It's Not About The Money

By Tony Ceglio

It is 1976. An Italian American Film School graduate with visions of being the next Stanley Kubrick, instead finds himself on the very inside of the New York Football Giants. This autobiography is an irreverent look, through the eyes of a filmmaker, at the people who control what you see on the football field. This unprecedented look inside the Giants’ management and coaches is intertwined with the author flashing back to his childhood in an Italian American family and his coming of age on road trips to the NFL’s glamour cities. The stories range from comedic to back stabbings to tragic. It’s all true. The stories will have you laughing out loud, as well as being flabbergasted at the drama involved in the front office politics.
The story begins with a phone call that leads to a full time position as the Film Director for the New York Football Giants. Tony accepts the position for the time being, never expecting it to become a career. All along the way, Tony keeps thinking that the scenes and characters he is experiencing in his position in the NFL would one day make a great movie. This book is a compilation of those scenes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Ceglio
• Release date: Jul 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301710942

Tony Ceglio

Tony Ceglio, As Founder and CEO,of Italianation Inc.Tony Ceglio supervises the entire network. His focus is on the long range vision and daily development of the network, its adherence to its mission, investor relations, the quality control of all program and production content, and the strategic business partnerships with the Italian and Italian American communities. Mr. Ceglio has over 30 years of experience in the television broadcast industry. He has demonstrated a unique combination of management skills, creative talent and technical knowledge in both film and video production. Mr. Ceglio joined the New York Football Giants staff in 1976, as their first Film Director. He immediately introduced innovations such as the installation of a state of the art film laboratory. Mr. Ceglio also created a profitable sports film laboratory business based in Valhalla, New York, which in just two years was processing films for more than 100 clients. In 1986, he was elected Chairman of the National Football League Video Directors Committee. He authored the practices, policies and rules for all NFL Video and, along with NFL Properties, completed a $17 million deal with Sony for the league to switch from film to video. As the founder of the Giant’s Broadcast Production Department, Mr. Ceglio pioneered the process of in-house television program production in the NFL and became the league’s first ExecutveProducer/Director of Broadcasting. Using Mr. Ceglio’s business model, 27 other NFL teams employ a Director of Broadcasting. He also designed and was first to put online the premier video sports editing system in the NFL (coincidentally that same year the Giants won their first Super Bowl). He designed and implemented a broadcast facility , comprising a state-of-the-art studio, control room, edit suites and the support facility. Through the years, Mr. Ceglio and his shows have garnered fourteen Emmys. Mr. Ceglio’s entrepreneurial skills were further demonstrated as the Founder and President of Epic Vision Productions. In 1993, after two years of operation, Epic Vision Productions’ annual gross exceeded the million dollar mark and through its varied award winning productions remained consistently profitable for more than ten consecutive years.

Book preview

IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY

By Tony Ceglio

True stories of an Italian American filmmaker inside the Giants organization

Copyright © 2013 by Tony Ceglio

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Pace University Pleasantville

Home Team

Maria

Training Camp Opens

Pleasant Acres

1975 Giants Training Camp

1975 Season

Let the Fun Begin

I Heard the Call

Welcome to the NFL

Testosterone

Road Trip(s)

Judgment Days

Destiny

Family Business

Flashbacks

O-fer

In My Wildest Dreams

Prestige Has its Rewards

Thorns with the Roses

It’s Official, We Don’t Like You

Phonies and Wannabees

The Philly Fumble

Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts

Clean House

The League

The Combines

A New Staff

Perk’s First Minicamp

Need A Lift

Dog Days

Kitchen Friends

The Reign of Terror Changes Hands

What Else Can You Show Me

It Is Not an Exact Science

Put Your Head in Your Lap

Bill Me

Sweet Home Alabama

Fresh Tuna

Cold Tuna

Hot Tuna

Digging a Hole

Roller Coaster

It’s Not About the Money

Indianapolis Heats Up

1986: The Non Stop, Never a Dull Moment Year That It All Came Together

One Game at a Time

Going To the Show

Pasadena and the Matterhorn

Postpartum

Now What

1989

The Circle of Life

An NFL Bad Idea

Auggie

Candle Stick It

Back in the High Life Again

The Final Chapter

Forward

It took me a long time to decide the best way to tell my story. I had originally thought that the only way to write it would be to change everyone’s name to a fictitious character. The longer that I considered it, the more I felt that I should use real names. This book covers the first fourteen years out of my twenty seven year Giants career.

I was trained as a filmmaker and I went through my career with the team with a filmmaker’s eye. I guess that is why I should not have been surprised by the amount of details that I was able to recall as I wrote these scenes from my life.

This book is a reflective, nonfiction look at my early years with the Giants from my perspective. I consider it an autobiographical, serious comedy. It provides insight into the sensitivities and sensibilities that I have as a third generation Italian American. I could not tell my story without including stories about my family and my upbringing. While football is the backdrop for most of the book, I spend very little time speaking about the nuts and bolts or x’s and o’s of the sport. You will not find any exploitive stories about players or coaches. Some of the finest people that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting were players on the Giants teams. I could not and will not betray any confidences that those individuals had or have in me. Even with most of the players who were my contemporaries now being in their fifties, most are still in good shape and I don’t know if I can out run them at this point in my life? I also did not want to have my wife start my car for me every morning.

