The East Carolina football community is certainly suffering this afternoon after learning that assistant coach Thomas “Rock” Roggeman had passed away earlier Monday after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.
Roggeman was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma last year and went on medical from his position as a Pirates’ defensive line coach on Sept. 28.
Roggeman, a player at Notre Dame in the mid-eighties, was hired as an assistant on Skip Holtz’s in 2004; he remained at the university after Holtz left for the South Florida job earlier this offseason.
His other coaching stops included Louisville and Eastern Michigan.
Our condolences go out to Roggeman’s family and friends.
