In one of the most memorable moments of the 2020 college football season, ABC announcer Joe Tessitore was on the microphone as his son John, a redshirt sophomore punter/kicker for Boston College and the team’s starting holder, made a memorable play late in the second quarter against Clemson, the No. 1 team in the country. With Boston College leading 21-10, John Tessitore rushed from his holder spot to under center on a 4th-and-2 in Clemson territory and tricked Clemson into an offsides call. The Eagles eventually scored a touchdown on the drive to take a 28-10 lead. The top-ranked Tigers, playing without quarterback Trevor Lawrence, ultimately roared back for a 34-28 comeback victory.
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Joe’s call of John’s play went viral quickly on Saturday. On Sunday night as he drove back from Boston College, I spoke with Joe Tessitore about calling that play. The story of that play and what led up that play for both father and son is below in Tessitore’s words:
On Sunday John and I kind of took a step back to appreciate things. Listen, it’s not like the kid just passed for 300 yards or hurdled Christian Wilkins. He made a great fake field goal and put his team in position to score seven points and take a massive lead against the No. 1 team in the country. It’s not some Superman feat of athleticism. But we shared how touched we were that people were embraced by goodness. At a time when it feels like every single piece of video, every single thing part of our new cycle is divisive and nobody can agree on something, we felt like the whole country agreed that there was something authentic and good about a father and son being able to share a moment that very few are able to share.
One thing you should know is I did an ABC game with Boston College against North Carolina last month (Oct. 3) and getting that assignment did give me a moment of pause because obviously I’m an alumnus of Boston College, everybody on my father’s side of the family went to B.C., I’m still very involved with the School of Management there, and I’m on the Board of Regents. And, obviously, my son is a scholarship player there.
So there was a slight moment of pause when the assignment came out. I wanted to gather myself and get a sense of my comfort doing this. Because the game was against North Carolina and (coach) Mack Brown is a longtime friend and former colleague, I texted Mack and said, “Would you be comfortable if I do the game?” Mack’s reaction was so loving and so embracing. He said, “I cannot wait to get out off the field and see John pregame. Are you kidding me? You’re like family with me. Don’t consider anything else.”
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When I prep for a game, I am talking to coordinators and coaches who share strategy and thoughts. Granted, if my son was the starting quarterback or middle linebacker, it would be a far more difficult decision. He’s the backup punter and starting holder. A total team guy. But I said to John that week when Monday morning comes around for game week, I’m the ABC broadcaster and you’re a player on Boston College. We are not father and son until that game ends. He was like, absolutely.
So Mack give his blessing and was wonderful about it. John gave his understanding. It was a great week and the game was thrilling. There was one moment in that game that ended up serving me really well for the Clemson game. North Carolina was up 14-6 in the second quarter and B.C. came down and scored a touchdown. My son came out with the PAT unit but instead of coming out to kick, Coach (Jeff) Hafley sent out John as the shotgun quarterback in a what we call a muddle or pods formation. That’s where John has a snapper in front of him, the entire offensive line to one side, and a flanker is to the top. It was a set trick play for a 2-point conversion. If he has the numbers, it’s a direct snap to John and he can either run it in, throw a screen pass, or throw a fade to the corner. So it forced me in a split second to think about how my son is now playing quarterback to make it a 14-14 game. Sometimes when you’re on live television, one single second feels about a minute and in that one single second I had to ask myself, how are you about to say this? I found myself saying “Tessitore in the shotgun.” Fortunately for me, he counted the numbers, waved everybody back for an extra point, and it made the score 14-13. But what that one single second told me was that I was capable of broadcasting a game with my son in it. I was capable of being put in the position of simply calling him “Tessitore” and treating him like any other player who would be on the field. If it wasn’t for that moment against North Carolina, I don’t know how I would have handled him running a trick play against the No. 1 team in the country on ABC this past week.
Clemson is a staff that I have great familiarity with. The defensive backs coach, Mike Reed, is a former classmate of mine from Boston College. Ross Taylor, the sports information director, is somebody I have great respect for. As soon as that week of prep started, I reached out to Mike and Ross and said, “I went through this with Mack Brown and please let everybody know the way John and I operate.” I said, “Please let me know if anybody is uncomfortable at all.” I told them I was not a Dad but simply the ABC broadcaster.
