Even though Eastern Tech linebacker Brandon Hlavach liked football from a very young age, he tried other sports, too.
At 10, however, it became clear those other sports weren't for him.
"During a basketball game, I tackled a kid — accidentally when he was going for a layup," Hlavach recalled with a laugh, "and one of the coaches from their team asked me if I played football. I was like, 'Yeah, I play for Perry Hall,' and he told me to come over to Parkville."
That was pretty much it for basketball.
Hlavach, who wanted to play football from the moment he saw pictures of his father Steven Hlavach as a Rutgers linebacker, fit perfectly on the gridiron where channeling the physical, aggressive approach that made him a little rough around the edges for soccer and basketball turned him into a standout.
He switched to Parkville rec football where many of the players fed into the Eastern Tech program. As a Maverick, he emerged as an All-Metro linebacker as well as one of the Baltimore area's top running backs.
Saturday night at Hersheypark Stadium, Hlavach will cap his high school career in the Big 33 Football Classic as the Maryland team tries to even the score with Pennsylvania after losing two of the past three games. Last year, officials called the game after one half when storms wouldn't go away. Pennsylvania won the shortened game, 20-3.
Hlavach, who graduated from Eastern Tech last week, played in the Maryland Crab Bowl senior all-star game in December, but he really wanted a spot on the roster for the Big 33 game.
"It's one of the best games you can play in as a Maryland kid," Hlavach said. "I think it's going to be awesome to play against the Pennsylvania team and see what they're about, because Pennsylvania football is pretty big. It's going to be fun to play against those kids — and to be the first kid from Eastern Tech to play in it."
Hlavach certainly goes down as one of the best in Eastern Tech history.
"He's a football player. That's kind of what defines him," Mavericks coach Marc Mesaros said. "He's an intense kid. He has a drive that's pretty legendary around here. His name is pretty much synonymous with Eastern Tech football. He's done a great job the past four years."
At linebacker last fall, Hlavach had 68 tackles, six sacks, three interceptions and two forced fumbles as the No. 14 Mavericks went 10-0 during the regular season before falling to Dunbar , 28-14, in the first round of the playoffs.
Many the Mavericks played both ways and Hlavach also fit perfectly into Mesaros' blue-collar backfield. He gained 1,292 yards and scored 18 touchdowns in an offense that accounted for 43 of its 52 touchdowns on the ground.
Mesaros said Hlavach has a high football IQ and John Kelley, the Maryland linebackers coach for the Big 33 game, echoed that. Kelley, the Quince Orchard coach, was impressed from the moment he started evaluating film of the state's top linebackers.
"You could just kind of tell from watching his film that he does everything you want a 'backer to do. He can run. He can cover. He's physical. He can tackle. He looks like he plays with a lot of passion and energy," Kelley said.
"The next part was to have the guys come work out for tryouts and … there are times when you see somebody on film and it doesn't transfer, but everything he did on film, you could see him doing in person and doing real well. You come across a lot of linebackers that can run and are fast and good tacklers, but for him, it seems like he has all the intangibles."
Mesaros said he believes Hlavach was overlooked during the recruiting process because he's a bit small for a Division I linebacker at just under 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds after hitting the weight room to add 20 pounds since the end of the season.
As a 180-pounder last fall he could hang clean 280 pounds, squat 455 and bench press 315.
"Those are pretty stupendous numbers by any stretch of the imagination," Mesaros said. "When it's a 180-pound kid doing that, it's all the more impressive. I think his work ethic is extraordinary."
Hlavach said he simply used the talk of being too small as motivation.
"You can look at it as a negative or as a positive, but I looked at it as, 'You don't think I'm good enough, so I'm going to prove you wrong.'"
Hlavach believes he found the perfect program for him at Shepherd University in West Virginia. The Rams went 13-1 and reached the Division II national championship game last fall. They have lost just four games over the past three years.
"Their coaching staff is great. I liked every single one of them and they treated me like I was one of their own from the beginning," he said. "You can laugh and joke with them and you can call them whenever you want. They were very open and everything they told me [during the recruiting process] was true.
"I think Shepherd's a really good fit for me. I can't wait to get there and work hard and show what I can do," he said.
The possibility of winning a national championship?
"That's just a bonus," he said. "It would be crazy to win a national title."
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