DeAngelis Says Peabody High Prepared Him Well for College Ball

Peabody’s Brian DeAngelis just celebrated his 20th birthday last week, and he’s getting ready to start his sophomore season at tight end for the St. Anselm’s Hawks football team.

DeAngelis graduated from in 2011, played football, basketball and threw the javelin and discuss for the Tanners track team in high school. He was the captain of the basketball and the football teams, and has nothing but high praise for his coaches at Peabody High who helped him get where he is now.

“I had an unbelievable experience at Peabody,” DeAngelis said. “Fernando (Braz) and his Going the Distance camp, Scott Wlasuk, Elias Rienoso...so many great mentors, so much help as an athlete, I can’t say enough about the support I received when I was a student-athlete at Peabody High.”

“I got into college and found that I wasn’t the biggest, I wasn’t the strongest, and that’s a big adjustment for an athlete, but because of how I was prepared to play by my coaches at Peabody, I was able to make the next step from high school to college ball,” DeAngelis said.

The six-foot-five, 240-pounder comes from a football family, his dad Richard played football for Everett High, the Crimson Tide longtime Peabody opponents on the old Greater Boston League.

Brian and Richard are joined in the DeAngelis home by mom Christine and sister Lauren.

DeAngelis’ favorite memory from the gridiron in high school was the 2010 Thanksgiving Day win over Saugus, a nice way to end his high school football career.

He picked up track to “stay in shape” during the football and basketball off-seasons, but grew to love throwing the discuss and the javelin. DeAngelis had a personal best in the discus of 110 feet during his senior year.

“Playing sports is so much different in college than in high school,” he said. “You’re playing year round with your friends and then all of a sudden you’re with an entire new group of people, and it’s do or die now...thankfully I was prepared to make the transition because of my experience at Peabody High.”

“Heading into freshman year I was trying to get ready for the speed of college ball, and I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen when the practices started. Now, heading into my sophomore year, I know what it takes to be ready and I’ve been working hard all summer to prepare for the football season,” DeAngelis said.

“I had a very productive freshman season, and I’ve worked really hard this summer to improve my speed, my jumping, just to get better, ready to play,” he said. “I worked out all summer at Fernando (Braz’s) camp, I worked with current Peabody High players to try to help them, to give back, I went to some captain’s practices and worked with the high school players and share some things I’ve learned since I’ve been playing for St. Anselm’s.”

“I learned a lot ofthings from Coach (Patrick) Murphy and it was great to share some of them with the high school players,” DeAngelis said.

“You work so hard to compete at the high school level and when you succeed it’s great, because you do it with your friends, and now to be able to keep playing football in college is great,” he said.

DeAngelis and his St. A’s teammates take on Assumption on the road Friday, Sept. 7. The complete St. Anselm’s schedule and information can be found here.

DeAngelis isn’t the only North Shore guy on the team -- Lynn Classical’s John Cheever and James Hyde from Saugus are teammates as well.

DeAngelis is suffering from a labrum tear in his left shoulder, but will postpone surgery until after the 2012 season.

“It hurts. I’ll play through the pain and deal with it after the season,” DeAngelis said. “It’s not going to get any worse so I’ll deal with the pain and have surgery after the season. The doctor said I could play and have surgery later, so that’s what I’ll do.”

DeAngelis said his dad has been his biggest influence on him, even though he had a hard time rooting for Peabody, being an Everett High guy.

“My dad’s great, he’s been at thousands of games since I was two years old, always on the sidelines with a Gatorade for me,” he said. “I hope to be the father to my kids one day like my dad has been a father to me.”