If you’ve ever seen the Holy Cross football team take the field, there’s one pregame ritual you can’t really believe until you see.

As the Crusaders form a pack, lock arms and slowly begin rocking back and forth, coach Chesney will have a few final words for his team. That’s not anything new for a head coach, but what comes next is truly a sight to behold. As a player stands a few yards away waiving the purple HC flag facing the squad (this year it’s been No. 50 Adam Guillemette) strength and conditioning coach Chris Grautski yells a few final words, takes a few steps back, then runs and leaps into the pile of humanity running at him through the tunnel of cheerleaders.

It might be a bit insane to the non-football fan, but it’s legitimately one of the coolest pregame rituals you’ll see in all of college football. Aside from just the optics though, it’s really a bigger sign of just how much Grautski means to the entire program.

“I think most places, strength and conditioning coaches deal with guys on a personal level on a day-to-day basis more than we even do as coaches,” Chesney said when I asked him about the odd pregame scene in a recent Zoom conference. “Then, it’s all winter long and then all summer long. those connections run deep.”

Chesney has known Grautski for quite a while now, going all the way back to one of his former coaching stops and he knows just how important his ability to communicate with players is.

“Chris was a defensive line coach for us at Assumption back in the day,” said Chesney. “He knows what it takes. He knows this style of football we want to play. He speaks the same language we all speak. I think that was probably the biggest or most important part for me when I got here if we were going to be able to do this is he had to be able to come with me and a couple other guys as well. Between him as our strength coach and Drew Canan as our special teams coach, those two guys reach every single player on this team.”

Not only is the communication and ability to reach the players important, but Chesney also talked about just how important being on the same page as much as possible as an entire staff is, especially if you’re going to have the type of success Holy Cross has.

“At least the three of us can all be speaking the same language, but all the coaches do,” he added. “But, when those guys can touch every player and can be in lock step with them, you’ve got something special and I think that’s what we’ve been consistently able to do consistently and it’s why we’ve been able to accomplish what we’ve accomplished.”

As far as the pregame ritual goes, does Chesney ever worry about one of his players getting hurt? No, but he sure does worry about Grautski.

“For him, yeah,” Chesney said with a laugh. “He’s getting a little older, his hip is kind of bad…no, he’s awesome. He’s constantly trying to think of cool ways to reach them.”

It certainly gets the guys fired up before taking the field, but Chesney also talked about a recent road trip where a scene in the gym led to a self reflection on just how important the emotional connection to players is as a staff if you’re going to have a great program.

“That’s our job, right?” he said. “It’s kind of a weird thing, but on Friday when we showed up in the hotel (during the Fordham trip) we were in the gym working out and one of our assistant strength coaches was doing the Peloton thing and didn’t have his headphones so he’s listening to this instructor and I was listening to the instructor kind of yelling at him and everything that came with it. I was just kind of going through my thing, and I was like that girl has some juice to this thing. As I continued to think about it, I was like what if she just didn’t have a good day? What if she just had a bad day and didn’t feel like bringing that much emotion and that much juice to her job?

“She probably wouldn’t have that job and then I started thinking about us. We as coaches have to be Mickey Mouse at Disney World. You can’t walk in and see Mickey Mouse kicking rocks having a bad day sitting in the corner somewhere. It’s got to be your best foot forward all the time. These players deserve it when you’re only together for a limited amount of time based on NCAA rules. It’s really important that we’re giving them everything we’ve got. Whether it’s a fitness instructor or Mickey Mouse, we’re really no different. In meeting rooms we’ve got to keep them engaged so we’re the world’s greatest professors. We can’t let them sit in here and fall asleep and get bored with our lesson plan after a full day of school. Then we’ve got to find a way to get on that field and regardless of what they’re going through make sure they give us everything they’ve got.”

That emotional connection between the players and coaches on the 2021 Holy Cross team is very, very real. When the Crusaders head to Villanova this weekend for a second round FCS playoff matchup and coach Grautski takes another leap into the charging pile on Friday night, it’ll mean so much more to everyone wearing purple and white than some will ever know.

“I was sitting on the bus with Jacob Dobbs on the long ride home from Bucknell and he’s like ‘man, I just don’t want this season to ever end,’ Chesney said. “That sort of took me back to the moments in college when we were playing 11, 12, 13 games and we could’ve played 100 and never would’ve been tired of being around one another. I think that’s something when we first took over here that didn’t necessarily exist.

“I think when the season was over guys were excited for it to be over and it was heartbreaking when I first got here. Now, to watch this, see this and hear the comments being made and to really feel it, ultimately from one another is what I take most out of it regardless of a win or loss record.”