Thomas Jefferson’s Serapiglia looks forward to career at Tulsa

By: Ray Fisher
Saturday, February 23, 2019 | 9:38 AM

Dom Serapiglia will continue his football career 1,000 miles away from home.

Serapiglia, a 6-foot-2, 285-pound senior and four-year varsity lineman for the Jaguars, has committed to play at Tulsa.

Tulsa competes in the American Athletic Conference.

“I really just fell in love with the campus,” Serapiglia said, “and it’s a great school with an elite education. I feel like I can contribute very early (on the football team).”

Serapiglia recently was selected to play in the PSFCA Big 33 Football Classic. This year’s Big 33 game is May 27 at Central Dauphin’s Landis Field in Harrisburg.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Dom will be successful at Tulsa,” TJ coach Bill Cherpak said. “He has a great work ethic and is incredibly competitive. Dom was a great player for us and leader on the offensive line. He will be greatly missed.”

A high honors student who plans to major in energy management, Serapiglia received heavy recruiting interest.

He was a center/defensive tackle for TJ last season and specialized in long snapping.

Serapiglia attended camps for offensive linemen at Pitt, Youngstown State and New Hampshire last year.

Along with Tulsa, he was recruited by Penn State, Memphis, TCU, Utah, Purdue and Duquesne, finally narrowing his final three choices to Tulsa, Utah and Penn State.

Several people have been instrumental in Serapiglia’s growth as a student-athlete, including Cherpak, TJ assistants Pat Oster, Chris Drager and Jon Drager and Serapiglia’s parents, Dominic and Stephanie, and sister Bella.

Serapiglia, who also competes for the TJ wrestling team, began long snapping in middle school.

“In middle school, I was the center and we were going over the punt team (duties),” he said, “so I tried it and I really liked it. That was the first time I ever tried long snapping, and we started looking more in-depth into long snapping, and we found the Rubio Long Snapping camps.

“I had taught myself to snap up to that point, but finding Rubio really helped me get better at long snapping and advance my skill level.”

Among his many accolades, Serapiglia was named to the Tribune-Review’s Terrific 25 and a Penn Live All-PA 6A all-star team. He was a two-time first team all-state, All-WPIAL and all-conference selection at the center position. He was a team captain and played on three WPIAL Class 4A championship teams.

Tulsa is a member of the AAC West Conference, along with Memphis, Houston, Tulane, SMU and Navy. The Golden Hurricane ended up 3-9 last season. The East consists of Central Florida, Temple, Cincinnati, South Florida, East Carolina and Connecticut.

Tulsa will open its 2019 schedule at Michigan State and San Jose State, followed by home games against Oklahoma State and Wyoming. The Golden Hurricane conference schedule consists of SMU, Navy, Cincinnati, Memphis, Tulane, Central Florida, Houston and East Carolina.

Tulsa is coached by Philip Montgomery; the offensive line coach is Mike Bloesch. Serapiglia was recruited by Reid Heim, Tulsa’s director of high school relations and recruiting.

The Golden Hurricane recruited Serapiglia as an offensive lineman (center/tackle). He announced his commitment Feb. 17 on Twitter.

“I just can’t thank Coach (Philip) Montgomery, Coach (Mike) Bloesch and Coach (Reed) Heim enough for believing in me and giving me this life changing opportunity to receive and elite education and play in one of the best conferences in the country,” Serapiglia wrote on Twitter.

Tags: Thomas Jefferson