Seymour's Osiecki learning has a full plate

SEYMOUR — Ryan Osiecki emerges from the Seymour locker room looking a bit disheveled. His hair still glistens with water from a shower and his white T-shirt looks like it has borne the brunt of its drips and drops.

Under his right arm, Osiecki holds a blue three-ring binder. The jagged edges of loose-leaf papers jut this way and that from within, almost threatening to slice up his arms.

Yet, Osiecki holds the binder close, as if it contains something priceless.

In a way, it does. The binder holds his schoolwork. It holds his future.

As good as the 6-foot-5 senior has been on the football field as a starting quarterback at Seymour for the last three years, the senior has struggled in the classroom. After an enormous junior year, one in which he threw for 1,800 yards and 21 touchdowns for the 7-3 Wildcats, UConn offered him a scholarship to play in Storrs.

But just when it seemed that Osiecki's future was all set, his second-semester grades arrived and threw up a major roadblock.

While Osiecki's SAT results were good enough to qualify under NCAA rules, his grades were not up to par for UConn, which had to rescind the offer unless Ryan improved his grades.

"It was very disappointing," Osiecki said. "I was mad at myself. I felt like I had let myself down."

Suddenly, Osiecki faces a race against time and an uphill climb.

In addition to the pressure of being the leader of the Wildcats' offense and the son

of a Valley legend, not to mention a senior who has never brought Seymour's proud program to the state playoffs, Osiecki is in a personal race to improve his academic standing and get that scholarship before it's too late.

Just days away from the 2006 opener against Wilby and yet another newspaper asking for a few chunks of his precious time, Osiecki feels the heat rising on this unusually cold September afternoon.

The next SAT session is in late October, smack in the middle of the most important football season of his life.

Osiecki tightens his grip on the notebook.

"There never seems to be enough time in the day to do all of these things," he said.

Osiecki won't find any sympathy from Seymour coach Paul Sponheimer, who prides himself on teaching the kids under his charge how to deal with life's hairpin turns with tough love.

"His day starts at 7:24 in the morning when he walks into school and goes until he puts himself to bed," Sponheimer said. "We've got him a full course load and we're auditing classes so we can prepare him. And then there's football."

Family ties

If Osiecki needs inspiration on how to deal with adversity, all Ryan needs to do is look at his father.

Perhaps no player is more fondly remembered in football- crazed Ansonia than Sandy Osiecki, also a quarterback. From 1976-1978, he was the leader of a team that went to three straight CIAC state championship games and won two titles — the first of Ansonia's state-record run of 14.

So good were the Chargers under Osiecki, they won 36 consecutive games until they tempted fate and played up in Class LL in Osiecki's final year, only to lose to Amity 35-20 in the championship game.

Regardless, the future seemed bright. Sandy Osiecki grew to be 6-foot-5 and was heavily recruited by Arizona State. He roomed with Dan Marino on his official visit.

Unlike Marino, Osiecki's college career wasn't so rosy. He saw some time at Arizona State and, after redshirting his sophomore year, was set to start his junior season.

But while attempting a dump-off pass on the first play of the second quarter in the 1981 season-opener against Oregon State, Osiecki tore the MCL in his left knee.

His senior year, he battled Todd Hons for the starting quarterback job, but didn't get it.

In spite of his limited playing time at Arizona State, Osiecki signed with the Kansas City Chiefs as a free agent in 1984.

Osiecki's time in Kansas City was limited, however. He was the third-string quarterback and, in his one year, Osiecki completed 7-of-17 passes for 64 yards and an interception in four games.

As he sat on Kansas City's bench, Sandy Osiecki could feel the biological clock ticking on his professional career, especially since the Chiefs signed former Penn State star quarterback Todd Blackledge that season.

After another year on the bench, he tried out for the Buffalo Bills in 1986, but was cut before the season started. They had Jim Kelly, after all. He tried Cincinnati a week later, but was cut on the last week of the preseason.

"Things just didn't work out," he said. "They had about five or six quarterbacks on the roster and a lot of teams would only keep two quarterbacks."

Moving on

At the same time, Sandy was beginning to plan the rest of his life. He married in 1984 and, by 1985, had bought a house in Seymour. Ryan came along in 1989, and Sandy couldn't wait to hand his son a football.

It never occurred to him he was living in enemy territory.

"It was funny," Sandy Osiecki said. "When you're starting a family and you have a baby, the furthest thing from your mind is where your child is going to grow up.

