Cardington senior Nick McAvoy will be able to continue his football career at the next level.
McAvoy signed a letter of intent to play at Heidelberg University. While he looked at a number of schools, including Capital, Ashland and Otterbein, he felt most comfortable with Heidelberg.
“It was definitely like home,” he said. “Very home-like. When I went down for my visit, a lot of people just brought me in. It was like a small town.”
However, it wasn’t a quick decision-making process to pick Heidelberg as his college of choice.
“It was a good nine months going back and forth with a few different schools,” he said. “Otterbein and Heidelberg are about the same distance away, but Heidelberg was more like a rural town.”
McAvoy plans to major in political science with plans to go into business. As far as adding football to the mix, he said that was a decision he made early in the school year.
“I’d say I decided in September I was going to play,” he said. “My dad was big on me getting to play football in college because he never got to.”
In his senior year with Cardington, McAvoy picked up a number of accolades while playing on his team’s offensive and defensive lines. He was a first-team pick by the KMAC and Central District and was named a special mention All-Ohio defensive lineman, which will be the side of the ball where he’ll see action in college.
“I kind of let them decide what they wanted, to do what I could to help the team,” he said.
He expects the transition from high school football to the college level to provide a challenge, but is looking forward to the possibility of getting onto the field as a starter.
“It’ll definitely be hard at first,” he said. “But I think I’ll be able to overcome and work with the coaches and get a starting spot next year.”
And he is excited about the higher level of challenge that college football will provide.
“Definitely the higher level of competition,” he said in describing what he is looking forward to. “Living in such a small town, it’s hard to get decent competition every time you play and that’ll be different in college.”
While he’s looking forward to that tougher competition, he added that he’ll have a lot of good memories from his years at Cardington.
“Getting to play with all the guys and being able to make a lot of memories through sports and friendships while I was here,” he said.