John played quarterback, receiver, punter, kicker, every position growing up. He pulled off tons of fakes through the New England championship game of his senior year. He passed for a two-point conversion. He’s like a jack of all trades kind of guy. But I didn’t expect that on a 4th and 2 against the No. 1 team in the country in that spot. I had my eyes on the field, I was hyper-attentive and I was just very thankful that the North Carolina situation happened because it prepared me and it made me comfortable with just simply saying Tessitiore. It prepared me to call it with the urgency and excitement and shock value that I would call featuring any other player in that situation.
(Analyst) Greg McElroy is one of my dearest friends, and Greg has known John for years. Long before he was ever in line to be one of my partners, Greg and his wife, Meredith, would come up to our house in Connecticut and spend a summer weekend with us. Greg is somebody who came up to John’s high school football banquet. So he’s more than just a partner. He’s a dear family friend. His relationship with John is very close. He’s constantly watching John’s games, and they text and talk on the phone. He’s a big brother to John. If you spoke to Greg, he would tell you what happened was the closest he’s ever come to crossing the line on a broadcast and saying holy s-h-i-t. That was something special for him as well.
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It wasn’t a perfect call by me, but it was an authentic call. The thing I was happiest about with the call is that whenever you’re preparing to do a game and especially a game with the No. 1 team and the No. 1 team potentially being upset, you want to be really hyper-attentive to every little thing happening. I don’t care if it was my son or anybody else, I was right on it. The moment of the motion the tight end, we picked up on it. The motion of John sprinting under center, we were on it. I thought our crew, our director, our camera people did a great job because they stayed in game coverage and not field goal coverage. I had mentioned to the director, Jeff Evers, to be aware that John comes out in a shotgun formation often on extra points. Jeff had been my director way back when I was doing Orange Bowls and my first run of major college football. John was on the road with us a good bit. So Jeff instead of rotating the cameras into what we would call our field goal look, he kept it in what we call game coverage. I give credit to Jeff Evers.
It was really nice that I was able to walk across the field and be down in the tunnel when John came out. That’s something that a lot of B.C. parents haven’t had the opportunity to do. In Massachusetts we are still following very strict COVID protocols and regulations. B.C. parents are not even allowed to go to their children’s games. It was just a blessing that I had an ESPN field credential and was able to be in the tunnel following protocols so I could share that moment with him.
He came out of the locker room stinging like a hornet because to him they were one play away from beating the No. 1 team in the country. I think our folks put up a graphic which said it was the largest home deficit that the No. 1 team in the country had faced since 1950. He said, Dad that was the play I told you about three weeks ago, and here is what we call it and here is my motion, here’s the read I give, and we spent like 10 minutes going through the mechanics of the play. We really dissected the play which was really special and fun.
(Courtesy of Joe Tessitore)Like I said, prior to the North Carolina assignment I would have been hesitant in calling John’s games. But I’ve done it two times and saw the public reaction. As I know better than most given the past couple of years, most of the sports reaction on Twitter comes from a place of resentment, vitriol and tearing down. But this was 99.9 percent of joyfulness, authenticity embraced, emotional sincerity. I’m very aware as a passionate college football guy of bias and alignment and being partisan and how tribal college football is. To me the main difference between college football and the NFL is the difference between celebration and pageantry and enjoyment. I love to celebrate these young men who are at this crossroads point of life where they’re playing for something other than what they’re about to play for as the NFL comes around. It’s this perfect marriage of timing that’s very unique to college football and I think there were a lot of factors that went into why people felt good about what happened Saturday.
I received so many random text messages from such an eclectic group, everybody from Tony Romo down to production assistants who have worked with me through the years to John’s former youth football coaches to college roommates. People I have not heard from in years. I think just everybody was touched by that sincere, authentic father-son sharing of a moment. The other thing I guess I’m proud of just as a broadcaster is that I referred to him as Tessitore. It took Greg McElroy to say, “This is your son. That’s your son who just did that on national TV against the No. 1 team in the country.” You don’t think I didn’t want to go break down and cry and run down on that field and hug him?
My son got sent home March 13 when COVID was rampant through New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. We were isolated with our family of four. He was away from the weight room and his teammates. I would say five or six days a week, I would go out with him to his old high school field and snap to him for punts and holds and put a stopwatch on his up time. I know the work this kid put in throughout all of COVID, all those months, all that isolation, all that hard work out on a football field and not even knowing if it was going to be a season. I’ll be reflecting for a while on that one moment, those six seconds on national TV against the No. 1 team in the country, a moment that touched some people’s hearts because of a father and a son.
(Photo: James Black / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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