This book is dedicated to my grandmother,

Grace Testa

Grandma Grace Testa and me styling 1974

Chapter 1

So there I was; seventy-six degrees, a gorgeous, sunny, blue sky Tuesday in the early summer of 1975. I was taking a rare introspective chill day, sitting alone on the sand, meditating by blindly staring at the waters of the Long Island Sound off of my parents’ beach club. It was the summer prior to my senior year in Film School at the New York School of Visual Arts. Classes had just ended and I wasn't sure how I was going to spend this summer. I had spent last summer working as a Good Humor ice cream man in Pleasantville and Chappaqua, New York; ringing the bells and bribing mad dogs with ice cream. The summer before that I was employed as a door to door Electrolux vacuum cleaner salesman, and for many summers prior to that I worked as a lifeguard and swimming instructor. What I thought was curious about being a lifeguard at a pool was that people would come up to you while you were on duty in the stand and have to speak to your feet. The height off the floor of the lifeguard stand, where your bare feet would rest, was about eye level for the average person standing on the pool deck. I preferred ocean beach lifeguarding because the stands were much taller and it was a job with more action. I had also worked as a waiter, bartender and short order cook.

In 1975 there were no cell phones; however, club members could be reached through the club’s switchboard where they would page you over a loud speaker system. You would then pick up one of the wired extensions throughout the facility. When the announcement Phone call for Anthony Ceglio echoed throughout the almost empty beach club, it freaked me out because the only people who called me Anthony were my parents and brothers and for them to be taking the extreme measure of calling me at the club meant that it was urgent and important. I'm thinking, Oh shit, who died, as I opened the door and picked up the phone from inside its protective box. Hello, I answered apprehensively. Anthony, it's your mother. She did not sound frantic, so I felt relived and went into my usual sarcastic, but not disrespectful mode, that I spoke to my mother in. Anthony, Carmine Accordino just called and said it was very important that you get back to him right away, something about filming for the Giants. I was silent trying to make sense out what she had just said and if perhaps she was not relaying the message correctly. Anthony! She intoned my name in her disquieting manner, Are you there? Yea, yea mom, I'm here, what else did he say? That's it, just to call him right away. In my most sincere yet sarcastic tone I asked her, How can I call him? I'm at the club and an outgoing call from this extension would cost well over a dollar. Mom replied, without missing a beat, Oh, I'm sure that your father won't mind this one time. I muffled my snicker and said, OK, I'll call him as soon as we hang up. OK, Anthony, your father and I are so very proud of you. Let us know what… Yea, yea, I know mom, thanks, love you, bye.

Carmine Accordino was a guy in his early fifties who was on a disability pension due to back and spinal issues from his job with the New York City Sewer Department. Carmine had a sports film laboratory with a black and white, 16 millimeter reversal film processing machine in rooms attached to the back of his house in Crompound, New York, which is adjacent to Peekskill. One of my high school girlfriends, Gayle, had moved from Mount Vernon, New York to Valhalla, New York. I will read anything handy when I have an extended stay in the bathroom. There happened to be a Pennysaver, a weekly, very local paper within sitting reach in Gayle's bathroom. I was scanning through the Help Wanted section when I came across a listing which read, 16 mm cameraman wanted, $10 per hour, must have own 16 millimeter equipment. Being in Film School, I had access to 16 millimeter film cameras pretty much whenever I wanted them. I responded to the ad prior to my sophomore year, met with Carmine and proceeded to shoot football games for Port Chester High School, Wagner College, Westchester Community College, and many other local schools. When the game was over, I would bring the films to Carmine's lab for processing or drop them at one of the police station lobby's that Carmine used for drop off and pick up of processed films. Fifty dollars for an autumn afternoon's work was good money for a film student at that time, but well below what a union film cameraman would make. Keep in mind that back in the early to mid 1970’s there was no such thing as portable video tape and Cameraman was an acceptable term because there were few, if any, female camera operators.

Hello Carmine, it's Tony returning your call, I said matter-of-factly. Oh Tony, yea, good ah, listen, I got a call from Andy Robustelli, you know the General Manager of the New York Giants. He said that the outside company that shoots their games, Winick Films, told him that the guy that shoots their games could not make it to shoot their training camp now that they have moved to Pace University in Pleasantville. Mr. Winick told Andy that he would call the union hall and get him a guy. That didn't go over well with Andy, so he told them not to worry about the training camp and he called me. You interested? Interested in what Carmine? I replied. Are you interested in shooting the Giants training camp? Carmine yelled in a much louder voice. After a momentary pause he began again in a very soft spoken tone, Listen, my wife has been planning this vacation for almost a year and, ah, I can't get out of it. You shoot the first ten days of the training camp and then, ah, when I get back from vacation, I’ll take over for you and shoot the rest of the, ah, training camp.

