Coach | New Notre Dame Commit Preston Zinter Is "Team-First"

Fortunately for Chuck Adamopoulos, he has one more season with Preston Zinter‍ at Central Catholic High School.

But after that, the 2023 Massachusetts athlete will be off to Notre Dame, which he announced on Friday.

“Number one, you're getting a great kid who is a team-first kid who has a great work ethic and every day comes out to practice ready to roll, make himself a better player and make his team better,” says Adamopoulos, Central Catholic’s head coach.

“As far as an athlete, he's super versatile.”

The 6-foot-3, 220-pounder Zinter plays on both sides of the ball for Central Catholic.

“Defensively, he can play out in space, play in zone defense, can cover a receiver man-to-man, can come down and line up on the tight end and take him on, take on a fullback if they try to run old-school Power,” Adamopoulos says. “If you want, you can put him in a three-point stance and put him down on a tackle and have him rush the passer.

“We're a 3-4, but we started to play around with our fronts a little bit where we kind of stack him behind a DT at the end of the season and play him in there between the tackles. And he was very comfortable doing that. On defense, you can do so many different things with him.

“It's kind of the same thing offensively. He's a kid who is versatile. You can split him out wide. You can have him playing at tight end. He's a good blocker and he's somebody you can have go in motion and kick out a defensive end as an h-back. He's very versatile on both sides of the ball and a good athlete and like I said earlier, a great kid, a great kid to work with.”

Adamopoulos believes Zinter’s growth as a player will be literal as much as anything.

“I think he's going to put on more weight and get a little bigger,” he says. “But at the same time, keep the speed that he has, which is a great asset of his.

“He's pretty good right now. I just think because of how hard he works and how coachable he is, he's just going to get better at everything he's doing now.”

Zinter chose the Irish over offers from schools like Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, LSU, Georgia and BC among many others.

He’d have fit at many schools, but is a tremendous match for Notre Dame.

“Obviously, he's been a high-attention kid as far as publicity and schools being interested in him and when other kids see him working really hard and not having a big ego about any attention he's got, that can rub off on other kids.

“The whole thing is about us trying to achieve success as a team and when you see a kid like that, who is getting a lot of publicity and it doesn't affect him at all, it's a great positive influence on other kids.”