When Nick Carparelli Jr. decided to leave his job as director of operations with the New England Patriots to become assistant commissioner for football in the Big East Conference he figured it would be without much fanfare. After all, he’d only been with the Patriots for one year. But what a memorable year it turned out to be.

Long known as a franchise that couldn’t seem to get out of its own way, the Patriots became Team Unity during the 2001-2002 season and won the NFL’s Super Bowl.

Unity, it turns out, carried over to the team’s management as well. Carparelli and the other full-time office staff employees received Super Bowl rings.

“It was something of a surprise,” Carparelli said. “We had heard we might be included [along with the players and coaches].”

Carparelli grew up spending his summers in Maine. His father, Nick Sr., attended John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor. He is Vasco and Bob Baldacci’s half-brother and is U.S. Rep. John Baldacci’s godfather.

Nick Sr. went on to become a teacher in Connecticut but he brought his family back to Maine each summer.

“I was raised in Cheshire, Connecticut, but we spent our summers on Lakeview Drive at Lucerne-in-Maine,” Carparelli said.

Carparelli attended Worcester (Mass.) Polytechnic Institute in Mass. and then took a job as assistant director for football operations at Syracuse University. While there, he earned his MBA.

After a year at Notre Dame as director of football operations he came to the Patriots. His job was to make the players and coaches jobs easier.

“I worked very closely with coaches and players on the logistics for whatever we did. Travel and facilities. Everything [Bill Belichick] needed so that he could coach and not be bothered with anything else,” Carparelli said.

The hard work of Carparelli and others like him in the Patriots’ front office was part of the process in the Patriots’ unlikely run to the NFL title. The players and staff’s work was honored at a ring ceremony at the Boston Harbor Hotel where they were each presented with Super Bowl rings.

“It was neat. We arrived and they had a red carpet laid out. We had dinner and [team owner] Robert Kraft spoke. While he was speaking, they had waiters and waitresses coming around with silver platters with the boxes containing the rings,” Carparelli said.

The rings were appraised at $15,000 each. The Patriots purchased and issued almost 250 rings.

Last March, Carparelli decided to leave the Patriots to take his current job with the Big East Conference. Despite the Patriots’ success, he said it was not a hard decision to make.

“It was a big step up for me career-wise. It got me back into the area of collegiate athletics where my future really lies,” Carparelli said.

In his role with the Big East, Carparelli has day-to-day contact with conference coaches and athletic directors regarding policy and scheduling. He also deals with bowl representatives in an effort to get as many Big East teams into bowl games as possible. He will also be heavily involved in administering the Bowl Championship Series. The Big East took over that responsibility this year from the ACC.

He did take the time, however, to assist in arranging the Patriots’ visit to Bangor in April.

He does this work from his office in Providence, R.I. And if he needs a reminder of what success can bring, he only needs to look at the ring he has taken off his finger and placed on the desk.

“I have to take it off,” he said. “I can’t wear it at work. It really kinda gets in the way of everything you do.”

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net