Opportunity Knocks: Jack DelGarbino

By Craig Sachson
PrincetonTigersFootball.com

Opportunity can come at unexpected times, and Jack DelGarbino has shown he can take advantage when it comes his way.

The starting nose tackle for the 2023 Princeton football team, DelGarbino made four tackles in his varsity debut last Saturday, a 23-12 road win over the University of San Diego. Starting on the defensive line was hardly a goal for the 5-11, 275-pound senior when he first arrived at Princeton.

Yes, he had high expectations of his athletic career. But his original plan was to focus on his other dominant high school sport, wrestling. DelGarbino never forgot football, never forgot the joy he felt lining up with teammates. When he ultimately made the decision to give the sport another try, he had to work harder than anybody else to overcome the missed years of football training.

"Jack is an all-time favorite story for me," head coach Bob Surace said. "When he walked on the team before his junior year, he was so far behind everybody in training camp. He was the last guy off the field every day. I had to turn the lights off to get him to leave. His determination and relentless is as good as anyone I've coached."

That work ethic paid dividends in the offseason, especially following the graduation of several All-Ivy seniors. DelGarbino now has an opportunity to rewrite his football conclusion — an opportunity he cherishes (more on that in a bit). If it could end in a championship, it would surely be a moment he could never forget.

Another memorable moment DelGarbino experienced at Princeton … that's a bit more hazy.

• • •

On Nov. 20, 2021, the Princeton wrestling team traveled to Iowa City to take on the top-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes, one of the proudest programs in collegiate wrestling. DelGarbino, then a sophomore heavyweight, closed the dual match facing third-ranked Tony Cassioppi, who was already a two-time All-American by then.

Cassioppi scored a first-period takedown and worked to turn DelGarbino near the edge of the mat. It didn't go as planned.

"I started to set up what I was going to do when he started to turn me," he said. "It was a quick-twitch effort to turn him over. I was more trying to get out of bounds than pin him to be honest, but it ended up working in my favor. I think I blacked out in the moment."

It was immediately deemed one of the biggest individual upsets of the wrestling season, but it also highlighted exactly what Surace believes in about DelGarbino. He prepared for the moment, and when it came, he took advantage.

Opportunity knocked, and DelGarbino answered.

• • •

Opportunity would knock on the football field as well, but it admittedly took longer than he hoped.

"It took a little more time than I would have liked, but I got there," he said. "I never stopped watching football, I never stopped watching how schemes were run. In a degree like mine (Operations Research and Financial Engineering), you have to have an analytical mind. You're always watching, thinking about how things can be done better. On the physical side, I didn't worry about shaking off the rust. I knew with my work ethic, I would be able to catch up to anybody ahead of me."

That belief was proven true over the last nine months, but there was still years' worth of rust.

Prior to Saturday, the last football game DelGarbino played in was the 2018 Ohio state championship game. The two-time All-Ohio lineman made 14 tackles for fifth-seeded Girard, but those wouldn't be enough in a 42-14 loss to top-seeded Cincinnati Wyoming. It was the first time Girard ever played in the state final, so you might think it is a happy memory for the three-time football captain.

"My last football game left a bad taste in my mouth," DelGarbino said. "This gives me a chance to get that back."

That first chance was a successful one, as Princeton went on the road to claim an eighth-straight season opening win to kick off the 2023 season. DelGarbino was everything Surace believed he could be, making four stops while helping limit the Toreros to -15 yards rushing.

"He was exactly the player we have seen since he joined our team," Surace said. "Jack is consistent, always giving a high effort, and really strong."

Strength is a critical factor for a nose tackle, whose job quite often is to be the lone obstacle up front while multiple offensive linemen try to clear a rushing lane.

"In my mind my biggest asset is my strength, and my willingness to keep pushing forward," DelGarbino said. "On any given play, whether I'm double teamed or triple teamed, it doesn't matter. I'm still going to try to go through you, try to affect the play."

DelGarbino has affected plenty of plays since he made the decision to return to football, even if most of them have been on the practice fields. Doing it when it counted was the final step to fully feeling back to the sport that he has tirelessly pursued for two years.

"The first game is when you figure out who you are, when you go up against a team in another jersey," he said. "You can only tell so much from how you play against your teammates and you aren't even tackling, versus when you're trying to go through somebody to make a play."

Every clue before Saturday indicated DelGarbino would be every bit the standout he was five years earlier, when he was an all-everything lineman leading his high school on a dream run to the finals. This opportunity may have felt like a dream itself at one point, but dreams without work never amount to much.

There was work — hours upon hours of it, often so many that he needed to be forced to stop — and the result is now far more than a dream. It is reality.

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