Velasquez moved to the east coast from his hometown of Pueblo, Colorado and went to high school in Laconia, New Hampshire before stepping onto the Endicott campus. He graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree focusing on self portraits and cartoon design while taking his hits on the gridiron as an offensive lineman and captain for the Gulls football squad. Velasquez was on the team in its first varsity season in 2003, when the Gulls went 4-5, and in his junior and senior seasons he saw the program build into a competitor with back-to-back winning seasons going 6-4 in 2004 and 7-3 in 2005.
With the success the team is having now, Velasquez says he is honored of “being the backbone and starting the foundation for a program that has only begun to flourish.”
One day after graduation and with the help of Endicott head coach JB Wells, Velasquez was asked to continue his football playing career with an opportunity to travel to a small town outside Belfast, Ireland where he would play 10 games over a span of five months in a part of the world that did not know the game of American football. He competed, coached players and youth teams in the area, and traveled to over 20 cities in Ireland and five different countries throughout Europe.
After four years at Endicott where he interned as a high school guidance councilor, was an art director assistant, and worked on car detailing and air brush detailing, Velasquez says that his time in Beverly was instrumental towards future success.
“With a wide range of internships that I found through Endicott, I was able to figure out what really interested me and what career I wanted to pursue.”
He received his Masters of Education from Tufts while working, teaching, and coaching at the same time. Velasquez says that it was his professors at Endicott that helped him develop strong time management skills to balance all the hectic activities going on in his life.
Today, Velasquez is on the sidelines at Tufts University as the full-time offensive line coach for the Jumbos after spending three years coaching lacrosse and football as well as teaching K-6 art classes at Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He admits that he has been blessed with the support and guidance of some of the top coaching minds in the northeast from Endicott’s JB Wells, BB&N’s John Papas, and Tufts coaches Bill Samko, Pete Carmichael, Jay Civetti and Scott Rynne.
“You are who you surround yourself with,” says Velasquez. “I am still young and trying to grab onto any coaching knowledge that is out there, but I know that with the people around I will find my own unique coaching voice.”
