Talk:Tony Romeo (American football)

What about the song-writer?

There is a very famous song-writer named Tony Romeo and amazingly despite the fact that he wrote several top 10 hits and one Chart Topper, nobody has written an article on him! I might write one myself, but while I'm ok with articles on TV and albums, I'm hopeless on biographies. Retro Agnostic (talk) 04:48, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes agreed, in fact I've put several links to here thinking it was the songwriter. Now I've discovered that it isn't, I'll look into it.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 05:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

As of this date, there IS a Wiki article on the song-writer. But I want to write about Tony the football player and Baptist minister. Tony was a Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity brother of mine at Florida State, as well as being an outstanding end on the F.S.U. Seminoles team, that was coached then, I believe, by a former L.S.U. asst coach named Peterson (I forget his first name). Tony was from Tampa and was said to come from a poor but very religious family. Italian-named students were not common at F.S.U. then (despite prior football stars Lee Corso and Nelson Italiano), and Tony's Italian name, relative poverty, and strong Christian faith made him somewhat uncomfortable around the other football players. The F.S.U. sports publicist, Eddie Cubbon, was a PiKA and president of our chapter-house corporation. He took Tony under his wing and brought him to some meals at the house. Tony hit it off with the brothers just fine. It may have been the semester I was chapter president. Anyway, I was a non-drinker and very active in the Presbyterian Church, another officer was a non-drinker and became an Episcopalian priest -- anyway, we had plenty of non-saints in the chapter, but plenty of near-saints as well. We had no jocks in the chapter then -- the closest thing was Don Chamberlin, one of the cheerleaders. Maybe Tony liked a group that wasn't obsessed with football and other sports. Our chapter had been somewhat an oasis for Italian-named students for some time -- they weren't really very welcome in the other fraternities, who were very much WASP (F.S.U. had no blacks at the time -- they all went to Florida A&M on the south side of town -- FSU was on the west side. [But the fashionable WASP side of town was the north-east.]) But one of the first brothers I met at F.S.U. (I was a transfer) was Carmine Monteleone, and Mike Angelotti was social chairman when I was president. As for sports knowledge, brother Ben Sharp was the sports editor of the student newspaper. Tony joined the chapter, and Eddie "took care of" Tony's fraternity dues and meal ticket. (It was probably as illegal as all get-out.) I never really got to know Tony as he was coming in as I was going out (I left F.S.U. in 1960, and had gotten married in early 1959.) But he figured in two great PiKA stories. Our chapter had never done well in intra-mural sports, but Tony became our only contestant in intra-mural wrestling one year, in the heavyweight class. He got to the finals easily, where he faced the F.S.U. basketball center, Dan Boltz. I thought at the time that Tony was 6-0, Dan 6-6, and both about 200 lbs. But Tony ended up about 6-2, 220, and Dan's sports blurb says he came to FSU from junior college at 6-6, 235, so I guess they were closer and bigger than I thought. Anyway, Dan finally used his longer arms to edge out Tony, but we PiKA's celebrated anyway-- 2nd place was something we weren't used to. The other story concerned his pledge class's "road trip", or "scavenger hunt". Tony's pledge class was a very strong one, with, besides Tony, future "stars" like Peake Gilbert and Harry Payton. They went around the state one weekend, getting souvenirs and pictures from all sorts of Florida attractions. The final task was to obtain a pair of bull's balls and hang them from the main gate of the campus. This last was easily done with the help of pledge Sonny Demetree's family wholesale food business, and a long ladder, at about 4 AM. The balls hung from the gate for over a year. Us PiKAs would laugh every time was passed the gate. (We have no idea what other folk thought they were, or even if they noticed them.) Finally, tiring of the prank, we sent some later pledges to cut them down -- using a long ladder, at 4 AM. Tony was one of the many great fellows on the way to making the F.S.U. PiKA chapter what it is today, probably the most successful college fraternity chapter in the WORLD! Just ask brother Charlie Christ, governor of Florida, and brother Bobby Bowden, the winning-est college football coach ever. #### More seriously, other web sources give Tony's football record, plus stating that he became an ordained Baptist minister. I believe his pro career with the (then) Boston Patriots was very successful, but eventually ended with a serious injury. Probably better information could be obtained from the Patriots' publicists. More information on Tony's FSU career could be gotten from PiKA brother Charlie Barnes (nephew of Eddie Cubbon), the exec director of the Seminole Boosters. I think Tony might have still been at FSU when Charlie pledged.WmMBoyce (talk) 09:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)