Jake Fuzak just finished his fourth and final year of varsity hockey at Williamsville South. The team finished 12-4 in league play and lost 4-3 in overtime in the Section VI semifinals to Kenmore East, the eventual state champion. Fuzak had 6 goals and 9 assists during the regular season in 15 regular season league games and 2 goals and an assist in three postseason games.
But at six-foot-five and 275 pounds, maybe Fuzak was built more for football. Last fall, Fuzak won the Trench Trophy, awarded to the top lineman in Western New York high school football. Next year, Fuzak is committed to play Division 1 football at the University at Buffalo.
Hockey was his first love, and recently Icing The Fed sat down with Fuzak to discuss his experiences in hockey, including that last game against Kenmore East, and his future in football.
First of all, do you just want to tell me a little bit about growing up and playing hockey because that was your first sport, right?
FUZAK: It was. I started when I was like 2 or 3. My dad got me on skates. I could never really play junior football because ice hockey was so time demanding, so I couldn’t really go to practice. So I just played hockey all the way through seventh grade. I don’t know good I was, but something just made me say, ‘Alright, I’ll play football.’ I told a couple people, if you had told me that I would have been going to college to play football, I would have just laughed at you and kept tying my skates. But it all worked out. I played baseball most of my life, and then as soon as high school hit, I said, ‘Alright, I gotta narrow it down,’ so I went from baseball, hockey, and football to just hockey and football. And I was able to train and get where I am today because of that. It sucks because all of my best friends play baseball, and I would have have loved to have been able to play one last time with them, but I made a commitment and I have to honor it.
Why did you decide to stick with hockey still in high school?
FUZAK: My whole family’s played hockey. My uncle won four national championships growing up. He got recruited by Air Force Academy and played there, then played at Miami and eventually stopped playing. But my dad played growing up too. He was kinda like the bruiser. He always taught me, never go after the small guys, always protect your team. So I learned my skill from my uncle and my brutality from my dad. So it was kind of a one-two punch. And then football came around and my neighbor Justin Moon played all his life, and he said, ‘You should come out and play,’ so then I played. And then I stuck with hockey — my neighbor’s Morey Gare, Danny Gare’s brother, so I’m very close with the Gares. I call Danny Gare ‘Uncle Danny’ because he’s over so much, so I’m just surrounded by hockey and just decided to play football.
Tell me a little bit more about football, how you got into that and why you decided to go to UB.
FUZAK: I didn’t really care if I were to just stay home or go away. I just wanted to go to college where I felt I belonged the most, and I had my options. I went to camps and got tours and stuff — Boston College, Maryland, UCLA, all those schools — and it takes those colleges to really realize what you want. And I went to those colleges and thought, ‘You know what, they’re top tier colleges; I would love to play here,’ but then UB offered me and I got to know their coaching staff and players, and there was something that they had that those big name colleges didn’t. I have no regrets coming to UB. I think it was the right decision.
My mom hates football. Well she doesn’t hate it, but she doesn’t watch it. She just hates Tom Brady and everything Patriots. It didn’t really matter to her, as long as I had good grades. She wanted to me to go away. She wanted me to study abroad — it’s just part of life. ‘Mom, you have a good point, but I’m gonna go to UB and play football there.’ That’s where I felt I belonged.
I’m a firm believer in a ‘One Buffalo’ kind of vibe, and my dad was a construction worker and now he works in town, and he’s always like, ‘Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo’ and did everything he could for the city, and I just think that I could help the city in more ways than one, and this is just one way to do it. And I love the city, and that’s part of why I stayed here.
And football, like I said, it was a good fit for me. My parents weren’t easygoing; they were like, ‘Do something wrong; you’re gonna get repercussions.’ Football, it was a nice fit for me because I like the physicality and the intensity of the game, and I’m able to take the coaching and the yelling stuff because of my parents and how I was brought up. And I guess I’m pretty big, so it worked out, so that’s pretty much where I stand when it comes to playing football.
How nice was it to play hockey your senior year and finish out with the season that you guys had this year?
FUZAK: It was emotional, man. I could not tell you the amount of people I told about that Ken East game. I still get shivers thinking about it, quite honestly. When you got 400, 500 fans there from your school alone…
It was crazy because I mean, they’re the number one seed, and we had no business keeping up with ’em and skating with ’em and we did. If I take one thing away from that game, I’ll never forget the last two minutes. Not because they scored, but seeing our guys do everything, with everything in their physical being, to win that game — throwing their body, taking pucks to the faces and ribs and our goalie taking like 50 shots in like 30 seconds. It was like watching the Knights 300, you know what I’m saying, from like Sparta and stuff like that. They’re getting overwhelmed by all this offensive power of Ken East, but they’re holding their ground and they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, and that was just a really good — I felt like a parent, you know what I’m saying, like watching their kids do a great deed. I wasn’t playing when they scored. I was upset when they scored, but you know what, we came out of that game with no regrets, and there was nothing more that we could have done to change that outcome. Maybe one or two bounces here and there, get lucky here and there, but I’m proud of our team. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people that come up to me in our school and in our community that talk about that game and how just on an emotional level and mentally, how our team and our school became… I don’t know what the word is, but I never got that in football or any other game of hockey my entire life. So that was, that was crazy. You know, walking out through the tunnel, having enough fans there where the tunnel’s shaking, like the chains were moving. Man, I get chills thinking about it.
What did you love about playing hockey growing up and all the way through high school?
FUZAK: I loved the fact that there wasn’t much scoring. The teams that weren’t too strong, you scored a lot, but I liked the fact that you strategize and then, depending on how well you strategize is how much you score. That was just comforting to me, that you could be down four-to-one, and then gain all the momentum and pop in four or five goals. It’s a 100 percent momentum game, and I love the momentum vibe.
Special thanks to Bertram Smith for the photo!