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08/12/2015 12:00 AMFollowing his junior year with the North Haven football team, Zachary Kastenhuber elected to leave the Indians for prep school to get even more seasoning and increase his prospects of becoming a college football player. After having a discussion with Choate Rosemary Hall Coach LJ Spinnato, Zachary felt that repeating his junior year and playing an additional season in the New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) would give him the extra edge to reach the gridiron at the next level. That strategy proved spot-on as Zachary put together an exceptional debut campaign with Choate and thus had the chance to mull offers from 13 Division I programs. The linebacker ultimately made a verbal commitment to compete for Harvard University, where he will begin his tenure in 2016 following his senior year as a captain for Choate this fall.
“The Choate coach approached me and came up to me with the strong belief that I had the potential to be an Ivy League player. For me, even the slightest chance to go to the Ivy League was enough to transition,” says Zachary, who had 108 tackles with 44 for a loss and 18 sacks while helping Choate go 10-0 and beat Avon Old Farms 49-20 in the Class A NEPSAC championship game. “That’s what it took—just to have that as a potential option. If I worked hard, I couldn’t turn that down. It was not just the Ivy League, but he believed I had the potential for a high academic DI school, which was very appealing to me, especially coming out of Choate, which is one of the top prep schools in the world. It definitely helped and still does help me prepare for college.”
Zachary’s final four schools came down to Syracuse, Villanova, Yale, and Harvard. In the end, he was blown away by the Crimson’s winning pitch.
“They’ve become the powerhouse of the Ivy League. On top of that, their facilities are incredible. They rival the big BCS schools and the athletic facilities are at most a 10-minute walk from campus. Other schools, like Yale, you have to take a 15-minute shuttle. On top of that, I love Cambridge and the Boston area. I could see myself fitting in for the next four years,” Zachary says. “[Head Coach Tim Murphy] presented the obvious—how it’s one of the top institutions in the world. Aside from the academics, he presented that they have not graduated a class of football players without a championship ring in the last 40 years. That’s appealing to me. You can’t beat a championship and a winning team every year. They’re just a successful program and that’s what they pitched.”
Zachary—who’s 6-feet, 225 pounds—played defensive end and tight end for the Indians in 2013, recording 92 tackles with 15 sacks en route to All-SCC, Second Team New Haven Register All-Area, and Honorable Mention Register All-State honors. He also caught four touchdown passes in aiding a landmark campaign that featured a division title and the program’s first playoff win.
Zachary accepted a lessened offensive role for Choate last fall, but still proved a huge menace on defense as his combination of size and speed allowed him to make a ton of game-changing plays.
“He’s got an incredible motor and an incredible competitive drive. He’s 100-percent every snap from whistle to whistle and it’s an impressive thing to watch. It’s a lot of fun to coach a kid like that,” says Choate Coach Spinnato. “He was our primary rush guy and it’s not very easy to go that hard that many times in a game and still be able to play two ways. For us, it kept him fresh, so he could go the whole game and not take plays off and it made a huge difference because he wreaked havoc in the backfield with 18 sacks and over 40 tackles for a loss last year. Offenses had to try to account for him and that was not easy for them.”
When a young athlete makes a move from a public school to a prep school, very often the heightened level of competition can get the better of them. However, that wasn’t the case for Zachary, who put in the extra work to ensure he’d make a major impact for Choate.
“I would say competition in the prep league is definitely above the SCC. I know the SCC is a powerhouse program having played three years in the league, but in the prep school league, 60 percent of the kids you’re playing against are going DI, compared to one or two kids on the opposing SCC team,” says Zachary. “There is a lot more adversity and challenges you have to face when almost every player is a recruited football player, but it just drove me to be more successful as a whole.”
Even though Zachary is playing football at Harvard, he knows that education will be the most important aspect of his four years at the prestigious university.
“My parents really enforced academics, saying nothing was as important as studying and getting your head in the books. I really took that to heart and success is what drives me. I knew that without the academic drive, life would be difficult,” says Zachary. “Putting in extra hours and effort could make life that much better. My parents did a good job of bringing that to me and expressing how important a little more focus in the books can be.”