He won state team and individual wrestling gold and excelled on both sides of the ball in football.
Travis Stefanik’s athletic statistics shine like a field of brilliant diamonds lit by the bright lights of success.
But the reasons why the Nazareth graduate is the 2017 lehighvalleylive Boys Athlete of the Year add up to a lot more than just numbers, however shiny and pretty they are.
“His leadership has always been there, and we have been playing football together since we were nine or 10,” said Stefanik’s classmate and football teammate, then Villanova-bound Julian Liaci. “On and off the field, whenever I need someone to pick me up, he’s the first person I go to. He always knows what to say.”
Nazareth football coach Tom Falzone put his perspective on Stefanik simply.
“Travis encompasses everything hope you hope for in a student-athlete,” he said. “He is just a great kid.”
So there’s more – a lot more -- to Stefanik than stats. But those numbers and accomplishments, like a full hand’s worth of 10-carat diamond rings, command immediate attention.
In football, the Blue Eagle quarterback/defensive back was the lehighvalleylive Player of the Year and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference South Offensive Most Valuable Player and a first-team all-league defensive back. He threw for 2,045 yards and 21 touchdowns on 130 completions in 233 attempts. Stefanik ran for 13 more touchdowns and 629 yards on 135 carries.
On the wrestling mat, Stefanik finished 36-2 on his senior season, ranked No. 2 nationally at 182 pounds, and won the PIAA 3A championship at 182 with a thrilling 4-3 decision over Bethel Park’s Nino Bonnacorsi. He also led his team to state championship honors as Nazareth defeated Bethlehem Catholic 30-29 in an all-timer of a match that Liaci called the “craziest thing I have ever watched” and Stefanik said was the highlight of his senior year.
Stefanik even threw the shot put 37 feet, 9½ inches in the spring.
As a student-athlete, Stefanik was named the EPC wrestling student-athlete of the year and won the District 11 Wrestling Coaches 3A Student-Athlete of the Year Scholarship. His dedication in the classroom earned admission to Princeton.
Career-wise, Stefanik ended up with 154 wrestling wins, third in Nazareth’s illustrious history; 5,342 passing yards, and 60 touchdown passes, the Blue Eagle record.
No shortage of gems, then, for the season and career of Travis Stefanik.
“I’m pretty satisfied,” Stefanik said. “It was a great year. I have been dreaming about being a state wrestling champion since I was a little kid. You always look back at some things you wish you could have done better, like winning District 11 in football or winning the (Walsh Jesuit) Ironman or Beast of the East (he was runner-up at each). But winning team and individual states were great triumphs, especially being the first team from the Lehigh Valley to beat Bethlehem Catholic in six years in the state final.”
What made all of this accomplishment immensely meaningful to Stefanik is that he did it in blue and white. Unlike many elite athletes, Stefanik stayed right at home to achieve success and win championships -- playing with his old friends such as Liaci; enjoying the thrill of playing football and wrestling on the same team with his younger brother, Nathan, who was a freshman; and performing for a community he loves and that loves him back.
Immediately after the PIAA team wrestling final, Stefanik told a reporter the win showed that championships can still be won by homegrown teams from one community, and he expanded on that recently.
“Guys that go to school 30 minutes, an hour away, don’t have the same connection to each other that guys like Julian and I who have who have been training together for years; look at Jahan Dotson who made the decision to leave (Nazareth) and now has made the decision to come back and play here,” Stefanik said. “You have a connection you have built on and off the field with guys you have been playing with instead of a school where you don’t know anybody and they bring in random people.”
And there’s the mutual support system the school and community of Nazareth offers its athletes.
“The community of Nazareth is so supportive of all the sports teams,” Stefanik said. “They have your back.”
The same is true at the high school.
“The support we get is awesome,” Stefanik said. “The teachers are so supportive of athletes and our goals. They work with you when you have to miss classes to go to Ohio for a wrestling tournament. We have the best coaches. Coach Falzone is a great coach and (head wrestling coach Dave) Crowell is the best wrestling coach in the world. I am truly blessed to have such great coaches to support me and put me in the best position for success.”
A position Stefanik had put himself in as well.
“He brings toughness, which is you want in every football player,” Falzone said. “We needed an extra yard, 4th and 1, he’d get it. He’s so gritty, He was first team offense in football and then went out and was first team defense as well. How many guys do that? It’s contagious the way he carries himself on the field and on the mat. Toughness is what he does.”
Indeed, toughness played as a theme throughout Stefanik's senior year.
In football, he played both ways in a league where bigger schools could have their standouts play just one way, or in a limited role two ways. Stefanik had no such chance.
“I got a break for special teams, when I tried to drink as much water as I could,” he said. “It was hot at a lot of the games and I was running around a lot more. Teams like Parkland or Easton have the luxury of resting guys on one side of the ball. At the end of the day you do what you have to do and I had to lay it all out on the field.”
In wrestling season, Stefanik overcame missing several weeks with an injury that cost him a chance to win the Bethlehem Holiday Wrestling Classic.
“That was pretty brutal and I missed a lot of training,” he said. “But Coach Crowell had a good system for me to get back to full health.”
Also, Crowell asked Stefanik to wrestle up in weight through much of the season, and Stefanik’s toughness came through as he delivered clutch pins and decisions time and again, especially in the wins over Becahi in the District 11 and PIAA 3A finals.
“We always talked about winning state championships for Nazareth, so we’d be remembered,” said Liaci, who struck PIAA gold on the Blue Eagles’ 400 relay as a junior.
Stefanik’s success as a senior certainly validated his decision to remain a multi-sport athlete.
“His career shows you can have success playing multiple sports,” Falzone said. “There’s a guy who dominated two sports.”
The thought did enter Stefanik’s mind as a freshman.
“I did think about specializing in one sport; coming up from eighth grade, people said I couldn’t accomplish anything in high school playing multiple sports,” he said. “But I like football too much not to have played it. I’d have regretted not playing football through high school.”
The contrast between the two sports appealed to Stefanik as well.
“There’s a huge team aspect to football,” Stefanik said. “There is to wrestling as well though people expect it’s more of an individual sport. Wrestling is just as much a team sport, but I think you rely on your teammates a little more in football. In football, you can’t have success if one person messes up because the whole play is messed up. In wrestling, when a guy gets pinned, like in the state championship match, other guys can pick them up which is just what we did.”
And, as it turned out, Stefanik could transfer skills from one sport to the other.
“You gain so much to use from one sport to another,” he said. “I tackle a lot better in football because of wrestling.”
At the next level, of course, Stefanik will compete in just one sport when he arrives at Princeton in the fall of 2018.
Yes, 2018.
“I am taking a gap year and deferring my enrollment at Princeton,” Stefanil said. “I’ll be working out at the Regional Training Center they share with Rutgers, with my main goal to make the world junior team next season. I think the biggest difference between college and high school is overall strength and hand-fighting, and I’ll use the year to lift and mature. I’ll take courses at a community college and be working as well. You can’t redshirt in the Ivy League, so I will be Princeton Class of 2022.”
As a member of the Nazareth class of 2017, Stefanik leaves behind a rich legacy of success and class that future Blue Eagles can mine forever.
“Travis would put the team on his shoulders and the team would do whatever he did,” Falzone said. “He’s so respected in the community and he’s super with all the young kids. What he did in the classroom was outstanding. He’s a super kid and great person. Any one of our kids could try and be like Travis. I feel very fortunate to have coached him. He does it all – and that’s a great legacy.”
Brad Wilson may be reached at bwilson@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @bradwsports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.
