USD Football 1995

BETTER LATE CONTINUED "I thought, 'If he never plays adown of football, he has something to share with the kids on the team and he can be an inspiration to the kids we recruit. He should be apart of the program for that reason alone.' " AL LEONZI , HEAD COACH, KUTZTOWN STATE

ROSEBERRY AND LEONZI MADE IT TO "GOOD MORNING AMERICA," WHICH HIT KUTZTOWN STATE FOR A SHOOT.

begun and as so often happens in the terror of battle, life's problems, no mat- ter how seemingly trivial, became impos- ing monsters. He began to lament some of his life's failings to his nearest buddy. "I told him that all my life I felt stupid because I had difficulty in reading, and I always turned words backward. I had always felt I was born stupid, and I tried to hide it for the majority of my life. My comprehension of the written word was terrible," he recalled. It was one main reason why, when Roseberry left high school in 1965, he also surrendered an opportunity to play college football at UCLA and Texas, both of which had expressed an interest in h im. Instead, he enlisted in the Navy and served for 2½ years in the Vietnam War, with much of the time spent aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. "My buddy said to me that night, 'You're not stupid, you're dyslexic,' " Roseberry said. "Imagine discussing a

called to active duty in Saudi Arabia. When he returned home, with a sec- o nd war under his belt, he did what so many veterans often d id in such circum- stances: He turned his life in a different direction. "I had always wanted to go to college and to play football,'' he said, "so I thought, 'Why not now?' Age didn't mean anything to me. I felt for the first time I really had a chance to do some- thing with my life, and going to school and playing football would make up for some of the times I had missed so many years ago." He enrolled at Kutztown and the next steps were to the offices offootball coach Al Leonzi, who hadjust been appointed to thejob of turning around a program that CONT INU ED

subject like dyslexia with planes roaring overhead and the flashes of bomb bursts and rockets visible on the horizon. But war does produce some strange reac- tions. I had never even heard the word 'dyslexic,' and he explained to me what it meant. That's when I knew I had a chance." Roseberry had already lived a full life. He worked as a law-enforcement and correctional officer in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for more than 20 years following his discharge from the Navy while cruising in and out of his mar- riages and helping to raise three daugh- ters, Tammy, Theresa and Tracy. He had even begun to take courses in criminal justice at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania before being