The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Cerebral LB Luke Marino leading South defense
Nearly eight years have passed since Luke Marino got a B in fourth-grade English, but he talks of it like it still bothers him.
“I thought I was really cool and didn’t have to do anything,” Marino said. “It kind of shocked me. I’ve been pushing and doing 100 percent in class ever since.”
In a few weeks, Marino will begin his senior year at Willoughby South High School.
He will do so with a perfect academic record to his name since that B in fourthgrade English.
On top of that, Marino will embark on his senior year as the starting middle linebacker for the Rebels football team this season.
Here’s the twist — no matter how good of a year Marino has on the gridiron, he has zero chance of being as perfect as he is on the academic side of the ledger.
Which, of course, isn’t a bad thing.
“I got a 36 on the ACT this past March,” Marino said. “And I’m doing pretty well in school, too.”
Marino has a GPA well over 4.0, since he takes honors classes at South.
He is a semifinalist to be a National Merit Scholar.
He has recorded nine 5’s on Advanced Placement tests.
And since he has already taken all of the math and English courses at South, he will be taking Calculus 3 and an African-American Studies course in literature at John Carroll University this coming semester in addition to AP chemistry at South.
Suffice to say, Marino has the academic side of things pretty locked up heading into his senior year.
“He’s definitely smarter than all of the coaches, including myself,” South coach Matt Duffy said with the straightest of faces.
Marino shrugs when asked if academics come easy to him, though he did say he “definitely puts in a lot of study time.”
The perfect ACT score Marino achieved this past spring came on his fourth crack at the college entrance exam. He scored a 28 in seventh grade, followed it up with a 33 as an eighthgrader, and then posted a 35 early in his junior year before hitting a perfect score at the end of his junior year.
All of the high academic marks don’t cut him any slack at home, though, where even his junior-high brother recently scored a 31 on the ACT.
“Whenever I do something stupid, they make fun of me, ‘Yeah, you got a 36 on the ACT,’” Marino said, rolling his eyes.
While Marino might joke about his academics, Duffy doesn’t. In fact, he relishes the opportunity to have a middle linebacker on the field that is so cerebral he can know what every other position on the defensive side of the ball is supposed to be doing based on the defensive calls Marino barks out after getting the instructions from the sidelines.
“He’s one of those kids that comes around only once in a while in terms of being so intelligent and playing football at the level he’s playing at,” Duffy said. “He knows the other positions as well as some of them know their own positions. He’s like having a coach on the field, absolutely.”
Following graduation, Marino hopes to have received an acceptance from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), play football there and major in Aerospace Engineering. He pointed out that even with his perfect ACT score, only one in six get accepted to MIT, so there are no guarantees.
He has also applied to Ohio State and Georgia Tech for their science programs.
Before all that comes his senior year of high school, some of which will be spent taking college classes, and a senior year of football with the Rebels — one he has been looking forward to all summer long.
“I’m excited to improve the defense from last year,” Marino said. “I think we were okay last year. We’ve got to get the ball back to the offense and win some games.”
Watch video interviews with South linebacker Luke Marino and head coach Matt Duffy. NEWS-HERALD.COM.