Denison University Big Red
Zack saw play his freshman year. By sophomore year, Zack was starting right guard. The Big Red enjoyed their first consecutive year winning season since 1985.
Team Record
2013: 7-3
2014: 6-4
2015: 7-3
Central Catholic Vikings
In 2009, Zack played both Left Guard and Nose Tackle on Central’s freshman team. In 2010, Zack played JV and found some playing time on Varsity. By 2011, Zack was starting Left Guard for the Pittsburgh Central Catholic Varsity football team.
Team Record
2009: 6-1-1
2010: 11-1, Conference Champions
2011: 11-1, Conference Champions
2012: 8-3
Ultimate Road Warriors by Kevin Gorman, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The Central Catholic band played the school fight song as Vikings players in full uniform exited the locker room Friday night into a steady rain, walking in pairs as if they were headed for Noah’s Ark.
The team walked up the driveway next to WQED, turning right onto Fifth Avenue during rush-hour traffic. Players tried to avoid being splashed by passing cars before turning right onto a private drive and walking through a parking lot until they reached the intersection of Forbes and Morewood.
Honking horns greeted Central players as they crossed the street and filed into Carnegie Mellon University’s Gesling Stadium, one of several sites that serve as home field for the all-boys school in the heart of Oakland.
“It’s a tradition I’ll always remember,” said Central senior Anthony Nixon, a wide receiver-safety. “When I think of a Central home game, it will be of us lined up two-by-two and people beeping at us.”
What is most remarkable about Central Catholic’s football success — the Vikings have won three WPIAL and two PIAA Class AAAA championships since 2003 and are ranked No. 1 in WPIAL and state and No. 20 nationally by USA Today this season — is it doesn’t have a home field.
“We try to sell the kids on the fact that we’ll play anywhere,” Central Catholic coach Terry Totten said. “It’s part of our identity.”
The football tradition at Central runs deep. Photographs of six state championship teams, spanning 1951 to 2007, line the walls inside the locker room. Photos of the school’s most famous football alum, Dan Marino, wearing both a Kodak All-American cardigan and a Pro Football Hall of Fame blazer, are outside the coaches’ office, with framed jerseys of Marino and former Pro Bowl quarterback Marc Bulger in the weight room.
What’s missing is a home field.
Central has no room to build a stadium on campus, so it has been forced to play home games anywhere from CMU and Duquesne University’s Art Rooney Field to rival high schools such as Fox Chapel, Mt. Lebanon and Woodland Hills over the years.
The Vikings feel like the ultimate road warriors, believing their travels negate any home-field advantage for opponents, especially after the first round of the WPIAL playoffs.
“Away games never feel like away games,” Central senior linebacker Louis Taglianetti said. “I like always having to go away, to prove ourselves on the road. It’s an advantage either way.”
That’s the sales pitch, and it’s working.
“They’ve been selling it for years,” said Vikings offensive coordinator Dave Fleming, a ’92 Central graduate. “It doesn’t really matter. Tell us when and where and we’ll show up to play football.”
Zack Troy 