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By Jon Paul Hoornstra
Contributing Sports Writer
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Americo "Rick" Sapienza, a Massachusetts native who played on the inaugural Patriots and Jets teams in the American Football League in 1960, died Aug. 2. He was 90.
Sapienza's career in professional football consisted only of one season, but it earned him a place on the inaugural roster of two teams: the Boston Patriots (who were rebranded as the New England Patriots in 1971, after the AFL-NFL merger) and the New York Titans (who became the Jets in 1963, before the merger).
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Although his playing career was short, Sapienza passed along his lessons from the gridiron over decades as a teacher and coach at Peabody (Massachusetts) Veterans Memorial High School.
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A scholarship athlete at Villanova from 1955-57, Sapienza saw action in the Wildcats' backfield and secondary. On Nov. 17, 1956, he returned an interception 78 yards against Houston — five yards shy of a school record, and still one of the longest in the program's history. In 1956, he led the team in receiving, catching 10 passes for 195 yards and two touchdowns in an era when the ground game dominated the sport.
The Patriots signed Sapienza, but he did not appear in a game for them before he was released and signed by the Titans. Sapienza saw more action as the Titans' punter than a backfield runner. He inadvertently played a hand in the first win in Patriots history when he fumbled a snap late in the fourth quarter while trying to protect a 3-point lead.
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Boston took advantage of the turnover and scored a touchdown to win as fans filed out of the Polo Grounds in New York.
"It was a good snap," Titans linebacker Larry Grantham recalled to the New York Daily News in a 2011 interview. "It was right to him. He just dropped it. If he’d just fallen on it, the game would have been over.”
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Sapienza, Grantham said, “was cut in the locker room right after the game. Harry Wismer came in there and said, ‘Rick Sapienza.’ He stood up and Wismer said, ‘get your [expletive] and get out of here.'”
Sapienza's athletic legacy spanned generations, including his son, David, a football player at Syracuse, and his grandson Matt, a Division I pitcher at Georgetown and Northeastern. He is survived by four children, seven grandchildren and two siblings.
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