Mondillo helps run Gillette media show

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – It’s three hours before kickoff, but all the message screens, video displays, and “ribbon boards” are already creating a multi-colored, animated, high-definition, surround-sound atmosphere at Gillette Stadium.

It’s all part of the multi-media, game-day environment at your typical NFL venue.

There are barely 200 fans inside Gillette, but they were already greeted by the swirling, cyclonic, red-white-and-blue light illuminating the inside of Gillette’s “lighthouse” atop the main entrance.

All this – from the stroboscopic lighthouse to both 48-by-27-foot HDTV video screens, the thin ribbon boards running lengthwise on the stadium’s interior to smaller Matrix screens – is run by a 19-member crew that does its job so well, hardly anyone notices.

Dave Mondillo is one of that crew. The senior coordinations producer for the New England Patriots has been on the job for four years and last Saturday night’s AFC playoff game didn’t make for his busiest day of the week.

“It’s a normal day, really, in terms of the hours,” Mondillo said. “Today I was here by 3. The game will be over around 11 or so and I should be out of here by midnight.”

Saturday, Mondillo’s major task was to act as a facilitator and liaison between stadium and facility operations personnel and members of the television and radio broadcast media.

“We’re making sure the crew’s here, the broadcasters are all in the right places, and that they have what they need,” said the former public television engineer and producer.

So what does the Providence, R.I., native tell his two young children when they ask what their father’s job is?

“I tell them to ask their mother,” he said with a hearty laugh. “Actually, it’s such a hybrid job that’s kind of hard to describe because you do a lot of different things and it depends on the time of year.”

This time of year, it’s nongame days when Mondillo is most busy.

“I manage the TV facility downstairs, go out and shoot features for the Patriots All Access TV show, edit material, and so forth,” he explained. “Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually the most busy days for us because the players are off on Tuesdays generally and we do a lot of lifestyle type of features with them.”

Mondillo’s crew produces features on both the Patriots and Gillette’s other major tenant: The New England Revolution of Major League Soccer.

“We went four-wheel driving with Lonnie Paxton once and shopping for cowboy boots with Richard Seymour in L.A.,” Mondillo said when asked what some of his more memorable features involved.

He has two favorites, for two different reasons.

“Tom Brady came in and his linemen like to [kid] him in the locker room, so last year we were doing a segment with them for the holidays where they’d go to a restaurant and cook a holiday meal,” Mondillo recalled. “Tom got wind of it and asked if he could play a joke on his linemen there. He dressed up as Santa Claus and put a pie in the face of Dan Koppen. It was pretty funny.”

Then there was the one that wasn’t so funny.

“I think one of the most memorable things we did was when we went with Jarvis Green to New Orleans after the flooding,” Mondillo said, his smile turning into a slight frown as he recalled the experience. “He’d spent a lot of time there and we went back with him during a bye week. It was pretty emotional. He’d gone to his aunt’s house and he just broke down.

“It’s the most horrible thing I’ve seen. I think her house was in Ward Nine and there were nine houses just totally destroyed, including hers, which used to be his grandmother’s. That’s probably the most memorable thing I’ve done since I’ve been here.”

Mondillo got into the business by accident. He started out studying electrical engineering in college, landed a part-time job at a Providence PBS station, and then moved over to Boston’s WBZ as an editor and producer. From there, he moved to Los Angeles with his wife to work for Fox Sports. Eight years later, they came back to Boston to be closer to family.

“I didn’t have anything lined up when we came back, but this just kinda happened,” he said. “I was working for Boston Bureau Productions and two of the guys who worked with the Patriots told me to come over and they might have something for me. I came back and we talked a bit and who knew? But I got a full-time gig right when they were building the stadium.”

Talk about timing. Mondillo says he and the Patriots have come a long way since the days of Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium.

“This place… It’s a dream compared to the other place,” said Mondillo. “This has turned out really well for me. I grew up in this area and when I was a kid, the Patriots were kind of the laughing stock of the league. Now they’re the complete opposite.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or at aneff@bangordailynews.com