Published: May 27, 2007 01:05 am    PrintThis  

Road to NFL starts with mom

The cry echoed from the mountaintops of New Hampshire’s Attitash and Bretton Woods ski resorts.

“Zakary Robert ... you ... be ... careful!”

“You could hear Dianna on the other side of the mountain,” said family friend Kevin Lynch of Andover, recounting the memorable slope-side skiing battles between Dianna DeOssie and her son, New York Giants rookie linebacker Zak DeOssie.

“She cringed with every jump,” said Lynch, whose wife Ellen (Teichert) is life-long friends with Dianna. “But you should have heard her later that summer. The adults used to jump off a bridge into a river to swim up in New Hampshire. One time Zak followed us. Zak was a risk-taker.”

Steve DeOssie, the 12-year NFL veteran, has received much of the credit for his son developing into an NFL prospect. However, people close to the family, and even his dad, agree the person most responsible for paving the road for Zak’s football and academic success is his mom.

“All the credit for Zak and his success goes to his mother,” says Steve, now a noted Boston radio and TV personality. “Even though she still doesn’t know a thing about football.”

This afternoon, Zak, now 22, will walk side-by-side with fellow members of the graduating class at Brown University for his commencement. The recent fourth-round draft pick of the New York Giants won’t be alone, though. His twin sister, Christina, wearing a cap-and-gown from UMass Dartmouth, will be on Zak’s arm.

The twins will graduate together, figuratively, of course. The DeOssies chose to stick together today.

“Can you believe it — the same graduation day, at the same time?” smiled Dianna, referring to both school’s graduation ceremonies scheduled for today. “So we had to choose. ... Brown is prettier, so we’ll be there.”

Dianna and her family might be slightly bending the graduation rules, but she’s apparently entitled.

“For what she’s done, and all the stress alone,” said Zak. “She deserves to have us do it together. My mom has done an amazing job bringing us up.”

nnn

A native of Andover and an Andover High grad (‘80), the former Dianna Retalis married Steve DeOssie and had three children within a year — oldest Nicole plus twins Zak and Christina a year later to the day.

“She raised three children born within 365 days ... by herself,” said Lynch, himself a dedicated husband, father and youth football coach in Andover.

“And during the same time she worked whatever jobs she could,” said Lynch. “She went to nursing school. ... Let’s just say, her graduation day at Endicott, I was as proud of her as I’ve ever been.”

With Steve on the road in his seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, the marriage didn’t work. Dianna returned home to Andover, facing the challenge of raising three toddlers on her own with family and friends nearby.

“Raising three kids by herself, and putting herself through nursing school, she’s been amazing,” said Zak. “Too often, she’d put everything else aside for the three of us. I remember so many nights when she was up all night studying and working. It seemed like she was stressed all the time.”

Dianna, now an R.N. at an area hospital, says she spent those early years doing what she had to do to survive and keeping the children’s lives in order.

“I don’t know how, either,” said Lynch. “Juggling jobs and school, she made every event. She never missed one, for any of the kids.”

Dianna had no idea the returns would be so brilliant:

r Zak landing an Ivy League degree from Brown with a shot at playing pro football.

r Christina graduating having lined up a full-time job in marketing.

r And Nicole well on her way to a four-year degree at UMass Dartmouth, too.

Relentless, Dianna won’t quit, either.

“We were together before the draft, just talking about the future, and I kidded Zak about how he was going to spend his money when he signs,” said Lynch, noting that Dianna’s parental alarm shot off from long-range.

“Here’s this kid, his little four-cylinder car (early 1990s Honda) dying from all those trips between Brown and Boston, and he says the first thing he’ll buy is a new truck.

“Before he finished, Dianna was there, ‘No way, that’s just too expensive,’” said Lynch. “She’s always been around for the big decisions, like letting him know he had to be smart about the money.”

Being alone, Dianna says what got her through the difficult times was concentrating on the basics.

“He’s polite, and he’s gotten a great education,” said Dianna of her son. “I was pretty strict, too. Zak tries his hardest at everything he does. He probably gets that from me. The kids all saw me working in nursing school. They saw how hard I worked at it.

“There were times when Zak was at Phillips Academy, I’d have to make him go to sleep. He’d be up until 3 in the morning studying.”

Part of that work ethic keyed DeOssie’s jump from Ivy League unknown to a true NFL prospect. While Dianna admits she wouldn’t know a halfback from a kicker, she’s a major reason Zak is wearing No. 51 for the New York Giants.

nnn

Imagine Zak DeOssie, NFL linebacker, potential special teams wild man, leading tackler in Brown University history, record-setting quarterback at Phillips ... threw like a girl!

