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Trinity's Yancich rides energy wave - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Tricia Lafferty
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, August 23, 2007

Trinity coach Ed Dalton calls senior linebacker Mike Yancich "Tarzan."

Trinity linebacker Andrew Sweat described the long-blond-haired Yancich as a California boy on the exterior with a hint of A.J. Hawk on his interior.

But on an early July morning, the 6-foot-1, 216-pound Yancich was just a teenager eager to start his senior year of high school football and even more anxious to continue his college football career at Penn State.

For Yancich, it's still difficult to fathom that he'll be playing in the Big Ten, in front of more than 100,000 fans on Saturdays. Up until February of this year, he didn't have a single scholarship offer, but then he garnered Division I interest and committed to the Nittany Lions in June, shortly after they offered.

"Maybe (it worked out) because we prayed about this since we were 3," Yancich said of his and Sweat's dreams of playing college football. "It's not going to hit us until we get (to college), like literally hit us, literally like smack us."

Yancich reminisced with Sweat, an Ohio State recruit, about how maybe this was the plan all along. After all, they used to flash the touchdown signal as they crossed home plate after hitting a home run in baseball. They played against each other in grade school, but were reunited in high school. The best friends will be opponents again in college when Penn State plays Ohio State, which is usually the Lions' most anticipated game of the season.

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