One day, St. Xavier’s Ryan Fitzgerald is a high school security guard. The next day, he’s a college football hero.
On the field for the Cougars, he could be recording a big sack on defense one play, and then on the next, he could be scoring a touchdown with the offense.
Such is life for the always-busy graduate student whose main job on the football field involves being a linebacker, but he also comes in on offense in special packages.
It keeps him pretty busy, but he doesn’t regret returning for an extra year.
“I’m very happy I came back,” Fitzgerald said. “I appreciate the opportunities they give me. I wanted to be with those guys another year.
“We lost in the (NAIA national) quarterfinals, and I wanted to make another run and leave it all out there one more time.”
The Cougars opened the season with a 31-7 nonconference victory over Lawrence Tech in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Fitzgerald had four tackles on defense and a pair of 2-yard touchdowns as the quarterback in St. Xavier’s heavy package formation.
“It was awesome,” Fitzgerald said of the TDs. “Once they called for ‘heavy,’ I couldn’t miss the opportunity.”
After each TD, the Andrew graduate was mobbed by his teammates on the field, and the second round came when his defensive pals mobbed him on the sideline.
The Cougars (1-0), who are ranked No. 8 in the nation by the NAIA coaches, open their home schedule at noon Saturday against No. 10 St. Thomas from Florida (1-0) at Deaton Field.
Veteran St. Xavier coach Mike Feminis said he likes how the 6-foot, 225-pound Fitzgerald can help on both sides of the ball.
“He was a fullback in high school, and he was a good fullback,” Feminis said of Fitzgerald. “We don’t have a fullback in our system, and we recruited him to be a linebacker.
“You give him the ball, and he’s going to get you a couple of yards. He going to put his head down and run somebody over. He has that kind of mentality.”
Fitzgerald also has the mentality where he needs to stay busy.
To help pay for graduate school, he’s working security in the morning and early afternoon at Evergreen Park. Then it’s off to football practice before coming home and doing online studies.
His goals in life are to teach high school history and coach football, baseball and basketball — the three sports he played in high school.
Heading into his freshman year in 2020, Fitzgerald wanted to play baseball and football in college. He got into some JV baseball games as a sophomore and thought about sticking to just one sport.
“After my sophomore year, I saw the big roster size for baseball,” Fitzgerald said. “It was harder with that amount of people to get that attention to show what I got, so it made me want to focus on one sport because I wasn’t playing as much as I wanted to in football.
“So I wanted to do football more, and I went with it.”
Feminis is not complaining about the decision.
“Ryan is a really good baseball player, too,” Feminis said. “It’s just the reality of college athletics is that it’s hard to do both sports. We’ve had athletes try it. But at some point, it becomes really difficult. For us, spring ball is really important, and in baseball, fall ball is really important for them.
“They are both all-year sports. If you try to do it halfway for each of them, it makes it difficult.”
Still, Feminis is glad he could squeeze one more year out of Fitzgerald.
“He’s invaluable to us,” Feminis said. “I couldn’t be happier that he’s back for a final season.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
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