BLUE CHIP CHAT '21

Donovan Hinish I Central Catholic I G-DT

(Third in a preseason series on top high school football players in the area.)

DATA

Year Senior Height 6-2 Weight 275

THE SCOOP

Ranked the No. 16 player in the state by Rivals.com and the No. 39 defensive tackle in the country. A twoway starter a year ago for WPIAL Class 6A champion. Will move from tackle to offensive guard this year, but defense is his best position. One of Hinish’s older brothers, Kurt, is a defensive tackle at Notre Dame. Another brother, Cory Nolton, played at Robert Morris. The Hinishs’ father, Kurt Sr., played at Slippery Rock and an uncle, Chris, at Georgia Tech.

COLLEGE TALK

Donovan Hinish decided to follow his brother’s footsteps and made a verbal commitment to Notre Dame in early June. Pitt, Virginia Tech and Kent State were among 10 other colleges that had offered scholarships at that time.

OUR QUESTIONS, HIS ANSWERS

Your team lost a lot of good players to graduation. Even though you should be good again, what would be a key to winning the WPIAL again, on or off the field? Just unity among the team. Once we start cooking, nothing will stop us.

Unity? That’s cliché, isn’t it? But it’s 100% true. How about on the field? Hand the ball to Antonio Pitts or Gannon Carothers and watch them go. Or throw it to Brandon Jackson or J.D. Younger, maybe. That sounds like a state championship.

When you had to forfeit the state playoff game last year because of COVID-19 cases, how tough was that? Or did having a WPIAL title soften the blow? It was terrible. It was one of the worst things ever. How terrible it was to watch the seniors go through something like that.

Kurt used to work in the summer some with your dad in some hard labor. Did you do that? Yeah, my dad works construction. I did some this summer. At one house, we had to tear down a wall and rebuild it. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. So for about 12 hours straight, I just picked up and put back down 80- to 100-pound concrete slabs.

Something you did fun this summer? We went to Disney World with the family.

Scariest ride? Tower of Terror. It was truly a terror.

Were you too big for any of the rides? Yeah, the Seven Dwarfs ride. I would’ve taken up almost two spots and the lady wouldn’t let me ride. I was pretty mad.

AND FINALLY …

Do you wear eye black all over your face for games like Kurt does? I do (laughs).

Why? It’s changes my persona. It changes who I am. Into what? A nasty guy on the field. Did you do it after Kurt started? I listened to his reasoning and it’s pretty much the same thing as me. I said, ‘I like that. I’m going to start doing it, too.’