SPORTS

Donley works to make his dream a reality

Cameron Teague Robinson
Reporter

WEST LAFAYETTE – When you look past the jersey, through the pads and under the face mask of Zach Donley you will find one of the best athletes, not only in the county, but the state.

This past year, Donley was a standout running back for the Ridgewood High School football team, he was also the anchor for the General’s state track champion 4x100 relay team.

And, if you ask his coaches and some teammates, he is one of the hardest working and most confident athletes in the state as well.

“It’s all mental. If you know you put in the hard work then it doesn’t really matter,” Donley said. “That’s all that pays off. It’s going to be who gets tired first and if I’ve put in the work then he is going to get tired before I am.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a better practice worker than Zach Donley in my time here. He was just tremendous at it,” said John Slusser, Donley’s track and football coach. “Athletically he is about as good as any of the athletes that have come through here.”

But it hasn’t always been easy for Donley. He grew up without his parents.

His mother was an alcoholic and for 12 years of his life, his father was in prison. Leaving Donley to move in with his grandparents.

“That really pushed me,” he said. “It made me angry that my parents were never around.”

Instead of allowing that anger to get him in trouble off the field, Donley took it and became a standout athlete at Ridgewood.

But again, like his time without his parents, it wasn’t easy. When he was a freshman he weighed about 98 pounds and couldn’t really push people around like he wanted.

That all changed his sophomore year, when he said he really started trying. He began to lift weights, work on his footwork and from then on he, “began to dominate,” he said.

“When I started trying, I just started destroying kids, so I was like, ‘Why not run with it and try to make a living out of this?’” Donley said.

Since then his focus has been on one thing — making it to the NFL.

“I want to be the guy that made it from here to go to the NFL,” he said.

That added focus and determination was something his teammates and coaches began to notice as well.

“He would start yelling at people. As the running back he used to yell at the lineman to block better, but he just grew up,” said, Donley’s 4x100 track teammate and football teammate of six years, Jarrett Art. “He really grew up from how he used to act and began to lead the team. He has become a really supportive teammate.”

That translated to the field, led by Donley and quarterback Caleb Tingle, the Generals finished the season with a 9-1 record before losing in the postseason.

With his time in the General football program coming to an end, he entered the discussion as one of the best athletes to touch that field.

“I’ve been here for 23 years and we’ve had a lot of good teams and good players. I don’t ever like to get into rating those guys because we’ve had so many good ones,” Slusser said. “We’ve had players of the year, first-team All-Ohio guys, Division I kids, so I don’t like to rank them. I do know this, Zach was pretty good, and speed-wise he is the fastest kid I’ve ever coached.”

Football season could’ve been the pinnacle of Donley’s senior year, but he had his sights set on something else — a state track championship.

Whether anybody believed him or not, he knew he could win a state championship.

“I don’t know if people really believed it could happen, but he did right from the get go,” Slusser said. “He kept telling me that he was going to be a state champion.”

And when the 4x200 relay was disqualified in the district meet his confidence in their 4x100 relay spilled over to the other members of the relay.

“I never really had confidence in myself until this year,” Art said. “He passed that to me and we tried to pass it to Michael and Billy.”

“I really believe his attitude helped us win the state championship,” Slusser said. “A lot of people didn’t believe him, but he backed it up.”

Now, Donley has the chance to chase his dream a little longer. He will attend the University of Findlay where he will be playing football and running track during the winter.

He received a few Division 1 offers for track, but they did not give him the opportunity to play football, so he turned them down.

Findlay told him they want him to step into the cornerback position and that he may not start right away, but he will see the field.

“I don’t care if they told me I wasn’t going to start. I plan on starting this year,” Donley said.

Starting his freshman year is imperative for the timeline Donley laid out for himself. He said he has four years until he gets drafted and eight years after that until he can retire.

“I did the math, I have to have like 246 tackles to replace the corner that went to the NFL. If I do that I’m fine,” Donley said. “I’m ready for it.”

Donley said his time at Ridgewood taught him a lot and he is is thankful for his time there.

“I was always around good people, good coaches and a good tradition,” he added. “Slusser was always there for me when nobody else thought I was going to be anything. He helped mold me into the grown man I am now.”

The “grown man,” Donley has been molded into admitted to making some mistakes along the way though.

“(The coaches) know I’ve done some stupid things in the past, but I won’t be able to get away with them now,” he said. “All of that is behind me.”

The anger Donley started with is now gone.

His parents are back in his life. His dad is out of prison and has a job and his mom has gotten her life together he said.

Now, he is trying to make them proud.

“Now, it’s not so much anger as it is they just want to see me strive for success,” Donley said. “I don’t want to let them down and I don’t want them to ever have to need anything.”

“That’s why I want to go to the NFL.”

cteaguerob@gannett.com

745-295-3442

Twitter: @cj_teague