Wyoming gets more than just a player in recruit
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - If you're wondering what kind of young man Gavin Dunayski is, just take a look at one of the schools he visited before deciding recently to verbally commit to Wyoming.
Yale.
"I'm a student first and athlete second," said Dunayski, a defensive lineman out of Puyallup, Washington. "So I'm going to get a good education and play some top-notch football and contribute to an awesome program."
Dunayski was drawn to Wyoming's engineering program as well as its football team.
"My plan is to get a Master's in business once I'm done with my mechanical engineering degree," Dunayski said. "And then I haven't really decided what I want to do with that from there, but there's a lot of doors that open when you have those degrees."
Dunayski's smarts were as evident on the field as they were in the classroom, Puyallup High School head coach Gary Jeffers said.
"I mean, he's a hard preparer," Jeffers said. "He's a watcher of film. He's analytical. He's a kid that understands concepts of leverage and angles, and when you're a big, long, tall, strong kid, understanding leverage and angles is pretty important to your success."
Dunayski's interests in life beyond football align with what impressed him about Wyoming's coaching staff.
"They just seemed genuine, like they actually cared about me as a person rather than just an athlete," he said. "They cared about me past that, where I felt like some of the other coaches were just trying to manipulate me. I didn't ever feel that from the Wyoming coaches. So I felt like they would be good men to lead me for the next few years."
Defensive tackles coach Pete Kaligis was Dunayski's primary recruiter.
"I got to develop a relationship with him and really know what I was getting into there," Dunayski said. "... There's a difference about the coaching staff there. They're different than anywhere else, and I really liked it. So I felt like it would be a good home for me for the next few years."
Jeffers was impressed by the Wyoming staff as well.
"I think that you guys have got a pretty special group of coaches down there, just as far as the quality of men that they are and the amount of football that they know and their ability to instill that into the young men that they're recruiting," he said. "So I think that the coaching staff was a huge draw for Gavin, and then I think he was really excited about the kids that he tripped with down there, the incoming group of recruits. He was super excited about being able to work and play with those guys."
Dunayski, who took his official visit to Laramie the second week of December, played primarily defensive end and tight end at Puyallup, but he doesn't expect the transition to defensive tackle to require too much of an adjustment.
And Jeffers feels there's plenty of flexibility when it comes to how Dunayski can grow physically.
"I just think that his size right now is a little undetermined," Jeffers said. "He's 6-5, 255 with 9 percent body fat. There's lots of places you can go with that. Does he end up being a 6-5, 295-pound kid? Does he end up being a 6-5, 315-pound kid? I don't know. Or maybe he ends up being a 6-5, 260-pound tight end. There's a lot of different options that your coaching staff has on the direction that they take him."
Dunayski, who also had offers from Hawaii and Montana State, is ranked as a three-star recruit by 247 Sports and is given two stars by Scout and Rivals.
"He's just a great kid, super smart kid, hard worker, just enjoyable to have around, good leadership, always positive," Jeffers said. "Just a guy that we're really proud to be sending down to you guys."
Dunayski is plenty excited to get going at Wyoming, too, even if it's not in the Ivy League.
"I feel like the program shares a lot of the beliefs that I hold," he said. "They hold a lot of my core values, so I felt like I would fit in."
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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, http://www.trib.com