Alicea Undergoes Education in the Trenches

When he’s done with college, alumnus and current Stonehill College student John Alicea wants to become a history teacher and coach football.

It makes sense because Alicea is a history major—with a European concentration—and plays football for the Skyhawks.

As he completes his freshman year and embarks on his sophomore year in the fall, one thing Alicea is getting down pat is the education of playing offensive line.     

Alicea is a learning a new position on the offensive line—center—and just completed spring practice at the Easton, Massachusetts school. Last season, Stonehill went 5-5.

“A big thing that I’ve been improving on is snapping the ball,” said Alicea, who played on the scout team last season. “It might sound simple, but it’s pretty tricky."

“But with Coach [Tom] Bourdeau, I’ve been able to refine those skills," he added. "A big thing Coach [Robert] Shedlosky and I will work on in the upcoming summer is stepping and snapping simultaneously.”

Those repetitions are protocol for a college offensive lineman to be successful. Another is learning to play with aggression, something Alicea honed during his star-studded days as a member of the Panthers football team.

“The mindset I’ve always brought to the trenches is aggression,” he said. “This was something I learned my sophomore year at [Bridgewater-Raritan]."

“It’s not enough to just block the opponent, you need to play with the mindset that you have to bury the defensive line in the ground so many times that he doesn’t want to get up and play anymore," he added.

A key experience for Alicea in his freshman season was playing on the scout team. During his time there, he went up against the starters on a daily basis.

“I was able to train against high caliber players such as Brenden Taylor while I was still understanding my new position,” he said. “Playing against high competition like BT has greatly improved my game.”

The lone disappointment for Alicea in his freshman year was the team going 5-5, including 3-5 in the competitive Northeast 10 Conference, one of the best in all of Division II football. Two of the five losses were by three points or less [42-39 loss to Merrimack College and 14-12 to American International College].

“With an explosive running back like Eddie Vachon and a defense that had great players, I thought we would have had a better record,” Alicea said. “We play in a league that is just packed with competition. During the week of practice before those games, the intensity is amplified and the passion rises.”

Alicea knows a thing or two about being on a team that built itself to become a power player. He was a key cog on several Panthers teams that laid the groundwork for what Bridgewater-Raritan football has become now under Coach Scott Bray.

“Building a winning team is a process,” Alicea said. “I learned this while playing for Coach Bray in Bridgewater."

“My first two years playing varsity for Coach Bray our records were 2-8 and 3-7," he added. "It wasn’t until my senior year after we built a strong foundation that we became really successful and ended at 6-4, and the year after Bridgewater went 7-4.”

Alicea believes a similar transformation is occurring at Stonehill under head coach Robert Talley, who will enter his fifth season on the job this fall.

“This team is really close to competing for the conference title,” Alicea said. “So becoming a successful team is a process if you do it right, and Coach Talley is doing a great job building this team not only from a potential standpoint, but from a leadership standpoint as well.”

Included in that building process is learning, education and practice—something that Alicea is undergoing with every snap from center.