Catching up with Sam Valenzisi

First in a series of stories by Larry Watts on the players of the 1995 Northwestern Wildcats on this, the 20th anniversary of their Rose Bowl season.

Sam Valenzisi thinks back to his decision nearly 25 years ago.

"When you grow up in Ohio, everyone wants their kids to go to Ohio State,'' he says. "If I had gone to Ohio State, I would never have gone to Pasadena.''

Valenzisi, now 42, was a free safety, wide receiver and kicker at Westlake High School, which is located just west of Cleveland. It was a school that rarely made the Ohio playoffs, but produced a long line of outstanding kickers.

"We had one guy make Division III All-America at Baldwin-Wallace,'' he says. The guy who followed him went to Michigan State and the next guy got a scholarship to Bowling Green.''

There was also another kicker in his class, but Valenzisi got hurt his junior year and his teammate did all the kicking. The following year, the two players split duties with Valenzisi kicking the extra points and his teammate kicking the field goals.

"The only trouble was we weren't any good, so we weren't going to score many touchdowns,'' Valenzisi says. "We won only two games my senior year, the first one and then one late in the season.''

Valenzisi was called upon to kick the field goals in that second win. He made only one of three attempts, but his team won 3-2.

"It was a driving rainstorm throughout the game,'' he says. "We got that field goal and then took a safety at the end of the game to seal the win.''

Valenzisi wound up making the all-state team as a defensive back. "I think it was mainly because people recognized the name,'' he says. His father, Al, was a longtime football coach at John Marshall High School in Cleveland and was well respected among his peers.

After the season, Valenzisi was selected as his school's representative in the county all-star game, where his father served as the head coach. Valenzisi was perfect on two field goal attempts, handled all the kickoff duties, had an interception and was named the game's most valuable player.

However, the offers to play football in college came mainly from smaller schools. John Carroll and Baldwin-Wallace were especially interested.

"But I had my sights set on something else,'' he says. "I wanted to make my choice on other factors.

"I actually thought I might play baseball in college. I played Connie Mack my senior year and was pretty successful as a centerfielder and pitcher, but I just didn't have the stats to be recruited.

"I never heard of a lot of schools on the East Coast who were interested in me, but I may have come off as a little arrogant. They turned out to be wonderful schools, but I was more interested in schools like Ohio State, Michigan State, Purdue, Michigan and Northwestern. I also applied to Dartmouth and Penn. I wanted to go to a school people had heard of, which was a very naïve way to think.''

A National Merit Scholar, Valenzisi received a nice financial package from Ohio State. But he wound up turning it down, much to his parents' dismay.

"I thought if I went to Ohio State, I would never leave Ohio,'' he says. "So it came down to Notre Dame and Northwestern, which made the better financial offer of the two. My parents are both teachers, so Northwestern was always thought of as a great school in my house and one I should aspire to go to.''

Valenzisi thought he had given up the idea of playing football when he took his seat in the student section for his first game in 1991. But after the game, his feelings had changed.

"I thought I was better than the kicker (Brian Leahy) they had,'' he says. "So I went in to visit the director of recruiting, Rob Chiavetta, about joining the team as a walk-on. He told me to come back in the spring.''

While Valenzisi returned to Westlake for Thanksgiving, news broke that Northwestern had fired head coach Francis Peay. Gary Barnett was hired in late December as his replacement and Valenzisi returned to the football office in January to inquire about becoming a walk-on.

"Coach Barnett looked at my size and told me I might be a danger to myself or the other players,'' he says. "Fortunately, Rob Chiavetta was standing there and told him I was a kicker, so I got my chance and made the team as a walkon.

"The best thing to happen to me was Francis Peay getting fired. That meant everyone in the program was starting with a clean slate, but we didn't have a lot of talent on that team.''

Valenzisi was in the basketball stands the night Barnett was introduced to the crowd as the new football coach and told everyone, "We're going to take the Purple to Pasadena.''

"I was confident it could happen,'' he says. "Maybe it was an 18, 19-year-old thinking he's invincible, but I was always taught if you couldn't set big goals, why set them at all. Pasadena was my Field of Dreams.''

Valenzisi had a solid offseason in 1993, but he wound up missing three extra points in the spring game. And while he was at the stadium, a fire broke out in the dorm room above his and the water damage ruined all of his belongings. He wound up sleeping on someone's floor that night, thinking he had ruined his opportunity.

But in the 1993 opener, a 27-12 loss at Notre Dame, Leahy missed an extra point. After the game, Barnett said he was opening up the kicking competition and Valenzisi won it for the rest of the year. He wound up making all but one of 17 extra point tries and was 11-for-18 in field goals. At the end of the year, he was named Academic All-Big Ten, the first of three times he would earn the honor.

In January of '94, Barnett called Valenzisi into his office to tell the kicker he was being placed on scholarship.

