Football, Basketball
Favorite athlete: Jamal Crawford
Favorite team: Nebraska Cornhuskers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Making playoffs in football and state playoffs in basketball senior year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I forgot my shoes two games in a row sophomore year and had to borrow my friend’s.
Music on iPod: Rap, Alternative
Future plans: Graduate from Lafayette College and make a positive impact on as many people’s lives as I can.
Words to live by: Treat others how you would like them to treat you.
One goal before turning 30: Graduate from college and begin a productive career
One thing people don’t know about me: I am a huge Harry Potter fan.
By GORDON GLANTZ
As a sophomore at Central Bucks East, Tommy Strasburger practically had secret tunnels built through the school to avoid head football coach John Donnelly.
Although pigskin was prevalent in his DNA – both his dad, Matt, and uncle, Scott, played big-time college football for Tom Osborne at Nebraska (playing for the 1983 season national championship against Miami in the 1984 Orange Bowl) – Strasburger considered basketball his No. 1 sport and decided, after one year of freshman football in high school, to focus his energies there.
“I loved basketball at the time,” recalled the Omaha native. “I thought, ‘This is the sport for me.’ It was even at the last second that I decided to join the freshman team. I think I even missed the first game. It was just an okay season.”
However, for a larger school, East’s athletic environment is one that encourages multi-sport participation – especially from its elite athletes like Strasburger, the Univest Featured Male Athlete of the Week, who was also a standout soccer player in his formative years.
And Donnelly kept tabs and stayed hot on Strasburger’s trail even after he became a key member of varsity basketball coach Erik Henrysen’s squad as a freshman.
“He stays up on athletes in the halls,” said Strasburger. “I used to hate walking by his room.”
The typical exchange:
Donnelly: “We could use you out there. I see you at the games. I know you want to play.”
Strasburger: “I’m thinking about it.”
Those thoughts turned into action one Friday night at War Memorial Field in Doylestown, as Strasburger’s football wiring went on overload while watching the Patriots battle to a close loss against rival CB West.
“I was sitting in a tight, crowded student section,” he said. “I thought, ‘I gotta go back and play.’ They lost a tough a game, and I wanted to help the team. It has been so much more fun than sitting in that tight, crowded student section.
“I hadn’t given high school football a chance, and it has been more fun than I thought.”
Despite his status as a well-established hoopster, nothing was gifted to Strasburger. Even though he expected to play on offense – he had been a wildcat quarterback on the freshman team – he was pegged as a defensive back.
“Nothing was handed to me,” he said. “And football was still my ‘second sport.’ I was behind a kid who was younger on the depth chart. I kept with it, though.”
He soon earned the starting job as a safety, and corner when required, and then became the primary kick returner soon thereafter when he took one to the house against Truman.
The success carried over this past season, as the Patriots improved from 5-5 to 8-2, and Strasburger will move on to play college football – along with teammate Jack Lamb and several other close friends, including CB West basketball player Calvin Reichwein, an AAU teammate – to Lafayette.
Donnelly is glad his persistence paid off, as it helped Strasburger fulfill his destiny and follow family tradition of playing at a higher level.
“He took a year off from football his sophomore year to concentrate on hoops and he missed it,” he said. “When he returned as a junior, he immediately made an impact on Defense and in the return game. He was a two-time first team All-League DB and first team All-Area as a senior. He comes from a football background as both his uncle and father, Matt, played at the University of Nebraska. Tommy has great support at home and that will serve him well as he heads up to Lafayette next year.
“I’m excited for him and Jack Lamb to be teammates again and to be on the same side of the ball. He knows he has to continue to work hard and improve to be an impact player in the Patriot League. Tommy will be missed here at East but I look forward to watching him play for the next four years at Lafayette.”
Hoop Dreams
Just because he went back to football, it didn’t mean Strasburger lost his love for basketball.
In his fourth season as the point guard, he is the unquestioned straw that stirs the drink for a team that is the first from the school to reach the state playoffs since 1984.
It has been an amazing about-face for a team that went 6-16 a season ago.
“It’s been awesome,” said Strasburger. “We’re having a real good time right now. It feels real good to be able to bounce back after last year.”
The floor leader credits the team’s surge in confidence - and ability to pull out the close games they used to find a way to lose - to a comeback against North Penn.
“We had our turning point at North Penn,” he said. “We were coming off a tough loss and we were down eight. We put together a comeback and won by two. That sparked our momentum.”
As for Strasburger, his own momentum was sparked earlier.
“Tommy’s jayvee career ended before it began,” said Henrysen. “As a freshman, he was playing jayvee and varsity. We were debating on making the move for him to play strictly varsity. I remember watching him in the jayvee game at CB West when he just began taking over the game. He seemed to feed off of the crowd and the atmosphere of the rivalry.