I looked back at the gentle Long Island Sound waves, thought of the amount of time I spent as a bronze stud lifeguard and at that very instant realized that my days of whimsical summer jobs were behind me and that my future may be beckoning. Sure Carmine, I'll shoot, how much does it pay? I was not looking at this as a fantastic opportunity. I was in Film School to direct feature films or at the very least sell out and work in television broadcasting. A career in the film industry was a very high priority for me back then. I was in it for the art, the message, to make a difference in society. Money was a foregone conclusion; there would be lots of it if you were able to break into the tight knit, union controlled film industry. Tony, I ah, still have to work things out with Robustelli, about money, but can I count on you to shoot? Have I ever let you down before Carmine? I playfully replied. Ah, no, well then, all right I'll get back to you soon Tony.

There was no way that I could have ever imagined how that phone call and the events and circumstances that were to follow were going to impact my life more than any other single event, period. Nor did Carmine realize how going on vacation would shatter his dream. I never aspired to shoot for the Giants, play running back for them as I did for Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, maybe, but not be on the staff of a NFL football team. For Carmine, this would have been a major step up, so to speak, from the NYC Sewer Department.

Pace University Pleasantville

When the Giants moved their training camp to Pace University in 1975, their entire facility was a two story building known as the Field House. This was going to be the Giants football operations headquarters for about a year and a half. The Giants front office people had offices on one of the top floors of the Gulf and Western Building on Columbus Circle in the absolute center of New York City. Distances from New York City are measured from Columbus Circle. The views from those Giants offices were breathtaking and it was just a short walk for Wellington Mara’s nephew and co-owner, Tim Mara, to get from the Giant’s offices to the New York Athletic Club and P.J.Clarke’s. The football operations people and the front office people were to be united under one roof, for the first time ever, in offices and locker rooms in the new Giants Stadium which was under construction somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. At that time Giant people referred to the area where the new stadium was being built as the Hackensack Meadowlands. In reality, the stadium site was located in a former garbage dump straddling East Rutherford and Carlstadt, towns which no New Yorker had ever heard of. Hackensack was and still is several miles north of the stadium site.

When you entered the Field House at Pace University there was a stairway on the left which went down to the locker room. Above that stairway was a sign which read. What you see here and hear here, stays here. To the right of the entrance there was a stairway leading up to offices and meeting rooms. On the wall next to that stairway was a sign which had CH_MP on the first line and on the second line the letters A,I,U to fill in the blank letter. I walked up the stairway to an open space with dark blue walls, and medium blue carpeting. There was one desk on the near wall and one desk on the far wall, both with warmly lit incandescent Giant helmet lamps. Its style was seventies modern, but stark. To the right were two doors leading directly into the players meeting rooms. On one door was a sign, We get better, we get worse, we do not stay the same. On the other door was a sign There is no I in TEAM. Behind the desks were the Head Coach’s office, the General Manager’s office and the Pro Personnel director’s office. Straight ahead was the Coaches’ Locker Room and to the far left was a fairly large multipurpose room. I strutted in for my first encounter with the New York Football Giants.

Home Team

The New York Football Giants were sacred in my father's house. No one disturbed dad, my two older brothers and me during a Giant game, whether it was broadcast on television or if we were listening to a game on the radio, blacked out from television coverage for some reason. Yup, no one disturbed us, except for my mother. When these interruptions happened, my older brothers, Nick and Mike and I would look at my father who would be the appropriate one to respond. It was usually good for a laugh. Aggie, will you please? My mother’s name is Agnes, but to my dad, she was always Aggie. What is it Aggie? Can't you see we're listening to the Giants? Of course she knew, but when Aggie had something on her mind, she would quietly, gently, very lady like, let you know about it. She was THE only person who was not frightened by my father. He was a former Golden Gloves boxer who lost his mother at a young age. His father worked very long hours in the Bronx grocery store which he owned. My father was the oldest of four and was both mother and father to his younger brothers and sister. He was a man boy before it was in vogue.

So there I stood in the Giants football office, in front of the only occupied desk, waiting for the guy behind it to look up, which he didn't do for an uncomfortably long period of time. He looked to be a man in his early sixty’s with short hair and ordinary looks. Finally, he raised his eyes from his desk and peering at me from above his glasses commanded: What the hell do you want? Wow, here I was, for the first time physically standing in the Giants sanctuary at 20 years old and I am verbally berated by Administrative Assistant, Vinnie Swerc.

I would learn that Vinnie was nicknamed Sandpaper for his abrasive personality. Because this was to be a ten day freelance gig, I was not terribly intimidated by him so I responded indignantly, I have an appointment with Coach Arnsparger, I spoke with him on the phone and he is the person that set up this meeting. Now Vinnie's arrogance was unmistakable, And what, may I ask, is your meeting about? This guy has some attitude I thought as I replied, Filming. Vinnie slammed both of his palms on his desk as he stood up and looked me up and down several times. Then, with a devilish Swerc smirk he said, Oh, so you're the new fill-um guy, huh? Well let me tell you something, you better take great fill-ums or you'll be out on your ass so fast it will make your head spin. Just as I was