Ivy League Sports

Bleeding Dark Blue & Red
by Ben Samara
For most students, association with their future alma matter begins sometime during high school. Kevin Stefanski has known the University of Pennsylvania all his life, and that association has served as the backdrop for a strong, yet injury-filled, career.

Penn was life for Kevin Stefanski.

That’s what happens when your father is a former letterwinner on the Quaker men’s basketball team, when you grow up just a few miles away from the historic, frenzied city streets of Philadelphia.

When it was time for his first football practice as a third grader, Stefanski reached deep into his closet and pulled out that dark blue Pennsylvania jersey. This fall, more than a dozen years after he first donned the blue and red, he’ll slip into that sacred jersey for the last time.

Times have changed, though. The days when Stefanski was just a wide-eyed child on the way to his first football practice have long since past. This year’s Penn captain has overcome adversity and injury to become one of the unquestioned leaders on a Quaker squad that has won three of the last four Ivy League championships.

“I remember my dad taking me to the first practice in August,” said Stefanski. “The experiences of playing organized football at such a young age really endeared me to the sport.”

Stefanski’s father, Ed, knows the importance of athletics as a part of life. He was a letterwinner on the Penn’s men’s basketball team from 1973-1976. During his years at Penn, the Quakers won two Ivy League championships with future hall-of-fame head coach Chuck Daly. Ed went on to become a television color analyst for the Atlantic 10 and ESPN before joining the New Jersey Nets as Director of Scouting. This spring, he was promoted to general manager of the Nets.

“My family is proud of him,” said Stefanski. “He’s worked hard and he is being rewarded for it.”

Despite the athletic success his father has seen, there was never any pressure placed on Stefanski to try one sport as opposed to another. Maybe it was that freedom that led to his individual achievement in football and a selection to the All-Catholic team as quarterback and defensive back while at St. Joseph’s Prep School.

“I’ve never stepped back and looked at my dad’s career and been in awe,” said Stefanski. “And likewise, he has never put any pressure on me because of his successes. When we were growing up, my brothers and I played several sports and we all found our sport niche individually.”

After a successful high school career, it was time to decide on a college. Like most students-athletes, Stefanski wanted the best possible education along with a talented football program that would allow him to earn playing time and win. He didn’t have to look farther than the dark blue jersey hanging in his closet.

“I was very familiar with Penn, because I’m from Philadelphia and my dad is an alum,” said Stefanski. “I used to go to Penn or Big Five basketball games at the Palestra all the time. With an Ivy league education, three rings and a chance for a fourth, I think I made the right decision.”

Stefanski has earned those three championship rings over four long years in Philadelphia. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Penn’s only non-championship season since 2000 was in 2001, the one year Stefanski didn’t see any significant action.

He did play that year, although he must wish he had sat out the game.

In the 2001 season opener against Lafayette, Stefanski had already posted two tackles and was poised for a big play. When Leopard quarterback Chad Ritchie lofted the ball to the Lafayette 48 yard line, Stefanski was there to grab the interception. He dashed 21 yards to the Lafayette 27 before he was brought down.

The entire 2001 season went down with him.

Stefanski had torn his ACL on the play. After just the first game, he was forced to sit out the year. It was the first time the college sophomore had missed a season since he began playing as a third grader. For Stefanski, it wasn’t just an injury. Penn -- and now Penn football -- was life. The only goal was to get back.

“When you play football your whole life and it’s taken away from you in an instant, you really feel that a part of yourself is missing,” said Stefanski. “The rehab from that injury was grueling, but I recovered because of my support staff.”

One of the members of Stefanski’s support staff was Dan Staffieri, known affectionately as “Coach Lake” to those associated with Penn football. An assistant coach and Penn's Game-Day Coordinator, the 80-year-old Staffieri has been at Penn for more than a quarter century. The Coach Lake moniker came about when players had trouble pronouncing his last name. Trying to clarify, Staffieri likened the sound to the pronunciation of Lake Erie and the rest is history.

Staffieri’s favorite pastime is traveling the campus in a golf cart the Friday before gameday, motivating Penn students and stirring up fan support with witty one-liners and mockery of the opposing team. In 2001, Staffieri needed someone to drive the golf cart while he made his rounds. Stefanski gladly offered his services. Driving with Coach Lake gave him the opportunity to stay close to the team and stay motivated during his rehabilitation.

“Some of my teammates call me 'Kevin Staffieri' because coach Lake and I are always hanging out together,” said Stefanski. “Years from now, when I look back at my time at Penn, Coach Lake and his 'Lake'-isms will be one of the first things that I think about. It’s turned out to be one of the things I look forward to each game week.”

In fact, Stefanski looks forward to his weekly drives with Coach Lake so much that he continued to hold the job when he went back on the active roster. He likens it to seeing a show.

