By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
sullyglorydays@gmail.com
When the Holy Spirit High football team scored a touchdown the last couple of years, linebacker Nick Medina never felt uncomfortable doing a celebration dance.
That’s because he’s one of a handful of Spartans players who have been taking dance class at the high school for the last few years. Yup, you heard that right — a dancing linebacker. A 6-foot, 240-pound dancing game wrecker.
“It definitely translates to football. (In class) we stretch every day and you see (athletics) in a different perspective,” said Medina, who this past fall finished up a career that saw him rack up nearly 200 tackles and 17.5 sacks in four years of varsity football. “Sophomore year I had to fill a class spot and dance was an elective. A couple other guys were doing it. So I was like, ‘oh, I have some friends in there, if I don’t like it I can always do something else.’ But I just fell in love with it. It’s kind of all over the place, we learn about the history of dance, doing contemporary stuff. We put on a big show at the end of the year the past two years and we’re going to do it again this year.”
“Nick came in as a freshman and was a kid who thought he was coming in as a running back, and it’s really hard to convince a running back that maybe that’s not the best position for them. So he had a little bit of an adjustment period with the position change from the position he grew up playing, but he bought in and he started as a freshman,” said Holy Spirit coach Andrew DiPasquale, who has also used Medina as an offensive lineman. “He started at full back and was a force. He adjusted really well to the point where we couldn’t play without him. He’s an overall great kid — there isn’t a person in the school, teacher administrator, anybody, who doesn’t have great things to say about Nick Medina.”
Some kids are born to lead, it seems, and Medina falls into that category. He learned a lot from his sister, who was a star athlete at Mainland Regional High and now plays both field hockey and lacrosse in college.
“His sister had a great career at Mainland, and that’s just how their whole family is,” DiPasquale said. “He comes from a great family with great parents who have instilled a worth ethic in those kids that has carried over into sports and their everyday life.”
Medina said he took cues from Julianna, now a junior at Fairleigh Dickenson University – Florham, as he grew into the role of team captain at Holy Spirit.
“(High school football) was a whole lot different. You come in as the top dog (from youth football) and go straight to the bottom of the barrel. It was a new experience for me. Coming in and having to work (for playing time) really opened my eyes,” Medina said. “My sister played a big role (in my development). As I got older, my sister was making first-team all-star everything, and it was like a button got pushed where I had to do better than her. I had to compete with her.”
Medina certainly has left his own mark. He was one of the top linebackers and edge rushers in South Jersey last fall, leading the Spartans to a 10-2 record that included a trip to the sectional semifinals and big wins over teams such as Camden, St. Augustine Prep, Ocean City and Atlantic City. In all, the Spartans beat nine teams that made it to the state playoffs this past season.
“To watch him grow into the person that he has become has been awesome. I tell this to our guys all the time: ‘the best teams are the player-led teams.’ He was a captain as a junior; we weren’t really sure if he was entirely ready for that, but we felt he deserved it. He fully embraced the things he had to work on (coming into senior year) and has become a leader the kids listen to. He’s basically an extension of the coaching staff,” DiPasquale said. “We sometimes have the taxi (youth) kids play at halftime of our games and they look up to our guys like they are NFL players. It’s an awesome moment for those little kids and they know Nick Medina’s name. It’s a really cool thing for him. Sometimes these guys don’t realize it, but they are kind of local celebrities among the youth players.”
“My career is everything I had hoped it would be and more. It was awesome. I never thought I would get to this point. I always thought I would go play at Holy Spirit and see where it took me, and it’s taken me to places that I couldn’t imagine,” said Medina, who’s currently in the recruiting process to continue his career at the collegiate level. “Some of the practices were hard, but winning games — there’s no better feeling than that. Being undersized and going up against powerhouses and winning, celebrating with all the friends you made, the brothers that you have on the team. I don’t think there’s an experience that comes close to it.
“I learned a lot about defense and how I can improve myself every day. I’m not perfect but I can always make adjustments to my game. (High school football) was definitely a great experience.”
DiPasquale said Medina’s preparation, willingness to put in the work and his love for football certainly rubbed off on his teammates and the younger players in the program.
“He’s just a kid you can depend on. He has the mentality when he’s in the game that it doesn’t matter who is in front of him, he’s going to make plays — and that’s contagious. You can tell, there’s a difference when he’s on the field,” the coach said. “Last year, he broke his hand during a game and I didn’t even know he broke it. He called me at 1 a.m. and said he was in the hospital. I was like, ‘oh, my God, I had no idea!’ And he just goes, ‘don’t worry, I got a club (cast) on it, I’m good to go next week.’ That’s just the type of kid he is. And that energy, that toughness is contagious. The kids know there are no excuses. That’s the example he sets.
“Toward the end of the season you really start to think about the seniors you’re going to miss,” DiPasquale continued. “You’re with them every day for four years and you have a special relationship with them. You hope you did everything you could to get them ready for the next stage of their life. I’m excited to see what Nick does, whatever it is. He’s going to take the approach that he’s going to be the absolute best at whatever he does because he understands the work it takes.”
“He’s the best. We were in the weight room every single day, we didn’t miss a single lift because we were both captains. He’s a fun player to play with. He could command the whole defensive line and linebackers, and I would get the defensive backs and safeties all on the same page. We were both kind of centerpieces to the defense, and it was a lot of fun because we knew we had two good minds out there,” said fellow senior and captain Matt Abbott. “He made my job a lot easier. I didn’t have to make all those one-on-one tackles because if I had to, it probably didn’t turn out too well for us. He made everyone’s job easier because he could go sideline-to-sideline and make plays literally anywhere on the field. He was the biggest leader on our team; he played four years and he was a lot of fun to be around, the center of jokes and all that. It was a fun senior year.”
No matter where he ends up, Medina will take plenty of memories of his time in the Navy and gold with him.
“I don’t think there’s an experience like Holy Spirit football,” he said. “It just brings you closer to everyone and you make new connections you never thought could happen. It sticks with you.”
