By Nathan Vaughan, News Staff

This is the first in the series of articles profiling the five top male and female senior athletes at Northeastern, culminating in the Huntington News male and female’ Senior Athletes of the Year.

Although Anthony Orio walked at the graduation ceremony last May with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, summa cum laude, his time at Northeastern ended this fall. He was first on campus in 2004 ‘- his redshirt year.
He began his four-year tenure as the starting quarterback the next season.
‘There were sacrifices that had to be made to allow me to be successful in school,’ Orio said. ‘I went to a pretty good high school that was challenging both academically and athletically and it prepared me well. It was pretty similar to my college experience.’
The Voorhees, N.J. native is in the top five at Northeastern in five different career categories.
He finished third in passing with 5,540 yards. He completed 493 of his 871 passes, which is good for second in both of those categories. That ratio also led to the highest completion percentage of any quarterback at Northeastern, with 57 percent. His 30 touchdown passes are also good for fifth all-time.
He also finished his Husky career with 596 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns.’ On Oct. 29, 2005 in a 14-12 loss to Northwestern State he caught a 36 yard reception from wide receiver Cory Parks on a gadget play.
Orio took the reins in the first game of 2005 against Georgia Southern. In the game he went 13-of-19 for 221 yards with two touchdown passes and also ran the ball in once.
That performance earned him the Atlantic-10 (A-10) Rookie of the Week status. He went on to break the Northeastern freshman passing record, which had previously been held by Jim Murphy.
In his sophomore year, Orio split time with’ fellow classmate John Sperrazza but was still able to put up good numbers. He tied his predecessor Shawn Brady’s single-season passing completion percentage record at 61 percent. He rushed for a career-high 91 yard against Rhode Island in the last game of the season. He was a member of the A-10 All-Academic team that year.
The next year, the Huskies moved to the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) which replaced the A-10. This didn’t affect the football team as drastically as it did other teams. The team started off with a tough pair of losses, including their home opener. Orio helped the team bounce back against Northwestern State with two rushing and two passing touchdowns. The team was unable to win again until they visited New Hampshire. That day, Orio had a career day completing 11-of-12 passes for 91.7 percent the best single game performance by a Husky (minimum 10 attempts) ever.
In the final home game he led the team on a game-winning 92-yard drive.
Between his junior and senior seasons there was heated debate at NU about cutting the football team.
‘I don’t think [the debates] affected me at all,’ Orio said. ‘They were focused before my last year of eligibility. There had been discussions and rumors before but nothing had happened. Personally I didn’t let it affect me at all. The only way it would’ve affected me was if they cut it. I wasn’t going to sit there and let discussions and rumors affect me on a day-to-day basis.’
Despite graduating, Orio came back for one more season and started all 12 games.
He set career highs in both passing yards and touchdowns, with 2,058 yards and 11 touchdowns.
The 2008 season probably wasn’t the season Orio decided to come back for. The team won only two games:’ one road CAA game against Towson and a home non-conference win against UC Davis. He had the longest pass of his career, an 80 yard touchdown strike against Massachusetts on Oct. 11 and had a career high 28 completions in a losing effort against New Hampshire on Oct. 18
Now, Orio is relaxing after being accepted to Robert Wood Johnson medical school, located near Rutgers University this Christmas break.
He will be starting there this August. He said he plans to specialize in orthopedic surgery.
‘I had a great time athletically and academically,’ Orio said. ‘I was fortunate enough to have a lot of good professors and a lot of good experiences athletically.’