He could have gone to Harvard, North Carolina or Notre Dame. Instead, Gino Guidugli has rewritten the Cincinnati record books.

The quarterback enters his senior season for the Bearcats holding almost every one of the team’s passing records – most completions, most passing touchdowns, most passing yards. He’s done it all while leading a struggling team, fighting to stay out of the spotlight and auditioning for an NFL career.

When Cincinnati faces Syracuse on Saturday at the Carrier Dome at noon, Guidugli will line up behind a much more confident squad than he did last season. The Bearcats, who are 20-20 during Guidugli’s career, returned 23 seniors this year, and many players say last year’s offensive troubles are a thing of the past.

‘People just weren’t making plays,’ Guidugli said. ‘Everything had to go perfect to move the ball down the field.’

Cincinnati (1-1) changed its head coach in the off-season, which has helped the players put those problems behind them, senior guard Kyle Takavitz said. But if Guidugli has done so well when his receivers were slumping, just imagine his performance at a more prolific football program. His father certainly has.

‘You can’t look back, though,’ said Dave Guidugli, Gino’s dad. ‘Gino doesn’t look back.’

He has only missed two of his son’s games during his college career, and he often spends weekends bouncing between Gino’s football games and those of his three younger sons. Dave Guidugli works as an athletic trainer in Fort Thomas, Ky., and runs a program to keep at-risk youths out of trouble. And he’s been at his son’s side through it all – the good, the bad and the house arrest.

Guidugli got his first taste of negative media frenzy when he was cited for underage drinking at a fraternity party in 2002, a charge that was eventually dropped for lack of evidence. By that time, he was a big name on campus – he’d been starting for the Bearcats since the third game of his freshman year. Six months later, he’d pick up newspapers with headlines that said ‘UC QB under arrest again.’

Guidugli’s second brush with the law brought a much harsher penalty than the drinking allegations – he was placed under house arrest (more precisely, dorm room arrest) for 60 days in the summer of 2003. It stemmed from a fight during an intramural basketball game.

‘He jacked somebody pretty good,’ Dave Guidugli said of his son’s actions during the fight.

That punch – or, his dad says, Guidugli’s stature at the university – landed him the only arrest among the dozen students involved in the intramural melee. Guidugli wasn’t even arrested at the scene – he was summoned later to the campus police station by then-head coach Rick Minter and subsequently thrown in jail.

His sentence: house arrest after a conviction of misdemeanor assault. Guidugli was required to wear an ankle bracelet that alerted police if he ventured outside a 50-foot radius from his room. He could leave only to go to class, eat and attend practice.

‘There are guys that are rapists and sell drugs that don’t have to wear those things,’ Dave Guidugli said.

He blames the university for not protecting its quarterback and says his son was singled out for arrest because of his prominence on campus. At that time more than ever, Dave Guidugli regretted that his son chose Cincinnati.

In retrospect, Guidugli and his teammates see his string of arrests as more of a learning experience than an injustice. His dad says it taught Guidugli that he had to be ‘invisible’ to escape public scrutiny of his private life.

‘He’s a man now,’ senior running back Richard Hall said.

And that man has big dreams beyond Cincinnati. Guidugli is a serious candidate for the NFL draft after his graduation in May, and although he says he’s taking his career week by week, his father and teammates are confident he’ll impress the scouts.

Since the Bearcats have started the year with close to a clean slate – new coach, veteran receivers, quarterback out of trouble – this might be the best year for the scouts to watch Guidugli shine. He’s already got the records. Now it’s time to help his team earn some recognition.

‘He’s definitely an NFL quarterback,’ said senior wide receiver Hannibal Thomas, who enjoys the stream of scouts Guidugli has drawn to the games. ‘He’s looking like a veteran out there.’

Published on September 15, 2004 at 12:00 pm