“My assistant coach, Brian Yannarella, was all over me telling me that it was time. So, Tommy’s jayvee career lasted a total of three or four games. Soon after, we gave Tommy the keys to our program as our starting (point guard). We haven’t looked back since.”
Strasburger admits to having been a bit wide-eyed when he first joined the varsity squad.
“When I first got there, I just wanted to fit in,” he said. “If they wanted me to get water for them, I’d do it. Then, after they told me I was going to start at point guard, I figured I had to fit in more.”
When he sank the free throws needed to clinch a share of the conference title as a sophomore, he had done more.
He took a 3-pointer and tried to lean into a defender. In what he confesses may have been a makeup call for a questionable call at the other end of the floor that gave CB South a lead, he was sent to the line with three chances to erase a one-point deficit. He missed the first, but made the next two.
“That was definitely one of my favorite moments on that team,” he said.
Strasburger leads the current team in points per game (roughly 11.5), steals (2), rebounds (4) and assists (4). For his career, his has netted more than 800 points and will have handed out more than 250 assists while pulling down more than 400 rebounds and making more than 100 steals.
The other night against Spring-Ford in a playback game, a loss, he set the school record for three-pointers with 116.
But there is more to his impact than the raw numbers.
“Having the opportunity to coach Tommy for the past four years has been one of the most enjoyable coaching experiences of my entire coaching career,” said Henrysen. “There is never a dull moment with Tommy, and his personality seems to draw people toward him. He has been our captain for the past two years but has really been a leader since the day he stepped foot in the gym.”
Those sentiments are echoed by Donnelly.
“Tommy had an outstanding career on the football field and basketball court as a CB East Patriot,” he said. “I remember Tommy being in our camp as a seventh grader and it was easy to see that he possessed tremendous athletic ability. He was an outstanding soccer player at that time as well. Tommy’s instincts are perhaps his greatest asset. He has the ability to quickly diagnose a situation and react by making a play. He is also a big time competitor. He is a gamer. I witnessed it when he was a Frosh playing basketball in a big game. He wants to be the guy when the game is on the line.”
The Game of Life
Strasburger is determined to succeed in life as much he has in sports, and he would like to help others do the same by studying psychology or sociology.
“I wanted to get into drug counseling or some kind of therapy,” he said. “I don’t want to get too much into it, but I’ve had some personal experience with it in my life. It is something that is close to me. I’ve enjoyed being able to help friends with their problems.”
He has also always enjoyed working with children, starting back in middle school when he volunteered in the Top Soccer program for kids with special needs. That has carried over to the high school level, with the Athletes Helping Athletes program.
“Tommy has an ability to genuinely interact with everyone and anyone,” said Henrysen. “Just this past month we worked with the TopSports program in Northeast Philly. Tommy ended up on the ground with one eight-year-old special needs athlete where he ‘battled’ for a loose ball with him. Tommy effortlessly connects with people. He doesn’t think twice about sitting down with someone to talk either. He never looks down on anyone. He has a gift for always leaving people with a smile.”
This has gone a long way to connecting with his teammates, whether on the football field or basketball court.
As much as he strives to win, he uses another three-letter word – fun – more often.
“In my junior, I realized how fun football was,” he said. “It’s like a brotherhood, like going into war with your teammates.
“And I definitely don’t want this basketball season to end. This team is one of the closest teams I’ve ever been on.”
The Home Front
Strasburger had a long list of reasons for wanting to attend Lafayette as a student-athlete, including the academic standards and joining a lot friends to turn the campus into CB North.
“It should be a lot of fun,” he said. “I know a lot of guys who are going.”
He knew that he needed to make the grade, academically, to get there.
For that, he looks no farther than his mom, Tea, and his dad. For them, priorities were always in order – for himself, older brother Brett (a state champion in rugby) and younger sister Anna (track, dancing).
“My parents were always strict about school,” he said. “They always said that school comes before sports. I put in a lot of extra time studying. I knew that when I picked a school, I wanted to use football to get into a strong academic school. I’m glad I put in the extra time.”
Truth be told, Matt Strashurger didn’t push his son half as hard to play football as Donnelly back when the cat-and-mouse games were being played in the hallways.
“He coaches me up after games, but he lets me do my thing,” said Strasburger of his dad, who also played safety at Nebraska in the 1980s but had his career stymied by a knee injury. “He was never overly hard on me about sports.
“Both my parents, my dad and my mom, support me so much. With my dad, like I said, I never felt pressured. But, they were both there, at every game.”
Strasburger wanted to thank not only Henrysen for trusting him to be the point guard for four years and Donnelly for his persistence but also all the CB East assistant coaches -- and community and AAU coaches -- that helped him along the way.
“There have been a lot of coaches,” he said. “I have been close to every coach I’ve had. All the coaches I’ve had have always been supportive.”
And good cross-sport recruiters.