“I hate to say it, but I did my best to teach him how to throw when he was young,” said Dianna of her fruitless backyard efforts trying to play a little catch. “He threw horribly. The kids teased him about it. I just didn’t know anything about sports.”

Dianna never watched sports until she met Steve, a former three-sport star Don Bosco in Boston and later at Boston College where he starred at linebacker. Instinctively, she understood that team sports would play a pivotal role in Zak’s development.

“Dianna was very wary about what was going on,” said Lynch. “I probably shouldn’t even say this, but once when he was young, Zak would twist and twirl his hair with his fingers. Dianna had his hair cut short to stop it.”

Here he was, surrounded by sisters and raised by his mother and grandmother, Niki Retalis.

“Even the dog was female,” lamented Dianna.

“I was always worried about (the lack of a male influence). But like Mrs. Clinton’s book, ‘It Takes a Village,’ we had a village.

“The neighbors saw me trying to teach Zak to throw, and they had sons the same age, so they helped out,” said Dianna. “I was constantly kicking Zak out of the house, so he’d play outside. And when he was here, he did the chores that traditionally were for boys, taking out the garbage and mowing the lawn.”

It worked.

First, there was the second house in North Conway, where Zak immediately took to skiing. Later, Dianna bought a canoe and a trailer. The two outdoorsmen ventured into the Harold Parker State Forest with rod and reel in hand, searching for that trophy catch.

“About the only thing we caught were a couple sunfish,” Dianna admitted. “More than once, we’d just get our lines tangled in the weeds.”

It was more than just fun and games, though, too.

Fish or no fish, hair or no hair, young Zak was on his way to becoming a man.

As Zak got older, Dianna heard the louder baseball dads in the crowd at the local Little Leagues preaching about their potential “big leaguers.”

“I’d sit there and laugh, thinking ‘No way,’” she said. “Don’t they know how nearly impossible it is to be a pro athlete? I was married to one. I know.”

Never did she figure that among all those potential superstars, Zak would be the one.

“I thought then, and I still think now, that Zak would make a great pediatrician,” said Dianna. “You should just see him around kids.

nnn

Dianna and Steve had their problems, especially in the early days and especially after their divorce. Mom did her best to try and keep the hostilities out of the relationship with the children.

Dianna remembered back in January 1991 when Steve and the Giants defeated the Bills in Super Bowl XXV.

“I brought all the kids in (to the TV room) and told them, ‘Look, Daddy is playing in the Super Bowl,’” she said. “They watched for about five minutes. And that was it.”

Zak was only 6 at the time, but it was just an example of mom trying to involve the children in their dad’s life.

“Until he came back to the Patriots (1994),” she said, “Steve wasn’t around much.”

Steve’s return to New England was more than just a job. In fact, Dianna says she embraced having him around more when he joined the Patriots. He was ready to be a dad again. And, with Zak in his preteen days, she wasn’t about to get in the way.

“As long as he wanted to be their father, I never interfered,” said Dianna. “It was never about it not being his weekend, or him coming over at the wrong time. If he wanted to be their dad, he was welcome.”

It’s a point that wasn’t lost on Zak, who thankfully noted, “Now my mom and dad are the best of friends.”

nnn

Zak’s stardom on the football field was near instant at Phillips Academy, and both parents were there every step of the way.

“My mom came to every game, even though she had no idea what was going on,” said Zak. “That was just huge.”

Football games became a Saturday way of life for Dianna.

Showing Phillips coaches his athleticism, Zak developed into a star quarterback for the Big Blue. At Brown, it become more like father like son. On the defensive side of the ball, he was just as ferocious as his dad, who played as mean as they come during his Boston College days.

Believe it or not, watching him play this rougher, tougher role at Brown was not a problem for Dianna.

“If you saw him ski, he’d go off jumps, do 360s, spread eagles, back scratchers, you name it. Seeing him ski through a field of trees, now that was scary,” she said.

“He’d jump over barrels on Rollerblades in our driveway or climb up on our roof. Now, that was a lot scarier than football.”

nnn

As the NFL Draft approached this spring, Dianna admits trying “to be a rock” by being extra supportive for her son during his emotional roller coaster. The same woman who always says football is not important.

“Not to put down football, but if you’re a good person, and you work hard and you have a good family, that’s what matters most,” said Dianna. “I was nervous on the draft day, though. Each time a team passed on him, I wondered how they couldn’t take my little boy.

“Now that it’s over and done, Zak is Zak.”

And Dianna is Dianna.

“I cried for two years when my kids went away to college,” she said.

Tears will be shed again this afternoon.

It’s probably fitting her twins will share their graduation days together. For all she’s done to get them there, Dianna DeOssie deserves a double hug.