North Andover Native Heads Back to Super Bowl

After the Super Bowl on Sunday, a Giants player from North Andover will earn his second championship ring, or he’ll see his childhood favorite Patriots get their fourth.

North Andover’s Zak DeOssie had a high school career that any football fan would be envious of.

First of all, the superstar quarterback had a cannon for an arm. In his final two years at , he compiled 2,953 passing yards and 26 touchdowns.

To boot, he was a ball boy for the hometown Patriots as their dynasty began to take shape.

DeOssie graduated in 2003 and moved on to Brown University where he played linebacker. At Brown, he earned Division 1-AA All-American honors twice. In his senior year, DeOssie started getting attention from NFL scouts.

In the 2007 NFL Draft he was drafted in the fourth round by the New York Giants. The Giants had picked his father Steve in the fourth round of the 1984 NFL draft.

“My father and I have played the same position in two generations now,” DeOssie told reporters at Tuesday’s Super Bowl media day. The duo of long snappers have had their share of high pressure situations.

Steve DeOssie snapped the ball for the Giants’ NFC Championship winning field goal in San Francisco in 1990. In the NFC Championship two Sundays ago, Zak snapped the Giants’ game-winning field goal on the same field in San Francisco sending the Giants to another Super Bowl.

“My father is my biggest hero; he always has been,” DeOssie said.  

Zak DeOssie was also on the 2007 Giants team that beat the previously undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Steve DeOssie had finished off his career with the Patriots in the early 1990s.

“My old man finished his career with the Patriots and I grew up in New England was a ball boy there for two years,” Zak reflected. “It’s funny when you look back at it.”

The two share a unique, anecdotal bond, “There’s only one father son combo to win one for the same organization and that’s my father and I, and that’s something that we’ll have forever,” DeOssie said Tuesday. He hopes to help his team to its second title in four years on Sunday.

Zak’s father hosts a Patriots post-game radio show on WEEI, but still maintains support for his son and former team. The two shared a special embrace after Zak helped his Giants to the 2007 Super Bowl win.

“I still have that picture up,” DeOssie said of the moment. The pleasantries end when the action hits the gridiron. “I’m looking to get one more ring than my old man; that would be nice,” he said.

Zak said that having another long snapper at home is useful. “He knows the intricacies of my job intimately and when need someone to talk to about my job or this and that, he’s the first person,” he said.

The mutual respect will be glowing throughout the entire game Sunday. “He did it for 12 years and I’m hoping to do the same thing,” said the fourth year player.

Only five days will elapse before we know whether young Zak DeOssie will have his second Super Bowl or if his fellow Phillips Academy graduate Bill Belichick will get his fourth.