Recruiting Wrap

Andy Gallik may follow in idol's footsteps

Posted by: Jeremy Werner

Friday, June 26, 2009 8:12 AM

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Andy Gallik's football hero is an unlikely one.

While most high school football players emulate Peyton Manning, Adrian Peterson, Dwight Frenney or Shawne Merriman, the Chicago Brother Rice offensive lineman idolizes ... David Diehl?

The former Illini and New York Giants guard is a legend at Brother Rice High School. Now with a scholarship offer from Illinois, Gallik hopes to follow in his favorite player's footsteps.

"(Illinois) is looking at him to play guard because of his physical nature and he's got good feet," Brother Rice head football coach Steve Nye said". His favorite player is David Diehl ... so he kind of likes that about Illinois and everything like that."

The 6-foot-3, 300-pound Gallik has offers from nine schools, including Illinois, Boston College, Minnesota and several Mid-American Conference teams. He will be entering his third year as a starter for Brother Rice.

"He's an offensive tackle for us, but he's being scouted as a guard, possibly a center," Nye said. "He's a pretty typical solid Big Ten football player. He's big and strong and physical."

Nye said Gallik is already a strong run blocker due to the Chicago Catholic Conference's smashmouth style but that he is not just a slow, lumbering offensive lineman. Gallik's shuttle run of 4.15 seconds at the U.S. Army All-America Bowl in San Antonio last spring was the best of any 300-plus pound prospect.

"For a big guy, it's really amazing because he has really good feet," Nye said. "His brother is a Division I volleyball player, so he grew up playing volleyball. He doesn't play much anymore, but he still maintains that way of moving.

"I think like any young kid, I think he has to improve pass blocking because they just don't do it as often as U of I or something like that."

Gallik has visited Illinois and Boston College. He will take the trip to see the Minnesota campus next week. His coach thinks a decision could come before the high school season.

"He's kind of starting to narrow it down," Nye said. "He's only going to make a couple more visits during the summer. I think he'd like to decide before the year. That's what we talked about, but I think he wants to go through the process of taking a good look at all the schools and kind of deciding from there."

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