Valparaiso senior Nicolas Fry tried to quantify his progress since the beginning of last season.
“It’s exponential,” he said.
A former linebacker, the 6-foot-1, 200-pound Fry shifted to free safety last year to fill a void for the Vikings. This season, he’s slated to line up at strong safety, and he’s as ready as ever.
“I was a middle linebacker playing safety last year,” Fry said. “Now I’m a college-level safety playing safety. It’s just the development I’ve had. I’ve worked so hard. It’s really, really exponential.”
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Indeed, Fry has earned a handful of offers from college programs, including Butler, Colgate and Dayton. He has been leaning toward Colgate and may be on the verge of committing.
Valparaiso coach Bill Marshall said Fry is the type of “hybrid” player that college and professional teams have increasingly come to covet. Fry has the strength to play linebacker and the agility to play safety. Marshall also praised Fry’s combination of athletics and academics.
“He’s put in a tremendous body of work, as this entire senior class has. … They’ve put themselves in a position to not just be the leaders on this team and impact players, but also to be collegiate players as well, which Nick is,” Marshall said. “He’s very excited about that, as are many other kids on the team that are seniors, because they love football that much and want to be able to continue playing at the next level.”
The Vikings are also excited to return to their traditional level of excellence after going 2-8 overall and 2-5 in the Duneland Athletic Conference last season, their first sub-.500 record since 2014. Marshall said they’re a “hungry group.”
Junior linebacker Ryker Finlay expects Fry to eat.
“I’ve known Nick forever,” Finlay said. “I’m not even joking when I say he has the most energy. I have a lot of energy, but I’m not good at football. This guy has the energy, and he’s good at football. Some people are just good at football, but they don’t got it. But he’s like ‘boom.’ He’s not afraid to just make that hit where most people are.
“The dude just has the most energy. He’s built for football. There’s people, and this guy’s one of them. I’ve known him forever, and he’s just a damn animal.”
Fry made 53 tackles during his sophomore season, which was interrupted by a pulled hamstring. He got starts at both outside linebacker and inside linebacker.
Initially ticketed to play linebacker again last season, Fry moved to safety. He made 46 tackles, even though he missed three games with a sprained MCL in his left knee, an injury that at first was feared to be season-ending.
Fry utilized this past offseason to complete his transformation into a defensive back. He said the first part was about becoming truly comfortable in the secondary.
“I’ve been training with this NFL DB trainer named Pete Houlihan,” Fry said. “I drive two hours three times a week to go train with him. It’s my footwork, my breaks, my confidence. From last year to this year, it’s just insane.
“My end-time goal is to go to the NFL. I’m working as hard as I possibly can to get to that goal. I know it’s going to be a really hard journey. It’s like .003% make it. So it’s just about development every single year, and I feel like if I keep developing how I did this offseason, hopefully it could be a possibility.”
Fry’s father, Jonathan, is from Ohio and played defensive end and linebacker at Valparaiso and Dayton.
Fry, who’s a minute older than his twin sister, Anya, aims to have a special season with the Vikings before heading to college.
“I want to be all-DAC, all-state,” he said. “I think I’m one of the best safeties in the state. Colleges have been looking at me — three Division I offers and two Division II offers. I think if I just don’t get hurt this year and just keep playing, I’ll definitely be an all-state, amazing player.
“There’s just a big difference with our team this year. We’re all together. We have college athletes this year that are going to be playing college football next year. We’re going to be able to do well this year and be able to play at the next level next year because of how much we’ve prepared. The coaches have done a great job preparing us in the weight room, on the field. We’re all competitive, we’ve been practicing hard and every week we just want to win that game and go on from there.”