Camera crews and a boom microphone hovered in Michitti’s face while he debated with his assistants about what to do this weekend.
“Should we start our injured quarterback,” he asked, “or should we go with what we’ve been doing and go with our Italian QB and what we already know?”
He described the media as being members of the Italian version of HBO’s Hard Knocks. They have followed him around the last few months. So the answer to his quarterback question could eventually be aired on a Netflix documentary for all to see.
Still in flux, Michitti, who is in his first season as the head football coach of the Parma Panthers, has a decision to make by Saturday.
Michitti and his Panthers, an American football team based in Parma, Italy, that competes in the Italian Football League, face Firenze Guilfe (Florence in English) in the Italian Bowl at 3 p.m. at the University of Toledo’s Glass Bowl Stadium.
For Michitti, this trip back to Ohio won’t be leisure. And it won’t be “fun and games.”
“It’s strictly business,” he said. “In that coaches meeting, we were discussing how the hell we were going to pull this off. So that’s what I’m coming back to do.”
Michitti, a 2001 Fairfield High School and 2005 Hanover College graduate, said he never envisioned himself in a position with this much riding on the line. Certainly not as a coach.
“I’m a business owner,” chuckled Michitti, who quit playing international football nearly a year and a half ago after a lengthy stint with the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns in Germany.
“I had a good reputation, and a lot of players knew that I would be a good coach,” he said. “I just didn’t think I would.”
All that wasn’t until after Michitti suffered an ACL tear in 2006. He thought his football career was essentially over — right when it started.
But he picked things back up in 2009 when he got a call from the Unicorns to see if he’d be interested in hitting the gridiron again.
As a player, Michitti became part of the German Football League’s first-ever championship team that had an undefeated season.
Now, he’s taking aim at a championship in his first season as a head coach.
Season of success
As the Italian Football League was negotiating with the City of Toledo to have the 42nd Italian Bowl in the United States because of marketing ties connected to the league, Michitti and his Panthers were bouncing back from a rough start to the season.
Michitti said he didn’t have much time to prep when he was hired on rather quickly to lead the program, but he didn’t want to use that as an excuse.
“We lost our first game of the season,” he said. “Our starting quarterback got hurt in the second quarter that game. We were forced to retool and re-gear immediately.”
And Parma did.
The Panthers reeled off seven straight regular season wins, including a 25-7 victory back in April against this weekend’s opponent Firenze Guilfe, which is led by former Baylor coach Art Briles.
“It’s a cool matchup,” Michitti said. “You’ve got him over there on the other sidelines, and then you have me. I’m more of the player that transitioned into being a coach.”
It was against Briles’ team, the league powerhouse, in which Michitti said his team found its identity. But some of the European bloggers, according to the coach, wrote otherwise.
“There’s no way Parma is going to win because they’re going up against Art Briles, who is a shark,” Michitti recalled reading. “I was ‘a nobody’ essentially.
“We’ve dealt with this all season. We’ve already beat this team,” Michitti added. “I really don’t know where (the blogger) is coming from. We’re good. We don’t need more motivation than what we’ve got.
“The narrative sort of became, ‘Well, Parma won because the other team got hurt.’ They did have a couple people injured and an O-lineman ejected. But by the time all of that happened, we were up 16-7 and getting the ball right after halftime.”
The Panthers beat their opponents by at least two scores in every victory this season and take an 8-1 record into Saturday’s showdown against Firenze Guilfe (8-1).
“They’re going to come in fired up,” Michitti said. “But so are we — because we beat them by controlling all three phases of the game already.”
‘Playing for Pizza’
Michitti said Parma is historically one of the most famous European football teams. And he’s right. That’s partially because of the book written by John Grisham — ‘Playing for Pizza.’
The storyline is based on the Parma Panthers.
“We’re being followed around by the camera crew because they’re going for that kind of feel,” Michitti said. “That’s sort of what’s going on right now.”
Grisham, who is expected to attend the Italian Bowl on Saturday, focused the fictional book around an itinerant American football player who can no longer get work in the National Football League. His agent, as a last resort, signs a deal for him to play for Parma.
“Right now, we’re that Playing for Pizza team,” Michitti said.
Unfazed by the current and constant spotlight, Michitti isn’t a stranger to being in front of the cameras.
He was part of another documentary called ‘Unicorn Town’ — which highlighted the underdog story of the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns competing in a small German town which seems to be leaving the program behind.
“I was in that one,” Michitti said. “But the crews that are in our face right now? Yeah, that’s a completely different vibe.”
Family ties
As Michitti stated, that vibe became strictly business once his plane landed in Ohio on Tuesday. It’s his first visit back to Ohio in over two years.
“I just haven’t been able to make it home,” Michitti said. “But my family knows that I’m here to win this thing.”
Michitti expects some family to make the trek north from Fairfield. He joked and said his father is the good luck charm this season.
“His birthday was the day we beat these guys earlier this season,” Michitti laughed. “I turned 40 two days before that.
“Then we won our semifinal game on Father’s Day to get to this point,” he smirked. “So we think this is in the bag.
“I’m obviously just kidding. We’re playing well enough right now to be able to come out competitively and do what we need to do to take care of business. I guess we will find out.”
In the know
Saturday’s game kicks off at 3:07 p.m. EST in Toledo. More information about the Italian Bowl and ways to watch can be found at https://www.italianbowlusa.com.
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