"After a while it finally hit me. I said, 'Wow. My son's going to be a Wildcat.' But I was totally fine with that. This was his life, not mine."

Three months after Ryan was born in 1989, Sandy took him to England, where he was playing out the last stages of his career as a quarterback in a professional league there.

Sandy Osiecki said it was his way of introducing his little boy to the sport.

Ryan grew up throwing footballs around Seymour. He did it with his father, his uncles and even with his cousin and next-door neighbor, Pat Lesko, who would eventually become one of Osiecki's favorite targets on the high school team.

Sandy said he practically counted the days before Ryan could start playing for real. In some ways, Ryan helped Sandy resume his football career.

"Since the day he was born, I couldn't wait until he was old enough to play football," Sandy said.

From the moment Ryan strapped on his Seymour Pop Warner pads, Sandy filled Ryan's head with everything he knew about being a quarterback. Ryan said his father never pushed his son into the position, it just happened that way. His first Pop Warner team didn't have a quarterback. He was Sandy Osiecki's kid. Why not?

"I just kind of fell into it," Ryan said. "I didn't mind. They needed a quarterback."

With Sandy as the head coach, Ryan rose through the Pop Warner ranks, usually playing above his age group.

In a preview of things to come on the high school level, Ryan Osiecki engaged in some epic battles with Prospect and its quarterback, Mike Croce, who has become Osiecki's peer at Holy Cross of Waterbury.

When he was with the Seymour junior midgets, Ryan's team defeated Croce's to advance to the Pop Warner championships in Orlando, Fla.

By then, he had the attention of Sponheimer.

Though he grew up in the Valley, Sponheimer had never met Sandy Osiecki until he went to watch Ryan play in a Pop Warner game in Danbury.

When Ryan was an eighth-grader, Sponheimer said he had already made his decision to give Ryan the keys to the Seymour offense when he became a freshman.

"Coach Brian Moore was our starting quarterback the spring before Ryan came to Seymour," Sponheimer said. "We didn't work out a quarterback, we were so sure."

Sandy Osiecki said it was tough to let his son go, but decided Ryan could use some fresh coaching from somebody new. At the very least, Sandy said he knew Sponheimer's staff would take good care of him.

"The Seymour program speaks for itself," Sandy said.

Sandy did, however, ask Sponheimer if he could help as a volunteer. When Sponheimer agreed, Sandy decided on his own to keep his distance by coaching the freshman team while Ryan played on varsity.

"He fit right into the staff," Sponheimer said. "We had no problem having someone like Sandy with the team. But, to his credit, he never wanted to get in the way. He let us coach Ryan."

Making the jump

Sponheimer said it became apparent that the lessons Sandy taught Ryan as a young boy made the quick transition into varsity easier.

"He's a cool-handed player," Sponheimer said. "He never loses his head no matter what happens. He never gets caught up in the moment. If he threw a touchdown pass or an interception, his demeanor stayed the same. He carried no luggage."

Especially when he would go down to Jarvis Field, his father's old Ansonia haunt. "They'd hear every name in the book," Sponheimer said. "'You should have come here! You're wearing the wrong uniform!' They've heard it all."

Seymour has been to the brink of the playoffs throughout Osiecki's career, but has never been there — something Ryan wants to change his senior year. "We've got to do it this year," Ryan said. "We've been close, but somebody always seems to knock us off, early or late."

In a stacked NVL, which includes contenders like Holy Cross and Ansonia, this season will be anything but a breeze for the Wildcats and their senior quarterback, who's feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He wants a winning season, a playoff berth, NVL and state titles. He wants to get his grades up and get UConn back into the picture before he graduates.

Sandy said there's always prep school, and other schools, like Toledo, have called. But Ryan's ultimate dream still is within reach. "Deep down, I think he wants to be a Husky," Sponheimer said. "Whatever happens, he belongs in a Division I program. George DeLeone at Temple told me he's the most under-recruited quarterback in the country."

Regardless of what happens this season, Sponheimer knows Osiecki can handle all of these challenges. After all, the coach has watched his star quarterback do so many incredible things for the Wildcats, all the while carrying the legacy of his famous father. Helping himself shouldn't be a problem.

"Who put Ryan in this position?" Sponheimer asks, and then grins. "He did. He's put himself in this place.

"But you know what? He's not backing down."