BlueWhiteIllustrated.com - Born to be a Lion

July 17, 2007

Lou Prato
Special to BlueWhiteIllustrated.com

This article was featured in the June 30 issue of Blue White Illustrated.

To read stories like this one and more, be sure to subscribe to the magazine. Click Here to Subscribe!

By Lou Prato
Blue White Contributor

The day Michael Vincent Zordich was born he was destined to follow his father and mother to Penn State.

But just before he made his decision 17 years later to play football for the Nittany Lions, his parents were almost certain he was going to go to Ohio State instead.

"Cindy and I were quite surprised and we thought he was going to be a Buckeye," said Michael Sr., an All-American strong safety for the Nittany Lions in the early 1980s.

Cindy said they told their son "he had to know where he wanted to be" and he seemed to be favoring Ohio State.

"Growing up in Ohio, there definitely were pressures, and he had been at Ohio State camps," Cindy said.

Cindy had been a cheerleader at Penn State and her sister, Tina, graduated from there as did Tina's husband, Gerard Toscani. So, it was natural that both Cindy and Michael Sr. wanted their son to go to Penn State, but they also wanted him to make his own decision.

"We stood on the sidelines," Michael Sr. said, "except when we thought there was some confusion in the whole process. Then, we would step in, but that was seldom."

Cindy added, "We said, when you know (what your choice is) you'll feel it. That will end it, and you're going to feel so wonderful. I saw it all unfold and it was really beautiful."

Actually, Michael Vincent told his younger brother, Alex, about his decision about 10 days before he told his parents and Joe Paterno, and Alex kept the secret.

"It was kind of cute," Michael Sr. said, "because Alex is a diehard Nittany Lion. He's a sophomore and plays quarterback at Cardinal Mooney (High School) where Michael (Vincent) plays linebacker, and there's no question that if all the schools in America were coming after Alex, he'd want to go to Penn State without question. Michael knows this. So when he told Alex before telling anyone else, that was kind of neat for the family."

The Zordich family lives in Canfield, Ohio, on the outskirts of Youngstown, where Michael senior was raised. Michael senior faced a similar dilemma as his highly-recruited linebacker son when he was graduating from Cheney High School in 1981, except he was leaning toward Pitt instead of Ohio State. His parents, Donna and Milan Zordich, set the tone for what happened with Michael Vincent years later by allowing their son to make his own decision, too.

Michael Sr. chose Penn State after Joe Paterno visited the Zordich family in Youngstown.

"The day Joe Paterno came to my house for the first time, my mother cooked spaghetti," Michael Sr. remembered, as he wrote in the book, What It Means to be A Nittany Lion. "My whole family was there, grandparents, too. At one point my father told Joe about his good friend, Al Perl. He was a fireman who had just had his leg amputated. My father said something like, 'Al has two idols, you and Bear Bryant. If you could ever come back and visit him ? that would be a real thrill for him.' Joe said, 'Let's go.' And that's all Al Perl ever talked about after that."

What Paterno has meant to the Zordich family since that day can't be fully appreciated by outsiders. When Michael Sr. would see Paterno over the past 20 years, Joe would always ask about his family, including ? by their name ? his mother and father and his younger brother, Brian, and sister, Monique.

Obviously, Paterno influenced Michael Vincent's decision, too, and once again the extended Zordich family were in the middle of it all. But this time Paterno didn't get a spaghetti dinner in Youngstown because Michael made his choice shortly after a junior day at University Park in late May ? and much of the Zordich family was there.

"I said to my in-laws, 'Why don't you go to junior day with us?'" Cindy said. "I said, 'It's coming up and it's going to be so beautiful. We don't know what's going to happen, but it's going to be a great day. And you'll relive the whole past thing with the recruiting with Michael.' We brought (young) Michael's friends, too, three of the players from Mooney. So there was this caravan of family and Joe Paterno was just unbelievable with my in-laws. He was right by their side, talking about back when he recruited Michael (Sr.), talking about his visit to Youngstown, talking about the family, asking about people he remembered that had come to the house. I know that really meant a lot to Michael Vincent. He kind of got the feeling that, "This is where I belong. This is my family, and there is so much history and tradition here.' So, I think the reasons he finally chose Penn State was because of family values."

Cindy also was impressed by what Paterno told her son at junior day about his impending decision.

