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Glenn Caruso wore a football helmet every day to his kindergarten class.

He didn’t wear the helmet because the future St. Thomas head football coach wanted to let his classmates know about the passionate love he had for the game. He strapped it on daily because any blow to the young Caruso’s head could have killed him.

Caruso’s helmet-wearing habits stem from being diagnosed with leukemia at age 4. A cancer diagnosis before Caruso could even learn his A-B-Cs could have crippled the Caruso family and father Frank Caruso could have simply accepted the fate of losing his son at an early age.

But Frank Caruso took the diagnosis head on and got another doctor’s advice. Instead of leukemia, Glenn Caruso was battling Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), a rare blood disease that caused him to bruise easily due to a lack of platelets and white blood cells.

The father’s drive and dedication didn’t stop there. He helped Glenn Caruso make a complete recovery by the time he was 6.

Then came Christmas day, just two years later, when Glenn Caruso’s mother died.

Father Frank sets the example

Once again, Frank Caruso took on a difficult obstacle in stride with pride and passion. This time around, he had help in dealing with hardship as young Glenn Caruso joined in to raise his six siblings, even though he was in the middle of the pack.

“Dad was an attorney and took his business into the house and decided to make raising his kids a priority,” Glenn Caurso said. “He did a stellar job being both the dad and the mom in the house and raising seven kids. I was kid number three. He took a lot of pride in putting his family first.”

When Frank Caruso passed away in March 2005, Glenn Caruso, who is now a father of three, was prepared.

“His greatest gift was that he prepared his kids so that when the day came that he wasn’t around, he taught us how to deal with all those different things we needed him for,” Glenn Caruso said.

Rebuilding programs with pride and passion

Equipped with his father’s cornerstones of pride and passion, Glenn Caruso now not only uses, but maximizes potential in his football program with those two characteristics.

In fact, pride is the probably the most used word in coach Caruso’s football program at St. Thomas. It is emblazoned on players’ workout shorts, plastered on locker room walls and is an essential character descriptor of every Tommie football recruit.

These two ideals were essential for overcoming the obstacles of rebuilding football programs. Caruso challenged himself multiple times before he even arrived at the corner of Summit and Cretin.

The Ithaca College graduate’s work as a football program rejuvenator hit its stride in 2005 as the University of South Dakota’s offensive coordinator. He helped turn around the Division II football program, taking the Coyotes to a 9-2 record while averaging 49.7 points and 583 yards per game on offense.

Then came the “enormous” challenge of rekindling Macalester College’s fire in its football program.

“We took over a program whose senior class was 1-29 in [its] first three years of play,” Caruso said. “They had a roster of 27 kids and a completely emaciated program, and within a couple of years we turned it around to .500 program in two years and nearly tripled the kids going out for the team.”

When former St. Thomas football coach Don Roney resigned after an abysmal 2-8 season in 2007, Caruso got a shot at another potential turnaround just one mile down Grand Avenue.

With a couple of talented D-I and D-II transfers and some renewed focus to the program, Caruso took the Tommies to a 7-3 record; the third best turnaround in D-III football. An undefeated season was within reach as all three losses came in the final seconds of each game.

Caruso’s specific need to build something from near-nothing doesn’t come from his father but from his grandfather, a mason who enjoyed admiring his creations after a long day’s work.

“If and when we are able to build the program to the level we want, you know it’s your program,” Caruso said. “It’s built on your morals and beliefs. Everything that is you is in your program. I take a lot of pride in that.”

Caruso said during a documentary by Ali Selim about St. Thomas football that he “wants to be an institution, in this institution.”

Being honest brings out the best in players

Macalester head football coach Tony Jennison was a defensive coordinator under Caruso during Caruso’s time with the Scots three years ago. He said Caruso builds such successful programs by connecting with players honestly and in a straightforward way.

“I miss hearing him talk to the team,” Jennison said. “It was great stuff. I used to say, ‘We should be writing this stuff down. I should be keeping notes because we could probably make a book about this.'”

Jennison said that while Caruso “really doesn’t have any weaknesses,” the fact he works himself and his staff about 80 to 90 hours a week teeters on overkill.

But that honesty is exactly why Wisconsin All-State tight end Chase Austin turned down multiple D-I schools to play for Caruso last season as an incoming freshman. While other schools promised Austin large amounts of playing time as a freshman, Caruso did not.

“He never guaranteed me playing time or anything,” Austin said. “He said if I kept moving at the pace I was moving at, I would put myself in the position to maybe play as a freshman. He did a really good job being serious with me.”

Changing Tommie football conduct

Getting serious is something punter A.C. Clouthier never did when Roney was coach. Clouthier was the team clown, but also a leader. Many players look to him for leadership in addition to laughs.

“I probably distracted a lot of them during practice, stealing stickers off their helmets and decals and things [two years ago],” he said. “We’d try to get them to watch our made-up plays or we’d throw water at the other players.”

You won’t find Clouthier doing any such thing during Caruso’s intensely detailed and rigorous practices. Besides being consistently involved in all drills, Clouthier now must watch tape of other punters in addition to film of himself to get a competitive edge. He credits his change in behavior to Caruso’s plan to make every detail about winning.

The Appleton, Wis., native added that the “University of St. Thomas Football” banner on the north side of the field wasn’t just for decoration. It was apparently created to provide another four feet of wind-block to make it easier for quarterbacks to throw intermediate passes.

Sharing the program with the community

The “winning details” Clouthier noted are continued off the field with Caruso’s revamping of the football program.

From getting alums to gather at Plum’s Grill and Bar to see inside the program with film showings, to hosting a “Monday Morning Quarterback” blog with university relations, to being involved with on-campus events like the “Don’t Volunteer” YouTube video; Caruso makes the football program everyone’s program.

And if you want to give him a pat on the back for all his successes, know that he won’t take any of the credit. As you may have guessed, it goes to his father.

“If someone ever compliments me on who I am, I always say to them ‘You’re giving the compliment to the wrong person; that goes to my parents,’” he said. “Judge me on how my kids turn out.”

Shane Kitzman can be reached at smkitzman@stthomas.edu