Originally Posted by benjamindallas554
SOUTH BEND – The roommates smile, flash goofy grins and realize the plan will soon come to fruition.
Tom Zbikowski can stand there, his white boxing gloves and white T-shirt glistening after a training workout at Fight Club in South Bend and think back to it. So, too, can Jeff Samardzija, the long-haired, Led Zeppelin T-shirt-wearing cult fixture at Notre Dame.
The two of them are rare, both in personality and in mission. Zbikowski turns professional this week in a sport other than football and Samardzija will likely join him, offering closure to an almost two-decades old dream hatched before the two even knew each other, let alone became best friends.
They are the last of a diminishing breed of athletes – ones competing in multiple sports on high levels.
“It’s pretty nuts,” Samardzija said. “It’s funny because we live together and to us, it’s not different than growing up with your buddy around the block. We have fun, but I think it says a lot about us.”
It says how gifted these two athletes are. Samardzija is an All-American wide receiver in football and a potential high draft pick in baseball as a pitcher whose fastball tops out at 99 mph. Zbikowski is an All-American safety and an elite amateur boxer who will make his professional debut in Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Both are also considered top prospects for the 2007 NFL Draft.
What Samardzija and Zbikowski are doing is more than becoming the next multisport stars on the American athletic landscape. They are helping define Notre Dame as an institution willing to nurture dual-sport athletes.
It is this viewpoint that gives Notre Dame a recruiting edge.
“It helps with the next multiple-sport guy that you are recruiting,” Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said. “You already have a reputation that you are willing to do it. Think about it, you’re a guy who is out there who runs a 10.3 100 meters and is a wide receiver. Well, there is a guy out there who already does it and that makes it a little easier when you have someone who has a track record to being open-minded and willing to do that.”
While the talents and accolades Samardzija and Zbikowski earned are still relatively new, they are the tip of what seems to be an influx of multi-sport athletes heading into Notre Dame’s football program.
Rising sophomore backup quarterback Evan Sharpley could end up being Notre Dame’s starting first baseman next season. Incoming freshman Will Yeatman will play tight end on the football field and is a standout attack in lacrosse in San Diego. Another incoming freshman, Eric Olsen, committed to football, but is also a standout lacrosse player in New York City. He hasn’t said, however, that he plans on playing both sports.
Despite increasing numbers, athletes the caliber of Samardzija and Zbikowski aren’t commonplace. Notre Dame has had its share of multi-sport athletes, most famously former major league pitcher Ron Reed, but to have two of this caliber at the same time is unique.
“Offseason, some kids lay around and just do nothing and you’ve got Jeff playing baseball and probably getting drafted and succeeding like that and it just shows the diversity of the program,” Zbikowski said.
This, the entire program hopes, is a future selling point. As recruiting becomes more difficult and advantages and allures of certain programs diminish with trimmed scholarship numbers and more parity, having a track record in this area can’t hurt a program.
The coaches don’t confer on players, although if there is mutual interest the option is discussed. Weis’ rule in the situation is this: If they have enough talent to warrant the missed time from football and are academically comfortable, they are cleared to attempt a two-sport career. ND baseball coach Paul Mainieri said he follows whatever Weis says.
“It’s a very, very unique circumstance,” Notre Dame men’s lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan said. “The fact that people have done it at Notre Dame, it’s the exception that proves the rule.”
More athletes might want to do this, but it does take a special type to pull it off. Both Zbikowski and Samardzija have deep passions for boxing and baseball, respectively, possibly even more than football. They both have been playing those sports since childhood and both have escaped major injury which could have set them back.
“When I look at Zbikowski or Samardzija, they are physical specimens,” former Indiana quarterback and first baseman Gibran Hamdan said. “One sport feels inept to them, not enough.”
It is a unique observation and no one might fit the label ‘unique’ better than Zbikowski. What Samardzija is doing has been accomplished before but in Zbikowski’s case, it is something totally different. He is embarking on a boxing career despite an NFL contract looming less than a year away. Splitting time between boxing and football has been a difficult transition, the toughest part balancing the training between the two, but for the Arlington Heights, Ill., native, the potential of boxing in the Garden was dream turned reality.
Both Samardzija and Zbikowski said the willingness of coaches – and in Zbikowski’s case, promoter Bob Arum – to cooperate was an integral factor.
Even though the talent, drive and willingness are there, it still doesn’t make it any easier on days when the athlete has practice in both sports on top of a full academic load.
“There are just days where I don’t want to, I’m waking up at 9 a.m., doing my lifting and running five days a week and then I come here (to box) later on at night when my arms are just burning,” Zbikowski said. “But it’s all going to pay off.”
It will both in experience and money. Zbikowski received an undisclosed sum of money to participate in the four-round heavyweight fight. Samardzija will receive a signing bonus should he ink a baseball contract after being drafted this week.
Thinking about this is when the eyes grow even wider.
It’s time to spruce up the apartment. Both have their lists of wants, although they are keeping them separate – with one exception: a 60-inch plasma high definition television.
“That’s the one that joins at the top and it splits from there and goes down,” Samardzija said of his wish list. “We haven’t shared lists but I’m keeping mine secret. I don’t want any overlap from him.”
“June 11, I’m going to be in Best Buy picking it up,” Zbikowski said separately.
Either way, the television will symbolize something much greater – materialistic and tangible proof they followed Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders and Brian Jordan and have become the next generation of dual-sport stars.
