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IllustrateD volume 24, issue 5 29 f f o o t b a l l f e a t u r e : j u s t i n s i n z BY KYLE CHARTERS KCharters@GoldandBlack.com I n the fall of 2000, 9-year-old Justin Sinz stood in a locker room at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wis., where Edgar High School had just lost the state championship game. Justin, a manager, was bawling, upset that older brother Jordan and his dad, a legendary coach at Edgar, had been knocked out in the title game. But Jordan, the Wildcats' star quarter- back/defensive back and nine years older than Justin, maintained his composure following the loss, and while trying to console Justin, he told him to remember the day, remember the hurt and to work to not let it happen to him. "I took it upon myself to help him out as much as I could, whether it was aca- demically, athletically or just offering ad- vice from someone who was quite a bit older than him," said Jordan Sinz, now the principal at Edgar, where his dad Jer- ry is nearing four decades as the head football coach. "On that experience, it was really a matter of having worked so hard personally and I know a lot of my teammates did as well, but things didn't work out for us that day. "I just let him know that despite all those things, noth- ing is guaranteed. So he needed to make sure he was a good leader and that he worked with his classmates and the kids at his school to try to avoid something like that happening to them." Justin Sinz, a fifth-year senior tight end at Purdue, was in third grade then, but it might as well have been yester- day. He remembers. "It's kind of funny because my junior year, we lost at state, but my senior year, we had a pretty dominant team, probably one of the probably more dominant teams in the state of Wisconsin, especially for our division. We went 14-0 and won state, so it was kind of a full circle kind of thing," said Justin, who was a four-year starting quarter- back at Edgar. The words reverberate now, as they have over the years, helping to shape Justin Sinz into the hard-work- ing, steady, unassuming player who is the Boilermakers' No. 1 tight end. Although the transition from small-school quarterback to Big Ten tight end has not been easy, it's been eased be- cause of his vast football knowledge. In Edgar, population of less than 2,000, football is king, and the Sinz family is front and center. Since Jerry Sinz's tenure started in the mid-70s, he has coached the Wildcats to six state championships, fre- quently with the help of his four boys: Jason (age 40), Jeremy (38), Jordan (31) and Justin (22). Often more than 4,000 fans attend games on Friday Rooted Steady Sinz always reliable for the Boilermakers Tom Campbell A loss when Justin was 9 helped mold him, building the work ethic to turn the tight end into the player he is today.