Korab Idrizi goes from humble beginnings to Big Ten athlete
Bergen Catholic senior tight end Korab Idrizi has come a long way since his first days on the football field. This past weekend, he accepted a full scholarship to play football at Rutgers University after a stellar senior season.
Humble Beginnings
Where Idrizi wound up is a far cry from how he began his football career during the fifth grade in Fort Lee, N.J.
“I did not know what football was before I started playing," Idrizi said. “I didn’t watch it. I heard about it, but I didn’t know the rules or anything about it. My younger brother [Shqipron] was the energetic, insane one and I was calmer, more mature kid. So my neighbor was a big football fan and told my brother he should play football. He decided to do it and my parents asked me if I wanted to play as well.”
Idrizi agreed, but things did not start out so well for him on the gridiron.
“My first game was a terrible experience. It was so bad,” he said. “We were playing Westwood. It was pouring and the field was all muddy. I got on the field and I forgot the rules of football. They kicked the ball off and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I just blanked out. I touched the ball and then I let it go and the other team recovered. My coaches were like ‘What is going on with Korab?’ They benched me and I started crying to my parents when we got in the car. I told them I am never ever playing football again.”
Idrizi’s parents would not let Idrizi throw in the towel and brought him back to the very next practice. That seemed only fitting since family has always had a great deal of influence on Idrizi. Although football was not something he was introduced to at a very early age, Idrizi’s parents provided him with a formula for success.
“Not to toot my horn, but I always stood out because I felt like I was tougher than the other guys,” said Idrizi, who started out as a fullback and middle linebacker. “I could withstand more pain than they could, whether it was mental pain or physical pain. I think pain tolerance is different between one football player and another. I think that comes from my parents.”
Idrizi’s parents were born in Kosovo and did not arrive in America with a one-way ticket to easy street.
“My parents came here as immigrants,” Idrizi said. “They came here without a dollar in their pockets looking to live out the American dream.”
Today, Idrizi’s father, Fadil, is a successful business owner, but things did not start out so easily.
“He started out scrubbing toilets. There was four of us sharing one bedroom when I was young,” Idrizi explained. “Then, my father worked his way up to making pizza and now he owns a bunch of pizza shops along with my uncles.”
Time for change
On the football field, Idrizi moved to tight end during the eighth grade and started to make a name for himself. That prompted him to look for a high school with a more elite football program. Instead of attending Fort Lee, he opted for Bergen Catholic, located in Oradell, N.J.
“I had a neighbor who went to Bergen Catholic and I was always hearing about it. I just loved it and my parents wanted the best for me so they decided to send me there,” Idrizi said. “I was close to going to St. Peter’s Prep. I had a full scholarship there, but it would have been a tougher commute.”
Idrizi enrolled at Bergen Catholic and ventured into a whole new world. He played freshman ball his first year and did not even sniff varsity playing time.
“When he came to Bergen Catholic, he was a very tough kid,” said Bergen Catholic head coach Nunzio Campanile. “My dad was the freshman coach when he played. He would rave to me about Korab. He would say this kid is as tough as they come.”
Injury then reared its ugly head the next summer as Idrizi broke his collarbone before the team even started practicing in pads. He returned later that season, but was forced to sit and watch behind four-star tight end and current Northwestern sophomore Garrett Dickerson. By the time the season ended, Idrizi had not played a single down of varsity football.
His next season, Idrizi split time at tight end as a junior and also played a little bit of defense.
Despite not being one of the team’s featured players, he managed to earn 12 scholarship offers from FCS schools by the time the summer of his senior year rolled around.
“That summer, I was supposed to be a leader, I was finally supposed to be the guy,” Idrizi said. “But when practice started, I was playing very average for about two weeks and nobody called me out on it. So I was content and just flying by.”
But that all changed one fated summer day on the practice field.
“We all gathered around to pray before practice,” Idrizi said. “We get done and I could tell coach Nunz [Campanile] was pissed. He started pacing back and forth. He stopped and pointed at me and he said, ‘you. You might be the worst player on the team. You might be the biggest disappointment I have ever seen.’ He was calling me out in front of the whole team.”
Campanile then asked Idrizi how many scholarship offers he had. Idrizi was silent. So Campanile asked again.
“Twelve,” Idrizi answered.
Campanile then responded by asking how many receptions Idrizi had the preceding year.
“Four,” Idrizi responded.
Campanile then proceeded to tell him why he had those scholarship offers.
His answer to Idrizi was “Because I stuck my neck out for you. I told all those schools you were a tough football player. I guess I was wrong.”
Those words had an immediate effect on Idrizi.
“Disappointing coach Nunz was like disappointing my parents,” Idrizi said. “So he put us in the Oklahoma drill and I went 12 times in a row. I lost the first two and he was staring at me to come back. So I won the rest and by the time I was done, I was covered in blood. I went absolutely insane that practice. It was the best practice I have ever had in my entire life. From that point on, I never had an average practice again. That look from coach Nunz meant that I had to step it up. Without coach Nunz, I would be just an average player.”
Campanile explained what he saw in Idrizi that enabled him to bring the best out of him on the football field.
“Korab had great leadership abilities in him. He may have lacked the experience or confidence to become a leader so I had to lay it on him. It was not in his effort. It was in his willingness to push his teammates to be something better. He is a really prideful kid who comes from a great family. He is one of those kids, if you push the right buttons, he is not going to back down. He is going to answer the bell and that is certainly what he did.”
A season of success
Idrizi would go on to have a successful senior season in 2015 in which he finished with 30 receptions. However, he was still without an offer from an FBS school. That is until there was a coaching change at Rutgers.
“I had been talking with Rutgers for a while. But the old staff played a lot of games with me and I didn’t like that,” Idrizi said. “So I didn’t trust them. But this new staff came in and they had something to prove to me. The new staff didn’t deserve that, but it was too close to signing day for me to play games. But they were honest, they did everything with integrity and they were up front with me. They showed me the culture they want to instill in this program. Rutgers is heading in the right direction.”
That led to an official visit last weekend during which time Idrizi accepted a full scholarship to play college football for the Scarlet Knights. It was also fitting that his family was right there with him when he committed to Rutgers and fulfilled a childhood dream.
“My mom [Zyrafete] broke down in tears. My littlest brother [Genti] jumped up and hugged me and said that is a great choice,” Idrizi said. “It was a great moment. There were moments along the way that I doubted myself, but my mom always told me I was going to get one of those big offers. That’s how mothers are, they know you better than you know yourself.”
As Rutgers now moves into a new era, it may also be fitting that Idrizi becomes the first offensive player to accept a scholarship under head coach Chris Ash.
“I have been fortunate enough to do this for a really long time and to coach a lot of great college players. So I am 100% confident that Korab is the type of guy that will excel at the next level,” Campanile said. “He has a great work ethic and great athleticism. But more than anything, he is just a really high character kid. He is from a great family. When it comes to doing the right thing and working hard, he is the type of guy you can build a foundation on.”