Quinten Arello: Athleticism Led Him to Dartmouth

When Joe Paterno was deciding whether to recruit running back Curt Warner to Penn State he famously traveled to West Virginia to see him play basketball, not football.

"You can check out a kid's quickness, his balance, reactions, coordination, everything," explained Paterno, who would see Warner graduate as the Nittany Lions' all-time rushing leader and be chosen third overall in the NFL Draft.

Watching an athlete run up and down the court, jump and cut makes sense, even if he can't shoot worth a lick. Making a decision about a high school football player you saw in person only on a baseball diamond is a little riskier, but it certainly worked out for Dartmouth in the case of free safety Quinten Arello.

It was former nickels coach Kyle Cavanaugh '09, himself a football/baseball player at Dartmouth, who made the call on Arello. A gifted center fielder, he helped his high school baseball team go 27-7 and finish fourth in the state of Missouri as a senior, earning honorable mention all-state honors along the way.

"The first film we got from Quinten wasn't great quality, blurry, bounced around, difficult to evaluate," Cavanaugh explained. "But from the couple plays that came through you saw a glimpse — fluidity, always seeming to put himself in great position, good size."

Intrigued, Cavanaugh decided to drop in at Staley High School in Kansas City to get a better look.

"Because the film quality wasn't great, I wanted to try to find an opportunity to see him move around live — a spring practice or something," Cavanaugh continued. "He played baseball and the only opportunity was going to be at a baseball practice — not ideal but the best we could do. So, I sat in the bleachers and watched him. And what I saw in person backed up that glimpse on film. He had good mobility in his hips and legs, moved smoothly and had good size."

After hearing Staley head football coach Phil Lite rave about Arello's football IQ and leadership skills, and then seeing his senior film, Cavanaugh was sold.

It took longer for Arello, a two-time selection to the all-state first team on the gridiron as a defensive back, to be sold on Dartmouth.

Congratulations to Quinten Arello for being selected Defensive Player of the Year in the @gkcscathletics Red Division #StaleyStrong pic.twitter.com/j1itZjnyjO
— Staley Football (@StaleyFootball) November 19, 2018

"Coach Cavanaugh came to a baseball practice and talked to me a little bit afterward, so I decided to give Dartmouth a look," Arello said, recalling that he originally pronounced the second syllable of the school name mouth. "It sounded familiar, but I'm not sure I'd actually ever heard of it before.

"Once I looked it up, I thought, 'This is crazy.' As a kid out of Kansas City, the idea of going to an Ivy League school just never crossed my mind. I didn't even know these schools have football."

As a two-time selection to the Missouri Class 5 All-State First Team and an academic all-state selection, Arello eventually started to draw passing interest from several Ivies. But it amounted to little more than those schools following him on Twitter. "None of them other than Dartmouth even gave me the time of day afterward," he said.

Until Yale came into the picture.

"Obviously, with Yale being Yale, you can get kind of get caught up in the name," Arello admitted. "I got two offers and both were pretty late in terms of when people usually get offers. I got my Dartmouth offer January 6 and Yale wasn't until something like January 20."

He took official visits to both schools and Dartmouth eventually won the day. "It was the people," Arello said. "That's why I originally chose to come up here. I had a great visit. R.J. Brandon, our receiver who graduated last year, Connor Davis '21 and (fellow safety) Sam Koscho '23, were the buddies I hung out with, and they were great.

"I just loved the atmosphere here. I love being able to ski in the winter and being able to go to the river in the summer. It's a very diverse place with a lot of opportunities."

Arello made the most of his opportunities as a freshman when he was one of just three first-year players to appear in every game. He even started the homecoming win over Yale, contributing his first interception.

1Q 3:09 | INTERCEPTION AGAIN! The rookie Quinten Arello steps in front of a Yale receiver and collects his first career interception in his first career start! #DartFB ball with another scoring opportunity, watch on ESPN+! https://t.co/nNHcTODS4j pic.twitter.com/g8lVd9vXyK
— Dartmouth Football (@DartmouthFTBL) October 12, 2019

"Injuries had forced me up the depth chart and I'm glad I was able to make the most of it," he said. "Looking back now, it's amazing it worked out the way that it did."

Delayed a year by the pandemic, Arello's second season saw him move into a starter's role and earn the Kenneth T. Young Award as the defensive underclassman who most contributed to the success of the team. He helped the Big Green finish fourth in the nation against the pass and fifth in total defense while earning his second Ivy League championship ring.

Last spring, the kid who never imagined himself playing on an Ivy League football team found himself voted captain of one, along with quarterback Nick Howard and defensive lineman Shane Cokes. While he views Howard as the beating heart of the team and Cokes as someone who will, in his words, "get after you" when it's needed, his approach is more laid back.

"As a leader, I'm more of the guy that steps back and kind of takes the one-on-one side with people," he said. "I'll let them know, 'Hey, it's going to be all right. You just have to do this, this and this, and you're going to be fine.'

