<\/p>\n Related Article: Joe Cooper has had Power 4 schools and NFL scouts knocking. But he \u2018owes\u2019 SRU football a NCAA championship<\/p>\n
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Sabo Jr. earned 10 athletic letters at SRHS, including four in football. He caught 47 passes for 633 yards and eight touchdowns his senior year. He tallied 110 catches for 1,551 yards and 20 TDs in his high school career, becoming a prime college recruit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up watching some great teams and players here,\u201d Sabo Jr. said of SRU. \u201cI saw (Minnesota Vikings guard) Brandon Fusco play, all those standout receivers like Henry Litwin, Jermaine Wynn, Kyle Sheets. My dad played here, my second cousin, Ryan Sabo, played here.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
John Sabo, right, a former Slippery Rock University, smiles with his son, John Sabo, left, after catching a fish. Submitted photo<\/p>\n
But he said he didn\u2019t initially plan to play at SRU. He wanted to \u201clook around, maybe leave the area and try to build something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the PSAC schools wanted him, a couple of Division I schools. … It was entirely his decision where to go. It\u2019s his life,\u201d Sabo Sr. said.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the culture of SRU football kept him at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat family thing isn\u2019t an overrated term at Slippery Rock,\u201d Sabo Jr. said. \u201cThat\u2019s how it is here.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s realizing much of the same success with The Rock his father enjoyed.<\/p>\n
SRU won the PSAC West title during Sabo Jr.\u2019s freshman year. The Rock reached the national semifinals his redshirt freshman season. His father played on SRU\u2019s 1998 national semifinal team as a sophomore.<\/p>\n
While Shawn Lutz is Sabo Jr.\u2019s head coach with The Rock, he served as Sabo Sr.\u2019s position coach in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say the apple doesn\u2019t fall far from the tree,\u201d retired SRU head coach George Mihalik said. \u201cNobody out-worked Senior when he was here. Nobody is out-working Junior now.\u201d<\/p>\n
A starting receiver for SRU this season, John has 11 catches for 150 yards, sharing the team lead with four touchdown receptions. A redshirt sophomore, he continues to play on special teams as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn was No. 2 on our depth chart coming into spring ball,\u201d Lutz said. \u201cHe just worked his way into a starting role. He\u2019s one of those first-one-on, last-guy-off-the-practice-field kind of guys. His teammates respect him so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just don\u2019t see guys start at receiver here before their junior year. We couldn\u2019t keep him off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Slippery Rock football player John Sabo celebrates a big play during a game in the late 1990s. Submitted photo<\/p>\n
They can\u2019t keep his father away from the program, either \u2014 not that they would want to.<\/p>\n
Sabo Sr. employs more than 25 SRU safety management graduates. He\u2019s helped more than 100 Rock graduates find jobs in the field. He has members of the current Rock football team over for dinner and a day of watching NFL games each Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say 15 to 25 players come over on Sundays,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like they\u2019re part of our family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sabo residence also has workout facilities, a hot tub and other amenities for the team to use.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of our guys go over there for treatment,\u201d Lutz said. \u201cI love the way the Sabo family has stayed involved in the program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabo Sr. also serves as an assistant coach on the Slippery Rock High School football team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to give back, any way I can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sabo Jr. will not be following his father in terms of a career. He is majoring in integrated marketing and communication.<\/p>\n
But he has a lot of football to play first.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal here is always to win a PSAC championship and go on a long run from there,\u201d Sabo Jr. said. \u201cPersonally, the numbers guys like Litwin and Sheets put up … I want to chase those numbers. I want to leave my mark here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love wearing this uniform. I want rings to go with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slippery Rock University’s John Sabo (14) leads the team out onto the field before facing Shepherd in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[20411,7918,20400,16927,20423,20425,8570,20406,20404,3071,20405,20410,20403,20422,20417,399,20402,20420,20409,20401,20412,983,196,20415,398,396,397,3,10756,3234,20416,2425,20407,20419,20418,20408,99,20424,20414,20413,20421],"class_list":["post-208879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-bruin","tag-butler","tag-butler-eagle","tag-cabot","tag-callery","tag-cherry-valley","tag-community-news","tag-connoquenessing","tag-cranberry","tag-crime","tag-east-butler","tag-eau-claire","tag-education-news","tag-evans-city","tag-fairview","tag-football","tag-government-news","tag-harmony","tag-harrisville","tag-high-school-sports-news","tag-karns-city","tag-local-news","tag-mars","tag-mount-chesnut","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-news","tag-obituaries","tag-pennsylvania","tag-petrolia","tag-political-news","tag-portersville","tag-sarver","tag-saxonburg","tag-slippery-rock","tag-sports","tag-valencia","tag-west-liberty","tag-west-sunbury","tag-zelienople"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}