Chase Winovich doesn’t
forget things easily.
He still remembers the
Ohio State fan who “shot
the double bird” at him last
year. He still remembers his
omission from the Under
Armour All-America Game.
He still remembers the scout
team, the position change
and every other slight, in
part, because all of that has
made him who he is.
Perhaps
it’s
those
recollections that draw his
teammates to say the redshirt
junior has a few screws loose,
that he’s different. Frankly,
they’re not entirely wrong.
Winovich himself will admit
that he’s “just that right
amount of crazy.”
Ask
him
about
Conor
McGregor. He’ll say he would
love to just “be boys with
him.”
Ask him about how he
approaches each day. He’ll
compare himself to a lion
needing to be faster than
gazelles.
Ask
him
about
this
team’s
identity.
He’ll
reference a Steven Spielberg
documentary
to
make
the point that Michigan,
regardless of its youth, can
defy expectations.
But the path he has taken
to become the Wolverines’
starting
defensive
end
required craziness, obsession
or whatever you want to call
it.
So let’s do away with the
illusion of normalcy. Chase
Winovich is different.
He is crazy.
***
It surfaced at his 10th
birthday party.
Winovich was hosting a
double-elimination checkers
tournament at his house,
eventually matching up with
his friend, David Stover.
There were no seeds, but
if there were, Stover would
have
been
up
there.
As
Winovich says, Stover was
a bright kid
that was in
the
gifted
program.
Winovich
lost
and
promptly
ran upstairs,
crying,
pleading for
his
dad
to
beat
David
in the next
round. Even
then, losing
was a shock
to his pride.
“I was like, ‘You have to
beat him so that I can play him
again in the loser’s bracket,’
” Winovich recalls. “In my
head I’m thinking like, ‘How
can I win?’ And I thought to
myself, ‘Beating him twice in
the championship will be a
tough task, but I know if I can
get him in the loser’s bracket,
where I’m at, I can beat him
again.’ ”
Sure enough,
that’s
exactly
what happened.
Winovich’s
dad
beat
David.
Then
Winovich beat
him
himself,
jumpstarting
a
run
to
a
10-year-old
checkers
tournament
title.
Winovich
admits
that,
for Stover, the
experience
was
“probably
just irrelevant.”
But not for Winovich. He
calls his competitiveness a
curse and a gift. Asked for
an example of such away
from a football stadium, the
checkers tournament is the
first thing that comes to
mind.
“When you hate to lose and
you want to win that much, it
creates anxiety in a sense,”
Winovich says. “It’s like, you
want it more than anything
you’ve ever wanted in every
situation.”
And there’s a lot that
Winovich wanted.
***
For what it’s worth, Bill
Cherpak doesn’t think Chase
Winovich is crazy.
But Cherpak knows his
do-it-all
standout
doesn’t
care what anybody thinks of
him. As Winovich’s former
coach at Thomas Jefferson
High School in Jefferson
Hills, Pa., he saw that every
day.
As
a
junior,
Winovich
would
ruin
offensive
practices on the scout team
defense. As a senior, he asked
to be on the kickoff team.
He saw it off the field too
— in a dance contest of all
places.
In December of his senior
year, Winovich participated
in Thomas Jefferson’s fifth
annual “Dancing With the
Athletes” — an event in which
all proceeds were donated to
the Four Diamonds Fund,
a nonprofit that supports
families with children who
have cancer.
As
Cherpak
recalls,
Winovich was “busting his
ass” with his partner to
prepare for a disco rendition
“like Saturday Night Fever.”
The work paid off. To
Cherpak’s best recollection,
Winovich won.
It was just a few months
prior that he won a different
type of battle, too.
Winovich’s older brother
played quarterback, and he
idolized him. So, as Cherpak
recalls,
Winovich
always
wanted a shot to line up
under center.
“And we’re like, ‘Listen,
you’re not a quarterback.
You’re actually horrible at
it.’ ”
Qualified or not, Winovich
was eventually granted his
wish, despite mechanics that
left something to be desired.
“He
thought
he
could
throw,” Cherpak said. “He
really wasn’t that good. He
thought he could. It would
seriously
be
the
ugliest
form.”
When all was said and
done,
though,
Winovich’s
mechanics
didn’t
really
matter. Entering his senior
year at Thomas Jefferson,
Winovich split snaps under
center. Then he won the
starting job.
There
were
games
in
which he’d carry the ball
25 times, and throw once or
twice. Form aside, Winovich
was a leader, and he got the
job done.
“That was him,” Cherpak
said. “He would, like, will
himself to do it even though
he wasn’t skilled at being a
quarterback. ... He just made
plays. He just got it done.
Whatever he had to do, he
was finding a way to get it
FootballSaturday, November 25, 2017
4C
The madness that made Winovich
KEVIN SANTO
Managing Sports Editor
People call Chase Winovich crazy. They say he has screws loose. And frankly, he doesn’t care.
EVAN AARON/Daily
Redshirt junior defensive end Chase Winovich spent two years trying to carve out his role with the Wolverines, but eventually he found his home as Michigan’s starting defensive end.
When you hate
to lose and
want to win
that much, it
creates anxiety
in a sense.