Wentz overcomes odds to land offer
A few thousand players nationally have signed with FBS programs over the past two months.
When it comes to overcoming adversity and having an enormous amount of untapped potential, few likely rival that of a 17-yearold who attends Pine-Richland High School.
Levi Wentz is a senior who last Wednesday signed a letter of intent to play at Old Dominion. He also strongly considered Army and Navy.
This is a teenager who has only been playing football for one year, yet was still good enough so quickly to become a starting cornerback for one of the best programs in Pennsylvania. He earned all-conference honors in the WPIAL’s largest classification and Wednesday was selected to play in the annual Big 33 game.
As for the adversity Wentz has overcome, well, picking a college wasn’t the first time he has had to find a new home. He and his two siblings (Elijah and Naomi) moved from foster home to foster home before being adopted by Brad and Beth Wentz in 2012.
“It’s amazing, the back story,” Pine-Richland coach Eric Kasperowicz said. “Football is probably the lesser of the two for sure. What he went through as a kid to get to where he is now. But then you look at the football career, and that’s obviously what I’m more familiar with.
“Him coming out and playing for just one year. How quickly he picked things up. How coachable of a kid he was. How selfless he was to put total trust in myself and my staff to put him in a position to succeed. He’s exceeded my expectations of him. He had an outstanding football career at Pine-Richland, albeit for one year.”
Wentz has had a hard life. He has never met his biological father. He said his mother struggled with addiction issues, so he and his siblings were taken away from her when he was just a few years old. Wentz said they lived with close to 10 foster families, the last one being Jon and Patty Grubbs of Gibsonia. They showed the siblings lots of love and support, Levi said, and then introduced them to their daughter, Beth, who at the time was dating Brad Wentz. Brad and Beth would eventually adopt the three siblings and then got married a few months later.
“I don’t even know how to describe it. It was nothing like I ever had before,” Levi said. “The stability and love they have given me is unmatched. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today. I’ll be forever grateful to them.”
Basketball was Wentz’s top sport for quite some time. He’s a regular for a Pine-Richland team that is seeded fifth in the WPIAL Class 6A playoffs, which start next week. Wentz played baseball and was a hurdler in track for a few years, but despite being gifted with great size — he’s 6 feet 3, 180 pounds — football was never an option.
“I always wanted to play,” he said. “People would watch me play basketball and say I looked like a football player, but my dad wanted to protect me.”
Or maybe Brad Wentz just wanted to motivate Levi to become a pro at doing pushups.
“He said if I could do 100 push-ups in a row, he would let me play,” Levi recalled. “But I knew I could never do that, so that let me focus on basketball. But then I started thinking that after I graduate, I’m never going to have a chance to play football. So, the summer going into my junior year, I started doing a lot of push-ups.”
Wentz did them at home every night and eventually reached his goal of doing 100 in a row in February of his junior year. His dad then held up his end of the bargain, allowing Wentz to begin his football career.
He turned out to be a natural, finishing his senior season with 45 tackles, 2 interceptions and 9 pass breakups. Pine-Richland went 10-2 and played in the WPIAL Class 6A championship at Heinz Field.
Kasperowicz said that Old Dominion first-year coach Ricky Rahne, formerly the offensive coordinator at Penn State, is getting a player with immense upside.
“That’s what a lot of these schools liked about him,” said Kasperowicz. “Some kids have bad habits. Well, Levi doesn’t have any bad habits. He’s only played for a year. They can take him and mold him into whatever they want him to be.”
Wilson to Cal
Sto-Rox’s Eric Wilson, the WPIAL’s passing leader last season, committed to California (Pa.). Wilson passed for 3,288 yards and 30 touchdowns while leading Sto-Rox to the WPIAL Class 1A championship game. A Fabulous 22 selection, Wilson became just the eighth quarterback in WPIAL history to reach 8,000 career passing yards. He finished with 8,008.
Football commitments
Baldwin’s Naseer Penn (Maine); Brentwood’s Ian Thomas (John Carroll); California’s Sam Thomas (Marietta); Clairton’s Brendan Parsons (Fairmont State); Fox Chapel’s Sam Brown (Duquesne); Franklin Regional’s Anthony Bonacci (John Carroll); Franklin Regional’s Justin Johns (Washington & Jefferson); Hampton’s Ian Andersson (Case Western Reserve); Imani Christian’s Sean McCaskill (IUP): Moon’s Jamal Littlejohn (Waynesburg); Moon’s Logan Young (Carnegie Mellon); Riverside’s Ben Hughes (Baldwin Wallace); Seneca Valley’s Gabe Lawson (Valparaiso); Shenango’s Jason Kraner (Edinboro); Shenango’s Nico Nuzzo (Saint Francis); Upper St. Clair’s Brandon Shearer (California).
Baseball commitments
Brentwood’s Janeil Latham-Mason (Westminster); Steel Valley’s Terevon Harris (West Liberty).
Basketball commitments
Allderdice’s Emma Waite (RIT); Greensburg Central Catholic’s Gia Scala (Point Park); Highlands’ Luke Cochran (Point Park); Riverside’s Kevin Kolesar (La Roche).