Paul Tortorella wanted to take his wife to dinner after a week of football practice at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, but he needed someone to watch his four children. So who better to babysit than the entry-level assistant who coached the wide receivers? Tortorella, then the defensive coordinator, said the assistant was lucky if he was making $10,000 at the Division II school in western Pennsylvania.
And that’s how Tortorella’s four children came to know Nick Sirianni as “Uncle Nick.”
Nearly 20 years before Sirianni was preparing the Eagles for Sunday’s Super Bowl, he was a 24-year-old eager to climb the coaching ladder. His job at IUP was his first full-time position after spending two years as a graduate assistant at Mount Union, the Division III school in Ohio where he had been a star receiver.
