| [The following is a
transcript of Massillon Head Football Coach Rick Sheoas'
introduction of Justion Zwick, followed by Zwick's
complete statement.] Football By O-Zone Staff (Transcript) Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rick Shepas, head football coach and athletic director for the Massillon City Schools. I'm very excited to be with you here this afternoon for a very important announcement from our athletic department. This is a very exciting time in our school district right now. Our superintendent Al Hennen has done an outstanding job in getting our district back on track and obviously we have some exciting players to look forward to here next fall which makes it even more exciting. I'd like to mention to you that an experience like this hasn't taken place in Massillon in probably some 17 or 18 years. Obviously you would remember Chris Spielman who played for the Tigers and had a great career here and ended up having a great career in college and in the pros. These things don't happen very often so obviously I feel very privileged to be with you here today and to have the opportunity to be part of this process. Justin Zwick is a very special person. He's a very special young man. He comes from an outstanding family. Obviously they are seated here to my right. Bill, his father; Linda, Jared his older brother; Stacey her friend Chris is with us today and obviously Grandpa is here for this momentous occasion. He comes from a very solid family and I can't help but understand the reason why he has been so successful. He's blessed with outstanding talent. We are very fortunate here at Massillon to have the opportunity to be a part of this process. Justin obviously has accumulated a number of statistics. But a couple of these things I would mention to you are that he has over 7,200 yards as a high school quarterback going into this season. He has 70 touchdowns which obviously will give him the opportunity to be one of the more special quarterbacks that ever played in the state of Ohio. But I would also mention that as a National Honor Society student with his 4.0 GPA makes him a very well rounded individual. He works on all of those things. If I can take a minute to introduce some folks who have been a part of this process and are kind enough to be here. I'll just go right around the corner. Paul David is here and he's been a proud booster of this fine Tiger football program for some many years. Paul is here with us today. The mayor of our great city, who has done a great job, Mayor Francis Chiccinelli over to my left is with us here today. Done an outstanding job turning this town around. We have Bob Rohrer our building principal at the high school with us here today. Al Hennen our superintendent is with us along with Dan Murphy our offensive coordinator. Jeff Thornberry our faculty manager is here. We also have Cathie Pape our administrative assistant who did such a great job setting up this press conference. I'd also like to thank Joey Babarry the owner of Copper's for letting us have this press conference here. Before I leave the podium I'd just like to say some thank-yous to some special people. Justin has had many offers throughout the course of the recruiting process that began actually last summer. I'd like to mention some of them to you so you have an idea of how many folks came a-callin'. I would mention The Ohio State University to you. The University of Michigan. Michigan State. Kentucky. Pittsburgh. Iowa. Northwestern. Boston College. Miami of Florida. LSU. Tennessee. Wake Forest. Texas. University of Southern California. I'd like to say some special thanks to some guys who did a really great job during the recruiting process. We felt that Stan Parrish from the University of Michigan did an outstanding job in the recruiting process. He really tried to establish a relationship with Justin and did an outstanding job doing so. We felt that Jim Bollman at The Ohio State University did an outstanding job in the recruiting process. Mike Barry from the University of Tennessee, outstanding job. Mark Stoops from Miami of Florida University did an outstanding job. We wanted to say a special thanks to them along with a special person as well that made the decision very tough and obviously that would be Walt Harris from the University of Pittsburgh. So thank you to all those universities for their interest in Justin Zwick as well as number of our Massillon Tigers who will graduate next spring. Without further adieu, I would like to introduce the man of the hour here for you. If you would come to the podium Justin for your announcement. Justin Zwick. Justin Zwick's Announcement By O-Zone Staff (Transcript) Good afternoon. I'd like to send some thank-yous out to the media for coming down today. We've got some from Cleveland and Columbus and all the local media. The administration, Mr. Rohrer and Mr. Hennen. You've got booster club members, sideliners, coaching staff, Coach Murph. Thank you guys for coming. The reason we are here today is that I decided where I'm going to be attending college. This spring has been pretty hectic with all the coaches coming in trying to sell me on their school. So it's kind of nice to finally make my decision and today I'm getting it over with. The things I was looking for when the coaches were coming in and talking to me I think the one thing that was most important to me was the degree that I'm going to get from the university that I choose. How is that going to help me after football is over with? If I never took a snap again what am I going to do with the degree I get? That was the main thing I was looking for. Secondly, my family is very important to me. They've been very supportive throughout this whole process. I'd like to thank Mom and Dad, my brother and sister, Grandpa. They've been real supportive of me. They always have. Growing up they've always been to my brother's and sister's events. They've always been to mine even though they are in college they are always coming home and attending my football games, basketball game, whatnot. So the family was an important thing in thinking where I want to go. Are they going to be able to come down to catch dinner with me some night? Things like that are important to you. Thirdly, the relationships that I've made during the recruiting process is pretty important. Coach Harris in Pittsburgh. Coach Parrish from Michigan. Coach Bollman and Coach Tressel from Ohio State. You've got to feel comfortable with the coaches that are recruiting you, your position coaches, and head coaches. You've got to feel comfortable with the coaches just to go talk to them if you need to. That was also something else that was important to me. The reason why I'm deciding today, there are a couple of them, I want a chance to focus on my senior year here at Massillon. We got a good nucleus of players coming back and it's going to be exciting. So getting this out of the way will enable me to just focus on the goals we've set here in Massillon and we'll get the job done hopefully. After visiting a lot of the schools, I made a pros and cons list of what schools I like, what I liked about the school, what I didn't like about the school. I feel that I have found a school that is great. It fits all the things I talked about and a school that has everything I've been looking for. And that...that school will be Ohio State University (displays an Ohio State football jersey with the number 12 and "Zwick" on the back...to much applause). Some of the reasons why I've chosen OSU...I feel very comfortable with the coaching staff down there. Coach Tressel coached my brother at Youngstown State and a lot of the other coaches were at Youngstown that he brought with him. Coach Bollman from the Bears has a lot of experience from the NFL, other colleges. Coach Daniels, quarterback and receiving coach, came from Cincinnati and they ran a wide-open offense down there. I've been down to meetings, practices. I've met all these guys and I feel very comfortable being around them. I feel comfortable enough to spend the next four or five years of my life with them. How my family is going to be involved with me is another reason why I chose OSU. My brother is going to be right around the corner if I ever need anything. Call him up and go out and get dinner or something. My family, my parents will be able to drive down, an hour-and-a-half shot down to Columbus catch games, whatever. If I'm going through a rough time or something call them up and they will be there. Since Coach Tressel came in and brought his new staff with him, that's another thing I was thinking about, they will probably be there during my tenure down at Ohio State four or five years. They will probably be there. That's another thing I considered. Because with a lot of coaches you don't know if they are going to be there. You don't know what's going to happen, maybe get fired or go to another job. With Coach Tressel, like when my brother was at Youngstown, I really got to know how Coach Tressel works his programs. It's really a team first atmosphere that he brings to them and it's also a family first atmosphere. He's a kind of coach where you can just sit down and talk to him. He cares about you more than just being a football player. He cares about you being a person. Another thing that helps with Ohio State is the academic stuff. I feel comfortable with Kate Riffee, the head of the academic staff down there. I feel comfortable with that and they just built an academic center. So I think those are things that helped my decision and are going to help me in the future. Return to O-Zone Columns and Features (c)2001 The O-Zone,
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