Sportsman of the Year: Giant Leap North Andover's DeOssie reached the pinnacle in '08

By Alan Siegel
asiegel@eagletribune.com

January 04, 2009 02:03 am

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Did you know?

On Feb. 3, 2008, Zak DeOssie became one of only 10 father-son duos to make the Super Bowl (and eight where both played in the game). His father Steve won a title with the 1990 Giants.

Zak DeOssie was surprised to hear his father's voice.

"You might win this game."

"My old man snuck on the field somehow," Zak said.

The 6-foot-4, 249-pound linebacker had just tackled return man Laurence Maroney, forcing the New England Patriots to begin a last-gasp drive on their own 26-yard line. Leading 17-14 with 29 seconds remaining, the New York Giants were on the verge of winning the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1990 season.

Red-faced and teary-eyed that February night, Steve DeOssie crept close.

"You might win this game."

As far as father-son moments go, this was as good (and ironic) as it gets. Steve, an NFL linebacker for 12 years, was a member of the '90 Giants. Growing up in North Andover, Zak attended Phillips Academy — where Patriots coach Bill Belichick spent a post-graduate year — and was a ball boy at Patriots training camp.

"That is striking in itself," Zak said. "Just for everyone involved. Win or lose."

Five plays later, Eli Manning took a knee on the University of Phoenix Stadium turf. Two Giants, one present, one past, were on top of the world.

"We cried like little girls," Zak said. "Winning it all as a rookie? "That never happens."

At 24, Zak DeOssie can already call himself an Ivy League graduate, an NFL draft pick and a Super Bowl champion. With pride and good humor guiding him, he reached football's pinnacle in 2008. For that reason, he's a worthy Sportsman of the Year.

"His character, as a player and a person, shines through all the time," said linebacker Chase Blackburn, Zak's closest friend on the Giants. "You have to have guys like that on your football team."

Mr. High Motor

The High Motor White Guy Hall of Fame is a bizzaro version of Canton, Ohio's, greatest attraction.

It exists to pay tribute to the guys who were once deemed too small, slow and unathletic for the NFL.

OK, it actually exists to crack people up. Only embarrassing photos are allowed.

DeOssie's locker is the HMWGHOF's home base. His own picture, from his days as a high school quarterback, has graced its walls.

"He can take jokes as well as dish 'em out," Blackburn said.

It might be a cliche, but DeOssie is a high motor guy. He has 12 special teams tackles (11 solo) this season for the Giants (12-4), who enter the playoffs as the top seed in the NFC. He led the team with six special teams tackles during the 2007-08 postseason. And like his dad before him, DeOssie is a skilled long snapper.

"Shoot," Blackburn said, "you get a guy like that, you use him where you can."

DeOssie, a fourth-round pick in 2007, may not have cracked the defensive rotation yet, but not for a lack of effort.

He soaks up what he can from veterans. He asks a lot of questions. He is, after all, a Brown graduate.

"We bust him about that," Blackburn said. "Oh, yeah."

It is, in all seriousness, a source of pride.

DeOssie has the Brown crest tattooed on his left arm. When Pro Bowl ballots came out, he lobbied his teammates on behalf of ex-Brown and current Arizona Cardinals receiver Sean Morey, a special teams whiz. (Morey was eventually named to the squad).

That sense of responsibility has long been a DeOssie trademark.

Andover's Buddy Farnham, a record-setting receiver and member of Brown's Ivy League champion squad this fall, called DeOssie a "great kid" and "a role model." When Farnham was a freshman in 2006, DeOssie helped set the fellow local boy up with a room in his house on Hope Street in Providence.

"He took me under his wing," Farnham said. "He had to be a hard worker to get to where he is right now. It kind of rubs off on you being around someone like that."

A boy and his truck

DeOssie hasn't made any extravagant purchases since turning pro. Well, except one.

His gas-guzzling Ford-150 King Ranch, a truck he said he'd been dreaming about for years, isn't exactly eco-friendly. But it's still his baby.

"I refuse to give it up," he said.

He had the windows tinted. He installed a train horn. So what if his friends think they're at a railroad crossing when he drives by?

He doesn't mind. He's comfortable in his own skin. Just ask Blackburn, who watches DeOssie walk into the team weight room every Friday wearing his father's tight-fitting, '80s-era, No. 99 Giants intramural basketball jersey that could be mistaken for faded body paint.

When Blackburn said DeOssie can take a joke, he meant it. One Saturday morning over the summer, Blackburn said, the buzzer rang at DeOssie's apartment.

"Hi, we were wondering if you wanted to talk about the Lord?" a voice said over the intercom.

Blackburn said the ensuing conversation went something like this:

"What church are you with?"

"We're Mormons, spreading the word."

DeOssie figured it was Giants rookies Jonathan Goff, a Vanderbilt University and St. John's Prep grad, and Bryan Kehl, who took two years off from Brigham Young University to serve a Mormon mission in Toronto, playing a prank.

As DeOssie heard footsteps on the four flights of stairs leading to his pad, he pulled a Burger King mask over his head, ran into the hallway and flashed a peace sign.

But instead of turning the tables on Goff and Kehl — they were nowhere to be found — DeOssie ditched the costume and politely greeted his two Mormon visitors, who really were in the neighborhood spreading the word.

While missionary work may not be in his future, DeOssie enjoys spending at least some of his free time preaching. He stopped by Horace Mann Elementary School in Bayonne, N.J., last month to sign autographs and encourage exercise and nutrition.

"I eat right and I drink a lot of milk," he told an auditorium full of cheering kids, "and I run around four hours a day."

That description — which appeared in The Jersey Journal — may be accurate, but it doesn't quite sum up what his success means to those who know him well.

During a pre-Super Bowl poker game with teammates, plus-sized backup quarterback Jared Lorenzen erased every single contact in DeOssie's cell phone. "The Hefty Lefty", a mischievous Kentucky native who's less Bill Maher than Larry the Cable Guy, was quite pleased with himself.

"He thought it was pretty funny," DeOssie said. "He would."

The next night, after the Giants beat the undefeated Patriots to win the Super Bowl, DeOssie received 181 congratulatory text messages. He had no clue who many of them were from, but at that point it didn't matter. His feeling of elation was so strong that not even Lorenzen could make it disappear.

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