Experienced Hands for the First-Year Coach

When Norries Wilson accepted the head coaching position at Columbia in December, he knew he had to assemble a set of assistant coaches who were energetic and would compensate for his lack of Ivy League experience. After several months of work, the coach believes he has done just that.

"I had an idea of the people I wanted to hire at each position," Wilson said. "I started with the coordinators and then took some input from them."

Wilson, who previously served as the University of Connecticut's offensive coordinator, tapped Vinny Marino to run his offense. Marino was the Huskies' wide receivers' coach and spent four years with Wilson.

"We're doing a lot of the same things we did at UConn," Wilson said. "A lot of his ideas are similar to mine."

Wilson was able to lure Marino away from UConn by offering the opportunity to become a coordinator and coach quarterbacks again.

The first-year head coach also brought two former Columbia assistants back to campus. His defensive coordinator, Lou Ferrari, coached Columbia's defensive line 20 years ago. Ferrari most recently was the defensive coordinator at Vero Beach High School, a team that made the Florida state playoffs in nine of his 10 seasons as coordinator. The past two seasons, Vero Beach has posted a 23-5 record.

Ferrari will install a 3-3-5 defense that stacks three down linemen, three linebackers, and five players in the secondary. It is easier to recruit players for the defense, Wilson says, because quality defensive linemen are difficult to find. Ferrari served as the defensive coordinator at Brown in 1987 and 1988.

"He [Ferrari] understands Ivy League recruiting and does a good job on defense," Wilson said. "He inspires the kids to play hard."

In assembling the rest of his assistants, Wilson called one other former Columbia coach to return to Morningside. Chris Nugai coaches the team's running backs and serves as recruiting coordinator. In 2002, Nugai was the team's quarterbacks' coach. Nugai most recently served as a graduate assistant at UConn but has coached at Yale as an offensive assistant and at Harvard as the running backs' coach. Wilson pointed to Nugai's meticulous preparation and Ivy League experience as the reason he made him recruiting coordinator.

Rounding out Columbia's staff are tight ends coach Cheston Blackshear, defensive line coach Andrew Kelton, wide receivers coach Jeff Larson and offensive line coach Kris Sweet.

Blackshear was an offensive graduate assistant at the University of Illinois last season and held the same role at his alma mater-Florida-from 2002-2004. Kelton spent five seasons as the defensive coordinator at Virginia State. Larson played at UConn and was an assistant there under Wilson in 2004 and 2005. Sweet coached the offensive line at Kentucky State.

Wilson said he will not hire a specific special teams coordinator. Instead, his assistant coaches will split the responsibilities.