Gicewicz is a quiet leader. His position--middle guard--is one of the most anonymous on a football team.
He is embarassed by the teasing, the catcalls. He is not one who has been tapped for opinions on football by reporters in the past. But his theories are serious, his opinions interesting and perceptive.
"I'm a big believer that in a game like football that no team ever just rolls over another team," he says "There are always a few big plays, a few breakdowns, a few crucial plays that you have to come through."
It is an apt description of what happened to the Crimson last season: a few missed snaps, a close loss and the snowball started rolling.
For him the game depends on an attitude, an approach, He is happy to be the leader of a nameless, faceless team. A team with no stars, but many hungry players.
"This team is inexperienced, everything is a potential problem," he admits, but he seems almost pleased with the thought. He likes the idea of a fight, a struggle.
It is easy to see that Collins and Gicewicz are roommates, good friends. When Collins talks of this football season, there are echoes of Gicewicz's theories, and their matching stubble makes you wonder if the room they share is one without razor or shaving cream.
Collins, too speaks of "hungry' players, and the absence of any one big star who can afford to be "cocky," have an "attitude."
"Inexperience is an ambiguous world," he says. "Because we don't' have experience, we have hungry players."
Gicewicz and Collins are hungry themselves. Hungry enough for a last chance at football, a final season, that they came back even though their class is gone.
It is because, both of them say, they love the sport. It is in the blood.
"I decided kind of all through last football season," Gicewicz says. "It wasn't frustration, just love of the game."
His philosophy on this one is, "Play while you can, you only have so many years."
Not surprisingly, Collins fell quickly into his line of thinking as well.
"I missed football that much," says Collins. "I thought it was a tough decision, but it really wasn't I didn't miss anything. Football is just the icing on the cake."