New York’s Fordham University has a unique link to the National Football League’s Super Bowl. The Lombardi Trophy that is presented annually to the championship team carries the name of the university's most iconic sports alumnus -- Vince Lombardi (class of 1937 and a member of the school's famous "Seven Blocks of Granite”).
At today's Super Bowl, the NFL and the Fordham Rams will be huddled in ways that reach beyond the Lombardi Trophy. The links include team ownership and broadcast coverage of the game.
- The late owner of the New York Giants, Wellington Mara, was manager of the Rams football team during the Lombardi era.
- Mara’s widow, Ann Mara, has an honorary degree from Fordham.
- Son John Mara graduated from Fordham Law School during 1979.
- Several Mara grandchildren also are Fordham graduates.
- Bob Papa, the play-by-play radio voice of the Giants on New York's WFAN (660 AM) is a 1986 graduate and he learned his profession at WFUV (90.7 FM), the university’s 50,000 watt radio station. Once a student-run station, WFUV now is affiliated with National Public Radio and has a considerable professional staff that is supported by students.
- Paul Dottino, also from the Fordham class of 1986, is WFAN's Giants beat reporter.
- Tom Canavan, from the class of 1976, is with the New Jersey bureau of the Associated Press. He covers the Giants regularly and will chronicle the game history for the wire service.
- WFUV also will have two student broadcasters–John DeMarzo and Joe Vitello–in Indianapolis to file game reports for the station.
- Emily Colter, class of 2006 and associate producer for the YES Network, and Sean Butler and Nick Kostos, both from the class of 2005 and producers for SiriusXM NFL Radio, are in Indianapolis to cover the game. They also received their broadcasting baptism at WFUV.
Fordham University was founded during 1841 in The Bronx, New York, on land once visited by George Washington during the Revolutionary War. It is a Jesuit university for approximately 14,700 students, with four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in The Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in Westchester County, the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station also in Westchester and the London Centre at Heythrop College in the United Kingdom.
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One additional note: The writer of this article, Mike Virgintino, is from the Fordham class of 1979. He began his journalism and public relations career at the then student-run WFUV.
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