"This was the first time Joe had met Michael Vincent," Cindy recalled, "and Joe said, 'Listen, I don't want you to worry that I'm going to be mad at you if you don't come to Penn State. And I don't want you to worry that your dad and family are going to be mad at you because they love you and they want what's best for you. So, you go to school where you feel the most comfortable.'"

Of course, Michael Vincent still has one more year of high school before joining the Nittany Lions. He could always change his mind, but his parents are sure that won't happen, even if the 80-year-old Paterno would suddenly retire beforehand.

"A lot of people tease Michael Vincent about whether Joe is going to be there when he's there," Cindy said. "Michael Vincent says, 'I don't care because he built what is there. And if he does retire when I am there, it will be an honor to stand there in a uniform.'"

It is clear that blue and white flows through Michael Vincent's veins. His father was one of Paterno's great defensive backs, a part-time starter as a freshman on the 1982 national championship team and captain of the 1985 team that played for the national championship against Oklahoma in the '86 Orange Bowl. His mother was a cheerleader for three years and today her uniform is on display in Penn State's All-Sports Museum.

They were destined to meet after Michael, then a freshman, spotted a photo of the former Cynthia Robinson of Penn Hills High School in a sexy calendar, "Girls of Penn State," that was sold to raise money for a charity.

"I saw her picture," Michael remembered, "and I said, 'I gotta find this chick.' I knew somebody that knew her, we met and we dated from my sophomore year on."

They were married in 1988.

Michael senior is now the owner of a utility contracting business in Pittsburgh and Cindy is a professional photographer, certified by the Pittsburgh Film Maker group. Many of her photographs were published in a 1999 book she created with the help of now retired Philadelphia sports columnist Bill Lyon, entitled When The Clock Runs Out. The book is about the mental anguish that confronts players and their families when the men reach the end of their pro football careers, and includes stories on such NFL luminaries as Chuck Bednarik, Rocky Bleier and Mike Ditka.

"It took me 2 1/2 years to get the book finished and by that time, Michael (Sr.) was retiring from the Eagles," Cindy said. "He was very supportive except he said he definitely didn't want to be in the book, and he's not."

Zordich spent 12 years in the NFL and his Penn State reputation for hard tackling, determination and aggressiveness followed him into the pros. He had that innate defensive quality that coaches mundanely call "a nose for the ball."

At Penn State, he is best remembered for his stunning interception and touchdown in the opening minute of the 1985 season at Maryland that ignited the Nittany Lions' run toward the national championship game.

But there was another interception he made while playing for the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 29, 1989, in Dallas that is equally memorable to the Zordich family. The previous day, Cindy was taken to a Phoenix hospital with the birth of her first child imminent. Michael wanted to stay with her and he called his coach, Gene Stallings, with his request to miss the Cowboys game. Cindy and Mike remember Stallings' reply: "Brother," Stallings said in his slow Texas southern drawl, "I know your wife needs you there, but, brother I need you more in Dallas."

Michael missed the first flight to Dallas but Cindy told him he had get to the game, and he left. A couple hours after midnight, Michael Vincent came into the world. She asked the nurses to call her husband so she could talk to him. It was 2 a.m. in Dallas. The nurses reached assistant coach Larry Wilson, the Cardinals' former All-Pro safety. Cindy asked Wilson to tell Michael in the morning that he has a son.

"Are you kidding?" Wilson said. "I'm going to tell him right now."

And he did.

The next afternoon, an exuberant Michael Zordich intercepted a Dallas pass and ran it back for a touchdown that won the game 19-10. The jubilant Cardinals gave the game ball to Zordich and the next day Michael Sr. gave the ball to his new son.

Today, that ball sits in a prominent spot in the Zordich home in Canfield. There's also a letter somewhere in their stack of scrapbooks and boxes that the newly named Michael Vincent received a few days later from Michael senior's position coach at Penn State, John Bove (who is now the athletic department's compliance officer). The letter informs Michael Vincent Zordich that he is being recruited now to play for Penn State sometime in the 21st Century.

Yes, from the first day of his life, Michael Vincent Zordich was destined to play football for Penn State. It's a family thing.

To read stories like this one and more, be sure to subscribe to the magazine. Click Here to Subscribe!

Penn State NEWS

[More]

Latest Headlines:

Resources:

FEATURED PRODUCT