[Buckskin86]

7/1/2007
Trinity's Sweat ruled the rest in three sports

By Mike Kovak, Staff writer
mkovak@observer-reporter.com

Name the sport and Sweat can play it. He makes basketball and baseball look easy but the senior-to-be excels on the football field. That's where Sweat earned his reputation and where he became nationally recognized.

"When you get to the point where his third-best sport is basketball and he's one of the best players without having to go to 47 summer camps, you know you have something special," Trinity football coach and athletic director Ed Dalton said. "This guy has been blessed with that kind of talent. He's earned his reputation."

Athletic freaks of nature normally come in the same package - tall, fast and built with an ego to match their abilities.

That's not Sweat. Yes, at 6-2, Sweat is not short. And, yes, he's quite fast. Ask opposing quarterbacks and running backs who failed to elude his pursuit during the 2006 season. And, no doubt, he's quite strong. Pat him on the back and you'll walk away with a bruise.

"He is probably the best pure football player I've ever coached and he's one of the best players I've ever seen on film. When you watch what he does on film, you wonder how he really does it."

Sweat was so good as a junior, Trinity fans praised him, opponents offered rave reviews - some called him a better high school player than Paul Posluszny, universities across the country recruited him and Sweat was the easy selection as the Observer-Reporter's Boys Athlete of the Year.

By his junior year, Sweat weighed 225 pounds and maintained his exceptional sideline-to-sideline speed. The WPIAL's next great linebacker was about to be uncovered.

"My dad (former Syracuse receiver Gary Sweat) always preached to me that your junior year was really important," Sweat said. "I went in there and just tried my hardest."

At times, Sweat played like a one-man wrecking crew. Against West Mifflin, he made tackles on 20 of the Titans' first 23 plays. He made a one-handed interception against Canon-McMillan. He put up another 20-tackle game against Hopewell. He became the focal point of game plans, particularly that of Thomas Jefferson, and he evolved into an all-state linebacker. In 10 games, Sweat had 165 tackles, two interceptions and too many tackles for losses to count.

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