[Herky] Ron Coluzzi is manna from heaven

[Sue Bailey]

  Ron Coluzzi is manna from heaven


    Senior punter is Iowa's international man of mystery coming in from
    ... Mount Pleasant, Mich.

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Iowa's Ron Coluzzi (16) punts during the second half of the game against 
the North Dakota State Bison at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City on 
Saturday, September 17, 2016. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

	

Marc Morehouse

The Gazette

<https://twitter.com/#%21/marcmorehouse> 
<https://www.facebook.com/On-Iowa-200407646648959/> 
<mailto:marc.morehouse at gazcomm.com>

More stories from Marc<http://www.thegazette.com/on-iowa>

Sep 28, 2016 at 5:45 pm | Print View

IOWA CITY — Ron Coluzzi is taking the "shield" and "gunners" parts of 
Iowa’s punt unit out for dinner tonight. No blocked punts in the first 
four games warrants a meal. The rest of Iowa’s punt team will have to wait.

"I’ll get the rest of the guys next week when my checking account kind 
of comes back in store," Coluzzi said.

On media day, Iowa assistant Chris White was asked if Coluzzi, a 
graduate transfer from Central Michigan, was manna from heaven. Iowa had 
no punter and no kickoff specialist. Then, in late winter/early spring, 
Coluzzi asked for a chance.

“Well, hopefully, yeah,” White said. “So far, so good.”

— Coluzzi was named Big Ten special teams player of the week after his 
performance last Saturday at Rutgers. The senior from Naperville, Ill., 
averaged 42.0 yards on seven punts and had three touchbacks on kickoffs 
against Rutgers.

— Coluzzi is fourth in the Big Ten with a 43.3 average on 20 punts. His 
18 touchbacks lead the Big Ten.

— Just two of Coluzzi’s punts have been returned for a grand total of 
zero, zip, nada yards.

— Coluzzi’s maximum hang times in Iowa’s first four games have ranged 
from 4.51 seconds last week to 5.04 against Iowa State.

There’s a reason for the serious hang times on punts. Coluzzi was 
knocked out while covering a punt at Purdue in 2014.

“After that Purdue hit from two years ago that I’m sure you guys have 
seen, it’s my goal to put the ball up as high as I can and as far as I 
can so our coverage can get down there and force a fair catch, so there 
is no return,” Coluzzi said, “so I don’t have to make a tackle.”

And so, yeah, Coluzzi did take a little pleasure when Penn State kicker 
Joey Julius, all 5-10, 258 pounds of him, put a highlight hit on 
Michigan returner Jourdan Lewis last weekend. (Lewis tweeted the next 
day, “I got hit by a nose tackle that can kick.”)

“That was unbelievable,” Coluzzi said. “That definitely puts kickers in 
a better spot, making a tackle and not getting knocked at Purdue like I 
did. It was really cool to see that.”

Coluzzi graduated from CMU with degrees in marketing and logistics 
management. He loved the movie “Cast Away,” you know the Tom Hanks movie 
where he ends up stranded on a desert island after a plane crash, with 
his only friend being a volleyball named “Wilson.”

Coluzzi loved that movie not for the survival adventure part, not for 
the tearful re-entry into society, but for the set up. Hanks’ character 
is a logistics guy at FedEx.

“I love that movie,” Coluzzi said with a laugh. “I think I would be 
doing kind of what Tom Hanks did in that movie, but in different ways. 
Technology has kind of advanced a little. (The movie came out in 2000).”

Logistics is what it sounds like. “It’s moving product from A to B in 
the most efficient manner,” Coluzzi said.

Coluzzi has a job at J.B. Hunt, a freight shipping company, waiting for 
him in February. They hired him for operations management.

“Maximizing profits by maximizing cubilization,” Coluzzi said. “Making 
lanes more efficient, things of that nature. It’s saving money in the 
long run, but making sure people are doing their jobs.”

“Cubilization” is the study of storing stuff. That’s probably 
oversimplifying, but that is the gist.

How does one go to college and come out with a degree in logistics?

“When I went to Central Michigan I had no idea what I wanted to do,” 
Coluzzi said. “I knew I wanted to do something in business, because my 
dad (Ron) was a business management major. Because of football ... Every 
day you have to wake up at the crack of dawn, every day you have to be 
over here at a certain time ... You’ve got to lift weights. You have no 
time. Time is valuable and then I realized what major deals with that 
... logistics. It kind of just fell into place.”

Coluzzi worked his network and landed an internship with Coyote 
Logistics (in Chicago) last summer. He sold freight at a freight brokerage.

“I loved it,” he said. “I fell in love with the atmosphere, the 
environment.”

This works backward as a metaphor for football, too. Coluzzi reflected 
on the time he didn’t have as a student-athlete and turned that into his 
major and, soon, his life’s work. Football is the ultimate game of 
operations management. As a punter, Coluzzi is a shipping lane, kind of 
literally, and a cog in the great machine.

“At the end of the day, it’s getting the job done and every player has a 
small part of it,” Coluzzi said. “I’m just doing my part.”

Coluzzi wants to get into compliance consulting with international 
freight, so he can travel the world before, he said, “I have a mortgage 
and kids.”

Until then, he’ll punt for the Hawkeyes and sleep with Naomi.

Get your minds out of the TMZ segment.

Coluzzi carried a football into the lobby of the Hansen Performance 
Center. He said it’s named “Naomi.”

“I sleep with Naomi, I bring her everywhere,” he deadpanned. "I do drops 
everywhere I go. It doesn’t leave my sight. No ...”

And then chuckle.

“It’s something I like to carry around, because in a game, ball security 
is very important,” he said. “You’ve got to be very comfortable.”

Actually, “Naomi” is the name of his car. OK, maybe it is.

“I have a 2000 Nissan Altima, it’s falling apart,” he said. “The bumper 
actually fell off. We’ve been through good days and we’ve been through 
bad days. It’s like punting. You have good practices and bad practices ...

“I don’t know. I’m a kicker. It’s weird. It’s what we do.”

So far, so good.

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