary time he met reporters masking his new staff, Tino Sunseri shook everybody’s hand.
That is how the Sunseris function. Respect issues. It’s why Tino indulged each buyer, each nasty and agreeable, whereas working his school summers as a bus boy and waiter at Bella Notte, the household restaurant in Pittsburgh identified for its shredded pepperoni pizzas.
He’d totally have interaction when he may, breaking out an enormous smile. Different instances he’d shift into keep-his-mouth-shut mode if he thought it would yield higher outcomes from somebody who was being troublesome.
“He knows how to talk to people,” mentioned Nino Sunseri, Tino’s uncle and godfather who runs the joint. “If you can get people who aren’t nice to perform for you, picture what you can get nice people to do for you?”
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Working on the restaurant additionally taught Tino that he didn’t wish to do this type of factor without end. If issues broke his approach, possibly he’d be an NFL quarterback.
By then he’d already led his Pittsburgh highschool, Central Catholic — which additionally occurred to be the alma mater of Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame quarterback Dan Marino and two-time Professional Bowler Marc Bulger — to a 16-0 season and state championship due to his sturdy arm and perfectionist streak. At Pittsburgh, the place his mom had been a star gymnast and his father an All-America linebacker, Tino helped the Panthers attain three bowl video games whereas piling up the third-most passing yards in class historical past.
Undrafted but undeterred, Tino pivoted to the Canadian Soccer League. He gained a Gray Cup throughout his three seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders earlier than being reduce. His teaching begin got here with a former colleague of his father’s when he joined Jimbo Fisher’s Florida State employees earlier than the 2016 season as a top quality management assistant.
Tino would go on to work with a few of the prime offensive minds within the school recreation, culling concepts from Nick Saban and Steve Sarkisian throughout two seasons as a graduate assistant at Alabama. In 2021, he landed his first large job as quarterbacks coach underneath Curt Cignetti at James Madison.
Tino Sunseri throughout his time as a quarterback with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the CFL in 2014.
(Brent Simply / Getty Photographs)
“Those guys,” Sal Sunseri mentioned of his son’s mentors, “knew how to put points on the board.”
Eyes broad as soon as extra, Tino watched carefully, absorbing each tidbit.
As he went on to assist Cignetti and Indiana obtain historic success throughout a 2024 season that ended within the School Soccer Playoff, any person was more and more maintaining tabs on him.
“Seeing how he has evolved as a coach and everything,” Foster mentioned of the coach he employed in December, rewarding him with a two-year contract that can pay him $1.3 million this 12 months, “it just resonated, like, this is somebody that I wanted.”
Much like the best way he dealt with prospects on the household restaurant, Tino tailors his method to every quarterback.
Generally that meant demonstrating what he wished on the apply discipline or displaying recreation footage of prime quarterbacks making the fitting selections. Different instances, for the gamers who most well-liked to see performs spelled out with Xs and O’s, he’d diagram it on paper.
“He wanted to get to know you,” mentioned Kurtis Rourke, the Indiana quarterback who led the Hoosiers to an 11-2 document final season earlier than being drafted by the San Francisco 49ers, “and know what learning style worked best with you.”
That is how the Sunseris function. Meticulousness issues. Rourke mentioned that Tino’s exacting nature bled into each quarterback, maximizing their potential. Indiana’s quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator would put performs up on the whiteboard and have everybody within the room clarify each element of what was alleged to occur.
“It helped us learn and understand so that when we went out into the field it wasn’t like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on?’” Rourke mentioned. “It was very much second nature to us.”
In his first season with the Hoosiers after transferring from Ohio, Rourke accomplished 69.4% of his passes for 3,042 yards and 29 touchdowns with solely 5 interceptions.
Successful large with a brand new quarterback was nothing new for Tino.
Tino Sunseri congratulates Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke throughout a recreation towards Northwestern in October 2024.
(Michael Reaves / Getty Photographs)
In Tino’s first 12 months at James Madison, veteran quarterback Cole Johnson helped the Dukes attain the semifinals of the Division I-AA playoffs. In 2022, switch quarterback Todd Centeio (now a graduate assistant at UCLA) was a part of a staff that gained the Solar Belt Convention’s East Division title. A 12 months later, Sunseri and Jordan McCloud, a switch from Arizona, teamed to win one other division title.
What’s Tino’s components? He mentioned it’s as a lot about regularly assessing himself as a lot as his quarterbacks.
“Did I articulate this the right way? Is he receiving the information?” Tino mentioned, repeating the questions he asks himself. “Because it’s not about what I know, it’s what he knows and what he can apply. And so the biggest thing is making sure that you don’t overload the computer and it shuts down. You want to make sure that you’re consistently being able to give it data so that it can be able to make sure that it’s ready to be able to have the information you need when you need it.”
Evaluating educating soccer to fatherhood, Tino mentioned it’s important to inform gamers not what they wish to hear however what they should hear to develop into one of the best model of themselves.
What Nico Iamaleava, the extremely rated switch quarterback from Tennessee, has heard and seen makes him assured that his coach’s historical past of quick success could possibly be on the verge of repeating itself.
Tino has been so lively in apply drills, mimicking the footwork he desires and rolling out and firing a go throughout one latest session, that he would possibly as nicely pull on one of many quarterback’s blue jerseys.
“He’s a high-energy guy, man,” Iamaleava mentioned of the coach who will flip 37 in December. “He just has that certain presence to him that makes you want to go play for him.”
Like his father, who liberally sprinkles “frickin’” and “the bottom line” into dialog, Tino is keen on sure phrases. He inserts “make sure that” and “be able to” in nearly each sentence, usually a number of instances.
That is how the Sunseris function. Consistency and familiarity matter.
That’s why many imagine Tino’s UCLA offense will look loads like Indiana’s, even when Tino wasn’t the one calling performs for the Hoosiers once they rolled up 41.3 factors and 426.4 yards per recreation final season, simply surpassing the 18.4 factors and 328.8 yards that UCLA produced underneath Eric Bieniemy.
“I expect it to be similar to what Indiana’s done and did last year,” mentioned Rourke, including the caveat that he has not spoken together with his former coach a lot since he took the UCLA job. “You know, his offense works, it’s very fast-paced, it has [run-pass options] and a great passing attack.”
It’s clear from the snippets of apply reporters have been allowed to look at that presnap motion — designed to maintain defenses guessing concerning the play name — can be a staple of the offense. Its design additionally seems to worth effectivity over pointless gambles.
UCLA offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri directs gamers throughout apply in April.
(Nate Donlevy / UCLA Athletics)
In an try to hide his scheme earlier than the season opener towards Utah on Saturday on the Rose Bowl, Tino would solely say that it’s “everything” that may squeeze probably the most out of his gamers’ capabilities. His father predicted it might replicate all of his son’s mentors through the years.
“I think it’s going to be a combination of a little bit of Sark, a little bit of Jimbo, a little bit of frickin’ Alabama,” Sal Sunseri mentioned, “because he knows one thing, that you’ve got to be able to run the ball and you’ve got to be able to hit explosives.”
Recovering from a shoulder harm that required surgical procedure, Sal gained’t be there Saturday to share one other particular second on the Rose Bowl together with his son. They’d been on the stadium collectively in January 2014 when Sal was Florida State’s defensive ends coach and the Seminoles beat Auburn to win the ultimate Bowl Championship Collection title recreation.
“That Rose Bowl’s been pretty good to him,” Sal mentioned, “so hopefully he can go out there and do what the old man did and win some games.”
It’s actually what he is aware of. That is how the Sunseris function.
