done.”
That
wouldn’t
be
the
last time Winovich willed
something into being.
***
When
Matt
Thompson
first met Chase Winovich,
Nick Volk had a prediction
for him.
“The day I met Chase,”
Thompson recalls, “(Volk)
said that Chase was gonna be
an All-American one day.”
Winovich came to Ann
Arbor to play SAM in Brady
Hoke’s defensive scheme, was
asked to play tight end upon
Jim Harbaugh’s arrival, hurt
his PCL in
the
ensuing
Spring
Game
and
pulled
his
hamstring
during
the
first
week
of
camp.
He
found
himself
as
the
sixth
or
seventh-
string tight end.
Ask Winovich if he was
any good at the position, and
he’ll preface his answer by
saying that he may be more
confident in his abilities than
others. Then he’ll tell you he
could have been decent.
Ask former scout team
quarterback Matt Thompson,
and he’ll say that — despite
all the time Winovich spent
studying the concepts and
catching
balls
outside
of
practice — they both knew
tight end wasn’t the right
position for him.
Thompson was also Chase’s
former
roommate,
so
he
knows that Winovich never
said so out loud. Instead, he
reverted to the part of him
that made losing a checkers
match so unbearable.
“The way Chase’s brain
is hardwired is that he will
literally run through a wall
for anybody,” Thompson said.
“And I guess I would just try
to make sure to emphasize to
him that the position move
was for the best of the team
and that it’s a
phenomenal
opportunity for
you to shock
the
world,
because nobody
had
high
expectations
for him at the
position.
That
type of thing
excites him.”
Winovich
didn’t get to shock the world,
at least not at tight end.
He was reserved to special
teams and — for the second
straight year — scout team
responsibilities.
It was in those practices
that
Winovich
came
across a safety who didn’t
take as much pride in the
scout team as he did. To
Winovich, winning on the
scout team meant making
the offense better “at all
costs,” especially when the
offense was sputtering in
2014. Eventually, the issue
came to a head. Winovich
told him that he was never
going to make it here,
because he didn’t want
it bad enough. He wasn’t
wrong. The safety didn’t
make it.
There
were
other
instances like that too. A
punter criticized Winovich
for missing a tackle in a
scrimmage. Winovich told
him to worry about punting.
In
short,
people
took
exception
to
the
competitiveness he calls a
gift and a curse.
“They got pissed at me
everyday,”
Winovich
said.
“I was just going so hard.
Sometimes I was just being
a schmuck, like I’d celebrate
after I got a sack.”
Fifth-year senior center
Patrick Kugler remembers
those
celebrations
well.
Winovich
would
do
the
worm, the Nae Nae or any
celebration he could conceive
after
a
big
play
during
practice his freshman year.
Michigan went 5-7 that
year. Brady Hoke eventually
asked him to stop. The antics
were dialed back.
As you can gather by now,
though, there was no turning
off Winovich’s motor.
That
motor
brought
Winovich to blast music on
the way to practice with
Thompson,
when
his
friend wasn’t
feeling
up
to the grind.
He’d
tell
Thompson
that it was
his big day,
that he was
the
next
Tom
Brady
— ready to
climb out of the cellar of the
depth chart.
And
eventually,
that
motor landed him back in
the defensive line room after
Harbaugh’s first season.
“Yeah, I was ecstatic,”
Winovich said. “It was my
coming home party. Like
LeBron James had going
from Miami to Cleveland, I
had mine going from tight
end to defense.”
Added
Thompson:
“He
was just really excited and
said, ‘I think I was made for
this position. My name is
Chase. My name is not Block
or Catch. I think I was made
to play on defense.’ ”
And if 2017 has been any
indication,
Winovich
was
right.
***
Drive four miles east on
Washtenaw
Avenue
from
Schembechler
Hall,
and
you will arrive at Randazzo
Dance Studio.
If Winovich truly doesn’t
care what people think of
him, taking ballet classes in
the offseason was a pretty
good
way
to
show it.
He
went
to the studio
last
spring,
while
still
taking classes,
and
talked
with
Sarah
Randazzo,
the
studio’s
director.
He
asked
for
recommendations, and went
through an evaluation.
Soon after, he was paired
with Audrey Launius for one-
on-one instruction. Once a
week for about three months,
Winovich was in the studio.
He started with basic ballet-
bar work, before moving on
to pliés, tendus and degages.
Like most things Winovich
does, he was good at it, and
good simply wasn’t good
enough.
“He picked it up very
quickly, but he also asked the
right kinds of questions,”
5C
TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Chase Winovich, now a starter, has paved his way to a legitimate chance of making it in the NFL, as he is second in the Big Ten in tackles for loss.
EVAN AARON/Daily
Chase Winovich boasts a competitiveness that he calls a blessing and a curse, and his first memory of such is a checkers tournament that he hosted.
I was ecstatic.
It was my
coming home
party.
They got pissed
at me everyday.
I was just going
so hard.
See WINOVICH, Page 6C