By Erik T. Masingill ’12
THE ROUNDUP

When Brophy linebacker Zack Zemer ’12 sprints onto the field for a practice or a game, he provides a sense of leadership on defense.

“He (Zemer) is a leader on defense or at least one of them,” said cornerback Austin Rodrigues ’12.

Teammates say Zemer provides the defensive unit his example as a helpful and hard-working player.

“He likes going 100 percent all the time,” Rodrigues said. “He has energy and hard work that spreads through other people. His ethic becomes contagious and makes the entire unit as one.”

This is Zemer’s second year on the varsity squad and his ninth year overall playing football.

Zemer said his inspiration to play football came from his grandfather, Dave Keane, who played linebacker for the Ohio State Buckeyes from 1958-1962.

Zemer expects the defensive players to help each other out through communication.

“Communication is going to be a big task this year because last year we didn’t align right in a lot of formations,” Zemer said. “Just communicating what we see to each other is important.”

If communication is the main focus for the defense, then Zemer knows how to be an affective teammate.

“Coach (Mr. Gary) Galante always talks to us about helping each other with what we see, so again it just goes back to communicating such as trying to make other peoples jobs easier through what I see and communicate,” Zemer said.

Less than a week before the Broncos’ season opener, Zemer already believes this year’s team chances will be stronger than that of last year’s.

“This year I think we’ll be a lot better than last year,” Zemer said. “Our team speed is pretty fast overall. Coach (Mr. Scooter) Molander thinks this is one of the fastest teams we’ve had.”

“We have a lot of skilled position players returning and our offensive line is pretty new, but they have done well so far,” he said.