Penn takes a chance on Round Lake’s Peterson

Zack Peterson doesn’t always tackle an assignment with a scowl or game face, as you might guess from a football player who masters textbooks as brilliantly as playbooks.

Sometimes, like last week when the Round Lake senior spoke about his decision to accept an offer to play offensive line for Ivy League member Penn, Zack attacks with a smile.

Dressed in a business-man-blue shirt and tie with appropriate black slacks and shoes, Peterson put aside his small stack of schoolbooks — they looked like White Castle sliders in his beefy mitts — so classmate Miranda Ludwig could snap a few digital photographs of him.

Peterson showed the teddy-bear side of him, despite his grizzly-bear physique. Jokingly, he struck a couple of fun poses, including the “Heisman” and the “Check out these biceps, girls!” (See photo on this page).

Peterson is equally intense on the football field, just without the charm.

Which explains how he got offered the opportunity to play Division I football, despite missing his senior year after ripping up his left knee during the summer.

“He’s tenacious,” Round Lake football coach John Coursey says. “I’ve said this to everybody in our conference: When the ball was snapped, there was nobody on that field that played with more tenacity than Zack did. He played from the snap of the ball to the whistle, and it wasn’t a coaching thing. It was something that he did on his own. He doesn’t need someone to coach him. He just needs someone to give him the opportunity.”

The University of Pennsylvania plans to do that, and don’t be surprised if Peterson shakes the Quakers in the classroom, too.

“He’s a brawler. He’s a fighter,” says Ken Filas, who teaches AP literature and composition at Round Lake, and counts Peterson among his students. “He never gives up. He’s always giving me 110 percent. Just exactly what he does on the football field, I see him as that in the classroom. He’s certainly a leader, and he has no fear.”

Here’s how Peterson led without wearing a helmet and pads last fall. Instead of choosing not to be part of a program that went winless the last two years, Peterson accepted Coursey’s offer to be the youngest coach on the Panthers staff.

Peterson accepted.

Zack attacked.

“I was looking forward to a big senior campaign and hopefully getting a (Division I scholarship) offer along the way, ” says Peterson, a varsity starter since his sophomore year. “(Coaching) was a different experience, but I like to help the kids learn and show them some of the things I picked up from going to camps of Division I schools.”

As a student coach, Peterson worked with the varsity players on their pass-protection technique. He was as intense as he was when he played.

On the sideline, he got in players’ faces and encouraged them. When they were on the field, he shouted instructions. As a mere high school senior, he managed to balance the fine line of teacher and friend.

“He did a fantastic job for us,” Coursey says. “Most of our kids don’t have a lot of experience. One of the great things he did for us was he really worked hard on putting kids in stances.”

Recruited as an interior lineman by Penn, which has gone undefeated in the Ivy League the last two years, Peterson stands 6 feet 3 and carries 300 pounds. His junior year, he played at 6-1½, 285 pounds and made honorable mention all-conference.

He started at offensive tackle as a sophomore. Coursey switched Peterson to center the following season in hopes of giving him better exposure to colleges.

Then last summer at a University of Illinois camp, Peterson tore his left ACL and underwent reconstructive surgery July 6.

“I’m moving well again, doing speed ladders, squatting,” Peterson says. “At this point, it’s just getting the strength back. It just takes time.”

The time Peterson missed on the football field his senior year hurt a lot worse than his knee injury.

Once colleges learned he blew out his knee, they stopped calling.

“He wants to be an elite player,” Coursey says. “That isn’t (due to) coaching. That’s just his work ethic. He’s going to be a Division I football player, and that’s a fantastic opportunity. And, in my opinion, it’s a fantastic opportunity for Penn. They’re going to be getting a guy that’s going to be able to come in and play for them for four years.”

Peterson isn’t pouting about missing every game of his senior season, even though he had aspirations of playing major-college football.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for me,” Peterson says of Penn, which is located in Philadelphia. “Of course it would be nice to play in front of 60,000 screaming fans at Memorial Stadium or something. But at the same time, (Penn) has a great football program and the coaches are great. Some of the recruits they picked up, an offensive lineman turned down offers from Arkansas and Mississippi to go to Penn. One turned down an offer from Stanford to go to Penn.

“So they picked up real quality guys. And from an academic standpoint, there’s nothing better than the Ivy League.”

The huge kid has humongous goals. The youngest of three children of John and Sandra, Peterson pulled a 30 on the ACT, ranks sixth in his senior class and aspires to be an orthopedic surgeon.

His brother, Brian, who’s 12 years older and played defensive line for Round Lake, received a ride to play football for Northern Illinois. Sister Stacie, who’s 11 years older than Zack, also attended NIU.

Coursey expects Peterson to make an immediate impression at Penn.

“I would suspect his first day there he’s going to make people notice who he is,” Coursey says. “It’s just because of the intensity, the work ethic, his attitude. He loves to play football.”

And, sometimes, the smart guy, jokingly, likes to be a wiseguy.