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Posted on Sun, Aug. 06, 2006email thisprint thisreprint or license this
OSU walk-ons share humbling experience
Former Wooster High football stars receive fresh start with Buckeyes
By Zach Silka
Beacon Journal sportswriter
About to embark upon the most thrilling moment of their football careers, Ben Kacsandi and Joe Gantz made sure to find the only other person who would understand this moment: the other.
The pair found one another in the tunnel before running onto the field at Ohio Stadium under the lights, with a packed house anxiously awaiting last season's game with Texas.
As walk-ons on the Ohio State football team, this was the crowning event in a long road that had taken them from stardom at Wooster High School to lessons in humility on the Buckeyes' scout team.
``There's nobody else I'd rather run out with,'' said Gantz, a redshirt freshman. ``Standing there with a guy you grew up with, we already had that bond. Just to look across was something special and say, `We did it. We're here.' ''
Kacsandi, a year older and a year wiser, was Gantz's quarterback in high school and his mentor in college. Gantz was Kacsandi's running back in high school and his shoulder to lean on in college.
Now, as the 2006 training camp begins Monday, both are an inspiration to many.
``They kind of relied on each other, kind of kindred spirits here fighting the same fight and from the same place,'' said Kim Gantz, Joe's mother.
``I think they've been each other's biggest support. I know we appreciated Ben because he showed Joe the ropes down there'' she said.
As the trailblazer, Kacsandi faced more than just the normal pains of going away to college. Not only did he have to hit his school books, he had to memorize the playbooks of every Ohio State opponent as a quarterback on the scout team.
After his senior season at Wooster in 2003, in which he was named first-team All-Ohio Cardinal Conference and threw for nearly 1,200 yards with 12 touchdowns and three interceptions, Kacsandi had to start all over again at Ohio State.
``All of sudden you go from the top to the bottom. It's definitely a humbling experience having to go through all that,'' said Kacsandi, now a redshirt sophomore.
``It was cool just to have the experience and to be here, (but) I guess once I got deeper and deeper into it, you have that need to play more. You can only run out of the tunnel so many times. After you absorb all the atmosphere, you realize I'm here to play football. I'm not here just to enjoy the sights.''
Just as he was finally settling into a groove at Ohio State and ready to take on more responsibility, Kacsandi got a phone call from Gantz saying he also had been offered a spot as a recruited walk-on.
``That was huge for me,'' Kacsandi said. ``I almost feel like I was lucky because I got to help him out (with) all the little mistakes I made and possibly prevent him from doing those and really kind of set him straight in different areas.''
Gantz spent an hour and a half on the phone with Kacsandi that first night after receiving his offer from Ohio State coach Jim Tressel. It was during that exchange that a close friendship was born.
During this past year, the two became closer than they ever had been in high school.
``We hit it off (and still) hang out a lot,'' Gantz said. ``Just being together in practice and relying on each other to get through stuff at times, it's been great.''
Since both are walk-ons, Kacsandi and Gantz can understand like nobody else the motivation to drag yourself to practice every day only to be the tackling dummy of your own team's defense.
``Ben and I are down there doing this basically because we love the game of football,'' Gantz said. ``We love Ohio State. We grew up wishing to play there, and now we have the opportunity. You just thank God every day that we get to go out there and put the pads on.''
Both had opportunities to play at smaller schools -- Kacsandi at Otterbein and Gantz at Ashland -- but declined them to pursue something bigger.
``With Joe, if he would have gone somewhere else and played Division II or Division III and done OK, he would have always had in the back of his mind, `Am I good enough that I could have played at the next level?' I think that's why he's going this route,'' said Gary Gantz, Joe's father.
For Kacsandi and Gantz's parents, the excitement of being a part of the long-standing tradition of Ohio State football has been just as rewarding.
The two families have been lifelong fans of the Buckeyes. Joe Kacsandi, Ben's father, even wore a helmet liner with the score of the 1969 Rose Bowl on the back during his stint in Vietnam. Yet both of the players' mothers didn't make their first trip to the Horseshoe until their sons suited up in the scarlet and gray.
``I've always said, `Well, when my son's playing for Ohio State, then I'll go to a football game,' so last year, I had to go to a football game,'' Kim Gantz said.
Just as any high school coach does, Mike McCreary looks back fondly on all of his former players, but this pair stands out from the rest. Kacsandi and Gantz led the Generals to the playoffs twice during their three years together, but even more important than that for McCreary was that they were ``just great kids.''
The pair demonstrated that this summer, making service trips to China and Los Angeles as a part of the Athletes in Action organization.
``It was just a joy to be around them,'' McCreary said. ``They didn't think highly of themselves. They just worked hard to be successful.''
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Zach Silka can be reached at 330-996-3800 or [email protected]
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/sports/colleges/15211306.htm