“The look on people’s faces when we drive by them is sheer pleasure because they know Coach Lake,” said Stefanski. “Or they are completely dumbfounded because a golf cart with a Quaker mascot and an old man wearing plaid pants and a bow tie, shouting 'How you doing?' through a megaphone, drives by them in the middle of the day. I literally have a front row seat to all of this.”

With the help of coaches, family and loyal friends like Coach Lake, Stefanski moved his recovery along at a steady pace.

He received a scare that year, when Coach Lake was hospitalized after a heart attack. It was a chilling reminder of how fragile life really is. Sometimes it's hard to appreciate the little things while going through grueling knee rehab, as the urge to cry out and scream "why" grows with each passing day. But when Stefanski saw Coach Lake deal with adversity -- the heart attack was followed by a double hip replacement -- it only made him stronger.

"Nothing slows down Coach Lake, not a heart attack, not a double hip replacement. Nothing," said Stefanski. "When he was in the hospital for the double hip replacement, he told me he was going to have to redshirt next season. His humor is pretty remarkable in the face of hardship and that rubbed off on me. He teaches me to laugh when times are rough and count my blessings."

Behind the lessons he'd learned from Coach Lake, Stefanski came back strong in 2002, appearing in all 10 games for the Quakers. His hard work during rehab paid off indubitably, as he was named to the All-Ivy team. He registered 20 tackles on the year and had a redeeming two-interception performance in season opener at Lafayette, the same school he had been injured against in the first game of 2001.

Penn went 9-1 to claim the Ivy League championship, taking the title back from the Harvard Crimson, who had seized it the year before by going undefeated in the September 11th-shortened season.

Things were looking up for Stefanski. He was back doing what he loved week in and week out: hitting the gridiron with his teammates for two-a-days in the spring, making tackles, and changing the game. He was back in football, with a full season under his belt and the confidence that came with it.

Then, just weeks before the season opener versus Dusquesne, it happened again. Stefanski tore cartilage in his knee during practice, the same knee that he had spent the entire 2001 season healing. It was a heartbreaking blow for Stefanski, but it wasn’t the end. Too many people care about Kevin Stefanski to let his dream die so harshly.

“As unlucky as I have been with injuries, I’ve been just as lucky with the people who have helped me,” said Stefanski. “When I hurt my knee for the second time, Coach Lake put one of his patented posters in my locker that read “Setbacks pave the way for comebacks.” Sometimes all you need are the little things like that to help you get through the bigger things.”

Stefanski also remembered his old high school coach Gil Brooks.

“(He) taught me how to act like a man,” said Stefanski. “One of things I will never forget is when he told me that the character of a man is not truly understood until his back is against the wall.”

And Stefanski’s back was certainly against the wall as the 2003 season wore on. As he fought through rehab in a quest to make a comeback by the close of the year, Penn fought through their Ivy League schedule, surviving an overtime thriller with Yale and a three point victory over Brown in back to back games.

Working with team doctors, strength coaches and the experience of his previous rehab, Stefanski was able to work his way back into playing shape by the final two games of the season. He was set to make his first appearance against perennial contender Harvard, with the outright Ivy League title hanging within reach. The only way Penn could squander the Ivy League championship was with losses in their final two games.

With Stefanski on board for the first time, the Quakers left nothing to chance, defeating Harvard 32-24 at Harvard Stadium. He made only a slight contribution (three tackles, one solo), but it was his mere presence on the field that made the day such an accomplishment.

"I will never forget walking into Harvard stadium this past year,” said Stefanski. “I was making my first appearance of the year after I worked so hard to get back on the field. Everything from that day seemed surreal because I didn’t think I would play that year and there I was, in uniform, standing on the field before the game thinking, 'Wow, I am lucky.'"

This season, co-captain Stefanski and his Penn squad will go for their third straight Ivy League title. The key loss of 2003 Ivy Player of the Year Mike Mitchell puts the onus squarely on Stefanski and the Penn defenders. All but four starters will return from that stingy 2003 defense that gave up a league-best 16.4 points per game in 2003.

If Penn meets the goals Stefanski has set, there will be plenty of happy people in University City come November. Some of Stefanski’s aspirations might seem humble, but after hearing his story it’s easy to see why one of his goals is to merely play in all ten games.

“For our younger guys, they don’t know what its like to lose, and I don’t think they want to find out,” said Stefanski. “Until someone takes it from us -- and undoubtedly there is some great competition in the league -- we are the champions of the League”

It’s a fitting statement. When his son put on that jersey back in third grade, Ed Stefanski had to see this coming. Penn was life, and Kevin Stefanski has proved that to his teammates and coaches over four years. Blessed with a fifth year, he’ll try to pass that belief to the Class of 2008. This year’s Ivy standings have no bearing on his status as a son, a friend or a teammate. Until someone takes it from him, Stefanski will always be a champion.

-- Ben Samara