"It was such a relief because I have three younger siblings and three of us would have been in college at the same time,'' he says. "I didn't know how my parents could afford me being at Northwestern and I had grown to love it here. But coach Barnett also told me we would re-visit it at the end of the year because they might need the scholarship for another recruit.''

The Wildcats were 3-3-1 in the '94 campaign before dropping their last four games. Valenzisi was perfect on all 21 extra points and hit 13 of his 19 field goal tries.

"That 3-7-1 record is not reflective of how we played,'' he says. "If we had won five or six games, it would have changed the whole perspective of the '95 season and it wouldn't have been such a shock.''

But 1994 will be remembered for another reason. Just before the team departed for its final game at Penn State, rushing leader Dennis Lundy was pulled off the bus in the wake of the infamous gambling scandal. His replacement, freshman Darnell Autry, wound up rushing for 171 yards in a 45-17 loss to the No. 2 team in the country.

"One thing that galvanized that '95 team was that point-shaving scandal,'' Valenzisi says. "That episode showed the stark contrast in Gary Barnett's players and the leftovers from Francis Peay. We were all in the same mindset after that.

"If Darnell (Autry) didn't play (in place of Lundy) in that game at Penn State, he wasn't coming back. He already had one foot out the door. Rob Johnson and I were on the phone with him, trying to get him to stay. Finally, Rob told him, "I don't give a s*** if you come back or not.'

"That (1995) summer, more guys stayed on campus than in prior years. There was a level of commitment everyone had in building a winning atmosphere. If it didn't happen in '95, it was going to happen in '96.''

Aside from that blip against Miami (Ohio), everything was going smoothly for

Valenzisi and the Wildcats that fall. They were 5-1 and well on their way to victory No. 6 against Wisconsin when Valenzisi tore his ACL in his left leg while celebrating a successful kickoff coverage. Although he wound up being named All-America, his season was over after hitting 15-of-16 in both extra points and field goals.

"It's still painful to talk about it, not something to joke about,'' he says. "It's something I had done hundreds of times.

'Two things come to mind. I think it was an indication of our turf field because when Pat (Fitzgerald) got injured, his foot got caught in the seams of the turf. And I also think it was an indication of the Reebok shoe I was told to wear. That was the first game I had worn the Reebok shoe and I didn't like it. But that's the business of college football. We had become a hot item and were told we had to wear Reebok shoes.

"When I think back to the Rose Bowl, I would like to think we would have won if Pat (Fitzgerald) had played and if I had played. Their (USC's) All-American (Keyshawn Johnson) played and our two All-Americans were on the sidelines.''

Of all the honors he received while playing football at Northwestern, the one he cherishes the most is being named one of the captains on the '95 squad.

"That's something I never took lightly,'' he says. "I had never been the captain on any team before. Being named All-American and all those other awards, those are goals you set. Being elected captain is not a goal you set because it's out of your control.''

Not only did Valenzisi kick off, but he made sure the Wildcats had 11 defenders on the field. He was credited with 13 tackles, including six solos, in his last 18 games.

"I was a football player,'' he says. "Even as a little kid, I was hitting people. I made all-state as a defensive back and it wasn't because of interceptions. That's the way I grew up playing. When you're little, you have to learn to dish it out because you don't want to take it.''

Valenzisi then took a moment to reflect on his head coach.

"In all honesty, I don't think Gary Barnett knew fully what he was getting into at Northwestern,'' he says. "A lot of guys are great with X's and O's. Some are great technicians. And there are great motivators. He did it all and was a master in motivating. He really understood the group dynamic. Sure, he did pull some things that backfired, but overall it was a big success.

"Even to this day, when I see Gary Barnett, I call him "Coach.'' I nearly said Gary when I saw him this summer, but I just couldn't do it. I was always taught to respect authority and he has always been an authority figure to me. And it's the same with his wife (Mary). I always call her Mrs. Barnett.''

Valenzisi earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Medill School of Journalism, but his career path took him to the investment firm William Blair & Co. in Chicago. After receiving a graduate business degree from the University of Chicago in 2005, Valenzisi moved on to Lincoln International in Chicago, where he has been for 10 years and now serves as managing director.

He and his wife, Meggan, of 13 years met on their first day of work at William Blair. They now live in Chicago with their 3-year-old son Alex.

Sam and Meggan, also a Northwestern graduate, are both part of the Northwestern Leadership Council, which helps raise development funds through donations.

"It's really strange how things worked out,'' Valenzisi says. "If I didn't have that fifth year at Northwestern, I may have been on a different (career) path. If I hadn't got hurt, I may have taken a stab in the professional ranks and never wound up at William Blair, where I met Meggan.

"Sometimes you just have to be in the right place and Northwestern was the right place for me.''