Joe Robustelli is blessed with Hall of Fame lineage and a story that is also the stuff of legend.
The proud grandson of New York Giants great Andy Robustelli was introduced to professional football from a participatory perspective last week, when he joined the Saskatchewan Roughriders beyond the midpoint of Coors Light Training Camp.
With only two full practices to his name, he donned a No. 79 jersey for Saturday’s CFL pre-season game at Commonwealth Stadium and turned his first reception as a Roughrider into a 34-yard gain.
At the family home in Sarasota, Fla., Tracey and Michael Robustelli watched a live stream of what turned out to be a 28-27 Saskatchewan victory.
“My parents couldn’t be more proud,” Joe Robustelli said with a smile after Wednesday’s workout at Mosaic Stadium. “They had everybody there. My brothers came home. My family all came home. They brought some friends and they watched the game. They said that when I made my catch, my mom was freaking out.
“It has been a crazy journey, man. It has been wild.”
Robustelli’s evolution into a skilled football player is hardly surprising, when you consider that his grandfather was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.
Even then, there was a connection to Saskatchewan. Andy Robustelli’s first coach with the Giants was Steve Owen, who subsequently served as the Roughriders’ field boss in 1961 and 1962. “Stout Steve” was posthumously enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1966, five years before Robustelli got the call.
Joe was only 13 when his legendary grandpa passed away. By then, though, the younger Robustelli’s first chapter as a football player was nearly over.
“I was basically born with a football in my hands,” he said. “I played Pop Warner from when I was five or six years old until I was 13.
“I did play my freshman year in high school, but I was 4-foot-11. I was super-small, so I quit football at 14.”
He didn’t play organized football again until last season, at age 26.
Despite the extended hiatus, he was a game-breaking receiver with the Tusculum University Pioneers —an NCAA Division II team that is based in Greenville, Tenn.
The 6-foot-2, 220-pounder caught 20 passes for 475 yards and six touchdowns in eight games. He averaged an eye-popping 23.8 yards per reception.
That’s quite an average, Joe!
There was a time, though, when the batting average was a priority.
“I played baseball in my sophom*ore and junior years of high school,” he recalled. “Since I was so short and I started growing so much, I kept getting injured. I fractured my hip. I tore my labrum. So nothing really came about with sports in high school.
“I actually moved upstate to Tallahassee, Florida, and went to the community college. I was supposed to go to community college for two years and transfer to FSU (Florida State University).
“I ended up not really doing too well. I was partying. I didn’t really have my head on straight, so I ended up moving home during COVID.”
During the pandemic, Robustelli became a sensation in the intramural football ranks.
“There was a joke between me and my friends: ‘You need to walk on to that FSU team. You’re so good. What are you doing?’ ” he said. “I just never had the grades, so I never could.
“But when I moved home, I thought, ‘You know what? I got a nice little re-start. Because of COVID, nobody’s really doing much. I’m going to start working out, start training, and see what happens.’
“My whole family’s just a bunch of freak athletes. My older brother (Andrew) played at Jacksonville University, a Division I-AA school. I always knew I was freakishly athletic at birth. It was God-given talent and I was just wasting it.
“So I moved home and, probably a year and a half in, I met this guy —Tyrone (Rhem). He runs an organization (Rank-Up Athletics) that helps aspiring athletes who might have been under-scouted. He holds combines and brings in scouts.”
While attending combines and open tryouts, Robustelli’s appetite was whetted for a return to tackle football, having grown 15 inches since his previous involvement with the sport.
And guess what? He soon had options.
One of them was presented by an NAIA college program. He was also intrigued by Fan Controlled Football, a seven-on-seven indoor league that existed in 2021 and 2022.
“I thought, ‘This is better exposure than the NAIA,’ ” Robustelli reasoned.
Alas, Fan Controlled Football ceased operations in February of 2023.
“What do I do now?” Robustelli wondered.
As luck would have it, he had an NFL connection with a player who had also attended the Fan Controlled Football tryouts.
Before too long, Robustelli was training with luminaries such as Patrick Surtain II (Denver Broncos) and Jevon Holland (Miami Dolphins).
“They said, ‘Listen, you’re a freak athlete. Don’t give up. You’ll figure it out,’ ” Robustelli said. “They really instilled a lot of confidence in me.
“After a month and a half, I was kind of stuck without anything else to do.”
Fortuitously, his older brother had a connection to the coaching staff at Tusculum.
“(Andrew Robustelli) reached out and said, ‘Here’s my brother’s transcripts. You’ve got to see if he has any eligibility to play in college,’ ” Joe said. “So they did their thing and reached out.
“I worked out for them and they actually offered me a full ride.”
After a few weeks of acclimatization, Robustelli went on a five-game roll in which he caught six touchdown passes.
Over one three-game span, he caught 11 passes for 330 yards and five scores.
“Then I ended up tweaking my calf, so I didn’t end up playing that much,” he said. “I did put enough on film for people to see that I am talented and that when I am on the field I can be an X factor and a game-changer.”
By then, Robustelli had appeared on the CFL’s radar. He worked out for the Roughriders, Elks, B.C. Lions and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
“I was kind of waiting on the B.C. Lions and the Blue Bombers, so when I got the phone call, initially I was thinking it was one of those teams,” he said. “I picked it up and it was the Assistant GM for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.”
Joe Robustelli, meet Kyle Carson.
“I was actually delivering packages for Amazon part-time,” Robustelli continued. “I was walking up to somebody’s door and my phone started ringing and I kind of got butterflies.
“I delivered the package, pulled out the phone, and it said, ‘Canada.’ I started freaking out a little bit. I thought, ‘There’s no way this is happening!’
“I answered the call and I was told, ‘Listen, I can’t make you any promises, but we want to bring another receiver in. If you can, can you hop on a flight tomorrow?’
“I was like, ‘I can do anything you guys need me to do. I will be there.’ ”
The Roughriders announced the signing of Robustelli on May 21. The next day, he was on the practice field at Griffiths Stadium in Saskatoon.
“When I was on the plane, I was thinking, ‘This is incredible. This is everything that I’ve worked for,’ especially being somebody who kind of ruined their life a little bit,” he reflected.
“I went to school and didn’t do well. The bad part is that I kind of lied to my parents about how I was doing. They thought I was doing well and I wasn’t, so it was a really, really, really sticky situation.
“Going from being that person, who had kind of hit rock bottom, to putting my mind to something and getting here has been incredible.”
