Brains and brawn

JEREMIAH BARTZ/ Frontiersman sports editor

There are players who are bigger than Dominick Bellotte, those who are stronger and many who are faster.

So what separates Bellotte from about every other prep football player in the state?

"His intensity," former Colony High School head football coach Randy Magner once said. "His motor goes 100 miles per hour all of the time. He keeps going and going and going."

That forever-running motor is one reason the three-time all-state selection for the Colony Knights will take his talents to the NCAA Division I-AA level.

But not the only reason.

Bellotte has used his intelligence to find the right spot for him, in terms of both athletics and academics.

Bellotte, who will graduate from CHS at the end of the school year, has signed to play football for the Valparaiso Crusaders.

Valparaiso competes in the Pioneer Football League, a conference similar to the Ivy League. Like the Ivy League, teams competing in the PFL do not offer athletic scholarships. In order to attend the university, Bellotte had to earn academic scholarships. Even though Valparaiso did not offer athletic scholarships, the college fit Bellotte's needs. He was not just looking for a quality football program interested in his services. Bellotte was looking for a school with a quality engineering program, that also had a football team.

"I wish everyone was like Dominick and knew exactly what they want to do in college," Magner said. "A lot of schools were interested, but didn't offer engineering. Dominick plays like Division I player, but he's just not big enough. Finding a Division I-AA or Division II school that offered engineering and had football was not easy."

Bellotte had a list of schools he was interested in - Valparaiso, Grove City College (Penn.), Oberlin College (Ohio) and Rose Hulman Institute of Technology (Ind.) - that had both quality engineering and football programs. He was also recruited by the Colorado School of Mines for wrestling.

"The biggest difference between me and a lot of guys going to play football is a lot of guys are going to play football just to play football," Bellotte said. "I'm one of the few guys going on to play football to get an education."

Several of Bellotte's Colony teammates committed with programs earlier in the signing season, but once he reached his final list of schools, Bellotte waited to see who could put the best academic scholarship packages together. When he narrowed down the list, finances came into the decision, but he had another roster of concerns that weighed heavily into his choice. Bellotte said finances ruled Oberlin and Rose Hulman out and he would rather play football than wrestle in college, so Colorado School of Mines was marked off.

Bellotte looked at graduation rates, whether graduate students or professors taught classes, the student-teacher ratios and location of the campuses.

He found the best at Valpo.

Bellotte saw the Northern Indiana community of Valparaiso similar to what he's seen growing up in the Valley, with a larger city similar to Anchorage within an hour drive. The people at Valparaiso reminded Bellotte of friends at

home.

"When it came down to it, I just remembered hanging out with guys like Rhett Magner, Justin Schwartz-bauer, Kyle Coffman and Jon Stratton (at Colony) and all these guys at Valpo just reminded me so much of my buddies," Bellotte

said.

But more important for Bellotte, his scholarships were based on academics, and regardless of his athletic career with the Crusaders, Bellotte can continue his education at Valparaiso.

"In case I ever get tired of playing football, in case I ever hurt myself and can't play, I don't lose my scholarships," Bellotte said. "Because my scholarships are based on education, I still would get a great education."

Bellotte was a three-time All-Northern Railbelt Conference and all-state selection on both the offensive and defensive line in high school, but will be moving to middle linebacker in college. The Crusader coaching staff recruited Bellotte to play in the middle of the linebacker corps of their base 46 defense. Bellotte said the Crusaders had the second-ranked pass defense in all of Division I-AA last season, but ranked near the bottom in total run defense.

"That's why they recruited me," Bellotte said. "They need linebackers built to stop the run."

While at Colony, Bellotte said, it was his responsibility to take on blockers, shed the opponent and read the play. Bellotte said that will be an important skill to take to the next level as he becomes accustomed to the difference in overall speed. The hardest part of the transition for Bellotte, will be gaining the that speed to play middle linebacker at the Division I level. Bellotte said his 40-yard dash time right now is about 5.0 seconds and he hopes to drop down to 4.8 before he departs for Indiana. Bellotte, who always provides lofty goals for himself, is striving to break Colony's bench press record of 395 pounds, hit 450 pounds on the parallel squat and 325 pounds on the power clean.

"I set my goals high and in the end I am a lot stronger for trying and a lot faster for trying,"

Notes from the recruiting trail … Bellotte is one of two Alaskans signed by Valparaiso during the off-season. North Pole senior Cam Culver will join Bellotte on the Crusader roster … Bellotte is one of seven CHS seniors to sign a National Letter of Intent this year. Rhett Magner (Bowling Green State University), Justin Schwartzbauer (Weber State), Kyle Coffman (Bemidji State), Ricky Cunningham (Bemidji State), Jon Stratton (Valley City State) and Shawn Olivera (Yuba College) will all play college football next spring … Colony graduates Curtis Shirley (Western Oregon), Cory Creighton (Western Montana), Justin Harris (Western Montana) and James Winter (Minnesota State-Moorehead) are already on college rosters.