First day of football practice: New coach Tom Zbikowski makes a splash at St. Patrick

Coaching high-school football has become cool. The local sidelines are sprinkled with several former NFL players. Many turned down college and pro coaching jobs to spend their time in the trenches with teenagers.

The latest big-name college coach to leave for a local high school is former NFL player Tom Zbikowski, who starred at Notre Dame and Buffalo Grove. Zbikowski, who spent time as an assistant at St. Francis and Lake Forest, took over at St. Patrick this spring.

The Shamrocks’ hire made a lot of dads on the Northwest Side happy. It sent the St. Patrick players to their search engines.

“I had no idea who he was,” Shamrocks
senior Eli Valencia said. “All the adults said he was a big deal, and then I went and read his Wikipedia page.”

Zbikowski spent last season as the safeties coach at Brown and was a defensive assistant at Western Michigan in 2022. He was a third-round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft and spent five seasons as a professional, playing with Baltimore and Indianapolis.

Zbikowski played with Dan Santucci, the St. Patrick president, at Notre Dame. When Santucci reached out about the opportunity with the Shamrocks, it felt like the perfect fit for Zbikowski.

“Seeing my family was a big part of this,” Zbikowski said. “They are in Park Ridge. When I first got to Brown my daughter was born right as the season was starting. I saw her for maybe six days out of the season. I like being a father and I like being present.”

Monday was the first day of football practice around the state and as Zbikowski looked out at his team he had no illusions about the task in front of him. St. Patrick has a vibrant fan base, but hasn’t made the playoffs since 2021. That was the school’s only winning season in the last 10 years. Zbikowsi is taking on a much bigger challenge than Robbie Gould at Rolling Meadows and St. Viator or Jordan Lynch at Mount Carmel.

“I’m excited to build it myself,” Zbikowski said. “These kids are a resilient bunch. They don’t really flinch after what they’ve gone through. That’s what I’m most impressed with.”

Lineman David Folorunsho, a 6-4, 280-pound junior, is the only highly recruited player on the team. He has offers from Miami (Ohio), Toledo and Iowa State.

The Shamrocks return three four-year starters: Valencia and Conor Malenock on the offensive line and defensive end Matt Downes. Junior Gavin Gardiner will take over as quarterback.

“I don’t know if we have any stars,” Zbikowski said. “We have a lot of talent and experience on offense. We have a very good offense and defensive line and Gardiner is a really good quarterback.”

Like his teammates, Downes didn’t know who Zbikowski was a year ago.

“I had no clue who he was prior to this,” Downes said. “But a lot of people were very excited, and he knows what he’s doing, so it is pretty cool to have him around here.”

St. Patrick was 2-7 in both of the last two seasons.

“They are a lot better than what their record showed last year,” Zbikowski said. “But in football, that is the way it goes a lot of times. Things started slipping and sliding. I had a similar season at Brown.

“We will take it one game at a time. It is high school football. They can all be beaten on whatever given day. I know how it goes. I was the best player in the state and I didn’t win a state championship.”