Dedicated, diligent and down to earth: three phrases that describe Chris Cercone to the bone. The senior and Salem native has worked as a video coordinator in the athletic department since 2010. In his almost four years on the job, he has taped many games of the university’s sports teams. In fact, Cercone has been a key factor in the impressive progress of sports media here at Suffolk. The man, who has taped more than 150 games for Suffolk Athletics for soccer, basketball, volleyball and hockey, remains humble and focused on doing his job right.

“Basically I just set up my video camera and record the game. Then I burn it to a DVD and give it to the coaching staff so they have a game that they can watch,” Cercone said. “They can see what they did right and what they did wrong so they can game plan for the future. I am trying to help them win some basketball games. I mostly film the basketball matches now. In the past I also filmed men’s and women’s soccer, but I wasn’t able to do that the past season because I was too busy.”

Cercone’s interest in sports media began in middle school going into high school. Deciding what classes to take in his freshman year, he took a media production class as an elective because it sounded interesting. It later turned out that he loved the class and was so good at it that his high school football coach asked him to film the football games. This led Cercone to the path he is on today. Starting his college career at Suffolk in 2010, Cercone was very happy to get the job as a video coordinator and he now looks back on how he got it.

“I did a lot of taping of games in high school when I was at Salem High, especially basketball games. So the summer before my freshman year here at Suffolk, I sent the former Athletic Director Jim Nelson an email asking him if I could film games for the department and when he told me the opportunity was there, I started the job as a work study.”

Someone who really benefits from all the hours of raw footage from the games are the coaches and the players in the athletic department. After Cercone has filmed a game, he always gives the footage straight to the coaches so they can look through it and decide what needs to be improved in the team and what the team did well. Men’s basketball head coach Adam Nelson described how much Cercone and his work means for the basketball team, and the whole athletics department.

“Chris is awesome. He does so much for us and so much for our department with the video and the technology. He is unbelievable. I met Chris at orientation right before his freshman year. We started talking and now he has worked for us for four years and it has been awesome to get to know him,” Nelson said. “He has helped us so much with recording the games and emailing them out. Chris has helped us with all the technology and has been there for us all the time and I honestly do not know what I am going to do without him next year. He is tremendous; he is definitely a big part of our team”, said Nelson.

Cercone himself knows how much the footage can help a team.

“The coaches are now able to re-watch the games and film never lies – that’s what they say in sports media. Film doesn’t lie. You can always see on the video if a defender is not in the right position or the spacing isn’t right and things like that. Basically you can always see what you did right and what you did wrong and improve your game.”

The senior’s hard work was rewarded at the Athletic Department’s Sports Banquet  at the end of the 2012-2013 academic year, when he received the Carol Maggio  Department Recognition Award for his hard work behind the camera.

Cercone might not be an athlete himself, but all the work he has done for the Athletic Department cannot be taken for granted.

Junior forward of the men’s basketball team Adam Kaplan said, “I always told Chris that he should make a sports highlight page for high school kids, because it is a good business to be in and he is very talented at filming the videos.”

Cercone will be graduating this spring, and will most likely be missed both for his friendly nature and for his diligent work for Suffolk athletics. Cercone does not want to think about graduation just yet.

“That’s depressing,” he said. “It’s so hard to say what I am going to miss the most. I feel like I’m just gonna miss the experience of going to college, being able to go to class, being able to get an education. When I do the walk and get the degree it’s all over. That kind of closes the book on this fantastic experience I have been able to have for four years.”

After graduation Cercone plans to continue his work as a video coordinator. He wants to work for a college football team, bringing them the important game footage necessary for them to improve. Cercone has previously worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology football team as their video coordinator, so he already has some great experience in the field both from Suffolk and MIT. It is students like Chris Cercone that makes the Suffolk athletic department function better and improve every day. Hopefully the department will find another video coordinator of Cercone’s caliber for next year, but the chances are very small.