"Can I be one of those people bringing the juice every day? I'm not sure that's my type of leadership, but if it's needed, I will get after people."

Coach Buddy Teevens knows that's not Arello's style.

"He's calm, steady, reliable and consistent," he said. "He's got a great way with the younger guys. He's unflappable. You name it and he's seen it before. He can direct traffic, and that demeanor is important because sometimes in the back end you can get really twitchy and hyped. He's a controlling and comforting influence."

Just before the end of 3Q, Quinten Arello picks off a long Harvard pass for his 2nd career interception! #DartFB looking to add to its 17-14 lead to start 4Q! Watch on NESN or ESPN+: https://t.co/1RcCKZLcP7 pic.twitter.com/lEoqd5xHTT
— Dartmouth Football (@DartmouthFTBL) October 30, 2021

With the rest of the starting secondary graduating, that's exactly what the Big Green needed coming into this season. Borrowing from defensive coordinator Don Dobes' lexicon, he has referred to himself as one of the "bus drivers" of the defense.

"If we start panicking, everybody else is going to start panicking," he said. "So we've got to stay calm, cool and collected out there and make sure everybody is on the same page."

The only member of his class to play in every game since arriving in Hanover, Arello clearly remembers the help he got from older teammates when he was pressed into action as a starter against Yale his freshman year. He has tapped into that memory both as a leader of the secondary and as a leader of the team.

"I was very blessed to have Ryan Roegge '20, who knew the defense inside and out, in front of me," he said. "He's the reason I was able to learn the defense as a freshman and do fine against Yale. Moving forward, Isiah Swann '20 — a smart kid and an amazing football player — helped me out and then Niko (Mermigas) '21, a great leader who took control of the secondary. Isaiah Johnson '22 let you know what you had to do to be successful. And he wasn't going to be shy about it, which is what you need in a football team.

"Now we have young guys that I'm trying to coach up the way those guys coached me. I'm trying to express to them that you don't have to be some crazy athlete to be good at football. You just have to do your own job, pay attention to the little things and stay disciplined, and it will all take care of itself."

You may not have to be a crazy athlete, but in Arello's case, it certainly helped to be a pretty good baseball player.

QUESTIONS FOR Q
You were really a good swimmer growing up. How did that come about and why did you give it up?
My mom was a dancer and swimmer and pretty strong for her size, so I probably got my athletic genes from her, although my dad would say it's him (laughs). I swam up until eighth grade. Backstroke was my best. I used to go to conference finals and all that stuff and place top eight pretty much every year. Once high school football started, we had summer lifts and summer practice and stuff. That ran into any competitive swim time that I was doing and so I just had to pick one or the other. I decided to drop swimming.

How close did you come to playing baseball in college instead of football?
I always figured I would go the baseball route. In high school I liked football better. But I just always figured it would be baseball because all my friends were committing to baseball. I got a few offers in baseball, but nothing really stuck. My senior year is when I sat down and said, "Okay, I'm going the football route." And honestly, it's probably the best decision I could have made. It's what brought me here. I love the team. I love playing football and I love the school.

You gave a speech at your high school graduation. What was that like and what was your speech about?
You had to try out and when I was chosen I was freaking out. There must have been like 6,000 people in the stands. There were two other speeches that were pretty serious, so I wanted to be a little more laid back and light-hearted. It was basically about trying hard and that failing is OK if you live and learn.

Your major is economics and you are minoring in human-centered design, which is described as combining "engineering and design thinking to address human needs." Can you give an example that would explain what this is?
In my ENGS 21 class, my group decided to find an existing problem in our current environment, which happened to be at Baker-Berry Library, where students couldn't find open seating during finals season. They would search the library for 15 to 30 minutes, just trying to find a suitable study spot. So we decided to use engineering sciences, surveys and psychology and stuff like that, to engineer a product, or engineer a solution to that existing problem.

What we were able to create were basically placemats, where if you set something down on top of it, it would register onto a platform or website that would show the seat was currently taken. If a student decided that they wanted to go study at Baker-Berry Library, they could actually see in real time where open seats were in the library.

Did you actually produce it?
No, we had a very small scale model of about three. It would have been too much to produce more than that. We were on a $600 budget.

Is it true you used to sell fireworks?
That was my job the summer before coming to Dartmouth. I would talk to people to see what kind of fireworks they were looking for and basically try to sell them something they wanted that would fit their budget.

Did you get samples?
To be honest, I'm not a big fireworks person so I didn't take any.

What can you say about playing for Coach Buddy Teevens and secondary coach Sammy McCorkle?
I love both of them. Coach Mac is a smart, smart football individual who really knows how to position you to put you in the best place to be successful. Then Coach T is obviously the face of the organization, and he really holds it together. He's the glue. He's always looking out for your best interests and has some great connections to help you out post-college.

What are your plans after graduation?
That is a great question and I don't have the answer. I look at my life post-Dartmouth as being kind of like an open book with a bunch of blank pages. I can kind of decide where I want to go from there and start writing.

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