GONUFootball.org - Friends of Northeastern University Football

12th Man Award 2006...
Alec Szymanski '84

Dear Football Alums, Friends, and Family,

This month I’d like to start a new Football Alumni tradition: We are going introduce an award called the Twelfth Man Award. It will be given to Husky football alum that has shown great dedication and support to the football program.

This year I am proud to announce that the winner is Alec Szymanski.

Szymanski earned three letters for the Huskies from 1981-83 playing for Paul Pawlak and playing with such Northeastern stars as Keith Willis and Sean Jones.

After his playing career, Szymanski immediately became involved with the football alumni group. Alec was one of the founding members of the Friends of Football and has been in charge or involved with the various alumni groups since then.

Szymanski credits NU legend Bob Cappadona with teaching him why it is important to give back to the university and how to do so.
“I was an understudy to Bob Cappadona while he mentored me 20 years ago,” Szymanski said. “When I began my alumni activities he was the guy before me. He gave me guidance and everything it took to be the lead football alumni representative.” Since then he has seen the university consolidate all fringe groups under one umbrella and has worked with Pawlak, Barry Gallup, Don Brown and now Hager. “Northeastern has helped me become the person I am and I want to give back.”

When he first started out, the football program was run more like a mom and pop outfit than the corporation it is today. “At one point we handled all concessions and we helped subsidize the football budget,” Szymanski said. “We paid for video equipment, recruiting trips and coaches’ clinics. But as it was then, it is now: the first and foremost objective is to get people involved.”

He admits that having only five winning seasons in the last 22 hasn’t helped grow the donor base. “Everybody wants to be part of a winner and when they don’t win it is difficult.”

Szymanski, like a lot of Northeastern alumni feel it is very important for the program and the university itself to achieve their goal to have an on-campus football stadium to serve the football team and the school’s student body.

“The facility is the single most important thing the university has to make happen for the program,” he said. “I believe the one thing that will help catapult the university into Top 100 status is the on-campus facility.”

Born and raised in Dracut, MA, Szymanski has been has been married to his high school sweetheart Kelley, for 20 years with whom he has three children: Zachary (18) who has applied to NU for next year, Tyler Brooke, who is 16 and his youngest, 14-year-old Thomas.

Szymanski owns and has run his own building and development business, Kattz Properties for 10 years, which does residential and urban development. He also works full time at night in the Middlesex County Sheriff’s office where he is a Deputy Sheriff and his responsibilities range from correctional officer to outside deputy sheriff work.

While his involvement in the school has spanned over two decades, Szymanski doesn’t see everything through black and red colored glasses. He knows in spite of all the progress the school has made there is a lot of work to be done to elevate NU to greater heights. “I try to base my thoughts and comments on what I think will help everybody who has been an NU football alumni,” he said. “Northeastern produces people that make things happen, but the most frustrating thing is that quite often in the past it hasn’t spilled over to the school.”