Jeff Cziska

Football has always been my greatest passion in life. As the years have gone by my love for the game has increased at a geometric rate. My dreams of playing football at a major college were shattered when I had a major neck injury during my senior year of football. After graduating in 1990 I began my coaching career that fall. I returned to playing in 1994 when I enrolled at UMass Boston. It was perhaps the most fun I ever had playing. We often fielded as few as 15 players and held the distinction of being the only college in the nation playing iron-man football. We came close to winning a couple of games, but the 4th quarter always proved to be the great equalizer. The next season we had more than doubled our roster and actully won a game. Unfortunately I did not play in that game as I again had a major neck injury just the third game into the season. I coached again in 1996 and then tried to make another run at playing the next year. My comeback lasted all but a day. My body was just falling apart at this point and doing much of anything became quite difficult. It would be three years before I returned to coaching again.

I returned to coaching in 1999, but again my poor health proved to be my worst enemy and I left coaching after the 2001 season. A phone call several weeks into the 2004 season changed all of that as I joined the coaching staff of my most recent school. I really had no intention of coaching, but I was asked to come down and take a look at the offense which had not scored a point in the first two games of the season. The offense I had sold the Head Coach on was sputtering. I made some adjustments with the blocking and it was then that the machine began running as it should. The offense was taking off and I was back coaching.

As each week passed the offense improved. We scored a season high of 47 points at Homecoming and never looked back after that point. Several weeks later we found ourselves where no team in school history had ever ventured. On December 3rd of 2004 we were playing for the Division 4 EMass Super Bowl Championship against the Hyde Park Blue Stars. Despite playing a team bigger, faster (their DT/WR blocked 3 punts and an extra point) and stronger we emerged triumphantly with a 13-0 victory. A year later we defended our title with a 28-7 victory over the O’Bryant Tigers. A season later we outscored both of Super Bowl squads and last season we earned Runner-Up status in the Large School Vocational Super Bowl. Not a bad four year run.

Outside of football I run my own graphic and web design business and soon I will be working toward getting his Master's Degree in Social Work. I am also a proud member of the American Football Coaches Association. Most of my spare time is spent reading any books pertaining to football and speaking at, working at and attending football coaching clinics.