UNH's Sean McDonnell, Pitt's Pat Narduzzi learned to clean up messes long before coaching

Pat Narduzzi and Sean McDonnell will be standing on opposite sidelines Saturday at Heinz Field, working against each other as head coaches of Pitt and New Hampshire.

But in the summer of 1989, they put their heads — and paint brushes — together as young guys trying to make an extra buck. They were part-time house painters.

At the time, McDonnell was an assistant at Columbia University. Narduzzi was getting ready for his senior season as a player at Rhode Island.

No stranger to hard work, Pitt’s coach already had put in time on a construction crew on Route 80 in New Jersey — his dad got him the job — where he learned to operate a jackhammer.

“We put together a painting company,” McDonnell said. “It was two knuckleheads trying to make some extra money in the summer.”

They probably felt like knuckleheads the day they were painting the inside of a $1.5 million bay house in Englewood, N.J.

“We were two ducks out of water at that house,” McDonnell said.

In the middle of the work day, McDonnell suddenly started screaming. An entire bucket of paint had spilled onto the carpet in one of the rooms.

“We just looked at each other and it was all over the place,” McDonnell said.

The two men worked hurriedly to clean up the mess, and legend has it the owner never knew what happened.

“Good cleanup,” Narduzzi said. “We had more tarps.”

Said McDonnell: “It was an accumulation of guys thinking they were better than they were at what they were doing, to be honest with you.”

Nonetheless, he called working with Narduzzi “a great experience.”

“You have to love Pat’s intensity. We would talk all the time about football when we were painting in those rooms together.”

Years passed, and both have been making their living as football coaches for more than three decades.

McDonnell, who coached at Columbia, Boston University and Boston College before New Hampshire, knew Narduzzi’s father, Bill, who also coached at Columbia.

They weren’t on the same staff, but he knew Bill Narduzzi by reputation and through coaching connections.

“Very, very mild-mannered guy in the office. Very, very thorough,” he said. “Unbelievable presence about himself. You felt you were being taught by someone who could make you better.”

McDonnell has visited Pat Narduzzi at Michigan State and Pitt, describing him as “unbelievably welcoming.”

“Pat was the one that got us into the film room, onto the field, in with the coaches (at Michigan State),” McDonnell said.

He said Narduzzi’s intensity shows even in the video room when he gets the clicker and pointer in his hand and starts teaching.

“You look at him (and say), ‘Sit down and relax a little bit,’” McDonnell said.

McDonnell has been the head coach at New Hampshire since 1999, compiling 14 consecutive winning seasons and being named Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year in 2005 and 2014. He was an assistant there for eight years and played defensive back for UNH’s Yankee Conference championship teams in 1975 and 1976.

New Hampshire has played Pitt only once in its history, a 38-16 loss in 2010.

“We hung with them for a little bit and they just wore us down and beat us up pretty good,” he said.

McDonnell took a leave of absence in 2019 while battling bladder cancer, but he returned last year and was on the field last winter coaching the day doctors gave him medical clearance.

“I’m doing great,” he said.

The covid-19 pandemic canceled New Hampshire’s 2020 fall season, and the Wildcats played only one game this spring, a 24-20 loss to Albany.

But New Hampshire is 3-0 this season, beating Stony Brook, Towson and Lafayette. The Wildcats are ranked 22nd nationally in the FCS Coaches Poll (19th in the Athlon FCS Power Poll).

He said he knows Pitt well and has hired four coaches who were graduate assistants with the Panthers.

Plus, he counts Pitt coordinators Randy Bates and Mark Whipple among his best friends. Bates was an assistant with McDonnell on the New Hampshire staff from 1992-1997, and McDonell has known Whipple through their coaching jobs at various New England schools.

“I know what quality coaches they are and what quality people they are and what they’ve done with that program,” he said.

Said Narduzzi: “Sean’s a great guy. Tough guy, old-school coach who does it the right way.”

NOTES: Lucas Krull has been named John Mackey Tight End of the Week after catching two touchdown passes against Western Michigan. He leads all of the nation’s tight ends with four touchdowns, at least one in each of Pitt’s three games.