| 11/18/2014 6:35:00 AM

By Daniel Massa, University of Dayton, Class of 2016

Whether he is protecting his quarterback or his fellow citizens, Patrick Nuzzolese knows what it is like to be under pressure.

Nuzzolese, an academic junior and redshirt sophomore center on the University of Dayton football team, is also a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Port Washington, New York. Nuzzolese was sworn in as a full-time volunteer firefighter in 2011, and he has cherished being a member of several close-knit families.

"I have the brotherhood of the fire department back home, and then I have my family on the Dayton football team, which is really cool," said Nuzzolese.

He got to experience the blending of these families when the University's football team played Marist College on Oct. 11 in Poughkeepsie, New York. Much of Nuzzolese's family and fellow firefighters made the two-hour drive to watch the game.

Playing football and fighting fires are both physically taxing and potentially dangerous activities, so Nuzzolese is no stranger to adversity and injury.

In June of 2013, he sustained an injury fighting a building fire. His left pinky and half of his ring finger were amputated.

Nuzzolese said quitting never crossed his mind.

 "All I could talk about was coming back to my teammates," he said. "The paramedics said I kept complaining that I was going to miss going to the gym the next day."

Nuzzolese said playing football has influenced his determination and given him the drive to accomplish things no one says he can. This determination has helped Nuzzolese during several transformative occurrences as a firefighter, such as when he removed a victim from a car using the Jaws of Life or helped fight a fire at a family friend's deli.

"We ended up stopping the fire fairly efficiently, and he was able to reopen within a couple months," Nuzzolese said. "As a result of that, his son joined the fire department, which was a really cool experience."

Nuzzolese's passion for firefighting developed at an early age.

"My parents will vouch that the first word out of my mouth was firefighter," Nuzzolese said. "I was at every parade. The fire department always went last, so I would stay for the whole parade just to look at the firetrucks."

Nuzzolese hopes his future career can blend his passion for firefighting with his major of mechanical engineering technology.

"I'd really love to work for a company that designs and manufactures firetrucks or any type of fire apparatus," he said. "That would be sort of a dream job."