By MARTY LEVINE

E.J. Borghetti can still recall how he got the internship that led eventually to his first Pitt job, more than 30 years ago. In his junior year here, he just walked into the University’s sports media office: “I was 20 years old. I didn’t cold call — I just basically cold showed up at what was then the media relations office up in the Cathedral.

COMING UP

The next Staff Council Coffee and Conversations will be at 11 a.m. Jan. 15 with Rory Cooper, assistant vice chancellor for research for STEM-Health Sciences collaborations, at 540 William Pitt Union.

“There’s this kid,” he told the audience at the latest Staff Council Coffee and Conversation on Dec. 1, describing himself: “He was dressed in a T-shirt. He had Jaromír Jágr bad hair. I just looked like a kid right out of 1990. They talked shop with me. At the time, I don’t think I appreciated that; now I appreciate that they could have been busy. I’m sure they were, but that’s what people do for each other.

“We have a huge campus,” he added. “It’s an aircraft carrier. But Pitt people help Pitt people and they’re proud to help Pitt people. So I have a huge debt to Pitt and hopefully, on a daily basis, just a little bit, I chip away at that debt.”

Borghetti, now special assistant to the senior vice chancellor for external relations, was for nearly three decades chief spokesperson for Pitt Athletics and director of media initiatives for the football program.

He got his Pitt “indoctrination,” he said, by his father, who played football for Pitt in the early 1960s. “I’m proud to say — and I know that he would beam if I said this — he was a member of one of the greatest teams in school history: the 1963 team that went nine-and-one, finished third in the country, famously known as the no-bowl team because of the tragic assassination of JFK,” which cancelled bowl games that year. “My earliest memories … were going up Cardiac Hill to Pitt Stadium and being around the University, and I got hooked at a very young age.”

But it wasn’t just football that inspired Borghetti toward Pitt: “My father, when he was coming up, not everybody went to college, not everybody had the wherewithal and the means to be able to, and my grandfather worked very, very hard. But it was because of a football scholarship that my father came here. He had a great experience as a football player here, as a student athlete, but more importantly that was a springboard to a career in dentistry.”

Borghetti played football in college as well, but at a lower conference level, and only for a year, ultimately sidelined by a shoulder injury — which opened the door for him to transfer to Pitt. “As a result of that little detour” in pursuit of football, he said, “I made sure that I took full advantage of everything at Pitt. I didn’t want to take it for granted. … When football was taken out of the equation, this is where I wanted to be.”

As college ended, he suggested to his father that law school might be of interest. “He said, ‘Well, that’s great, law is a great profession,’ and then he paused — I’ll never forget this — and he said, ‘What do you really want to do?’ Your parents, they’re human truth detectors. and he knew. I said, ‘Well, I’ve been interning in the athletic department and I’ve really enjoyed it,’ and he said, ‘That’s what you need to pursue.’

“He gave me the parental encouragement and support. I had great mentors in the athletic department, just great people and professionals, and I was able to parlay my experience as an undergrad assistant for two years into my first job at Columbia University.”

A position at Carnegie Mellon followed, “until I got the call back home, which is here. … I called my mom and then I got in the car and I drove to my dad’s house. I wanted to tell him in person. When I was fortunate enough to get the job opportunity to join the external relations division this past spring, I did the same thing — called my mom, told her what I was going to do, but then I wanted to see my dad in person.

“I will always be a football PR guy — that’s always in me,” he continued, However, this year he said to himself, “What can I do that may be able to contribute to the larger horizon in this institution? I wouldn’t have taken this job anywhere else.”

Asked for advice for others looking for new horizons, Borghetti offered: “I would encourage anybody who might be a little shy or introverted — believe it or not, that’s what my personality profile says, that I’m introverted and shy, so I actually had to push myself out there at times —the greatest resource here is the people. Take advantage of it. Everybody can get on ChatGPT and go look at web stuff, but there’s nothing like sitting across the table from somebody and having a conversation, person to person, and I hope that that is something that never goes out of style.”

Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.

 

Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.

Follow the University Times on Twitter and Facebook.