NC State senior left guard Chandler Zavala will never forget that stretch from this past March and April.
Zavala was medically cleared to return to training, and his father, Demetrio Zavala, had also recovered from his own health ordeal. Then Zavala learned he had won his waiver with the NCAA after two previous attempts had failed.
All three situations were emotionally draining, just on their own. The original plan was for Zavala to transfer from Fairmount State and solidify the left guard position, and then give pro football a shot. That went out the window after suffering a season-ending herniated disc injured games into the season against Louisiana Tech.
“We started this process Jan. 2 and NFL teams kept calling and all I could tell them was to wait two weeks and wait two weeks,” Zavala said. “My attorney always said it is 50-50 [percent] when dealing with the NCAA. I just weighed my options and stayed the course.”
From that point on, Zavala had to play to the waiting game, and deal with more heartache.
Demetrio Zavala suffered a ruptured appendix along with part of his large intestine in late December. This was right while the Wolfpack were going to play UCLA in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, Calif., which also ended in negative fashion, with the game never getting played.
It was also around that time Zavala was denied a waiver by the NCAA, which forced him to hire a lawyer and fight for his sixth year of college. He also was talking with NFL teams in case it fell through.
Zavala missed spring practices and it wasn’t until May 5 that he won his case and it became public that he would be back playing for NC State. The NCAA received additional information about his freshman year injured getting mishandled at Fairmont State in 2017.
“That second week of April, was probably the best week of my life,” Zavala said. “I got cleared that week and my father got cleared that week from surgery. I got a call that Tuesday that I was cleared.”
Zavala was nervous because the NCAA told him they’d have 10 days to review his case, and they called him on the sixth day.
“I was kind of scared and worried,” Zavala said. “I just broke down in tears and called my dad. The first teammate I called was [center Grant Gibson] Gibby. The coaches knew before I knew.”
Thursday was Zavala’s return to playing full pads since the Louisiana Tech contest. The last 10 months has deepened his relationship with God, and he prays when he comes on and off the field.
“I cherish every day I go on that field,” Zavala said.
What helped Zavala with his own health was being around the team. Seeing his father’s ordeal from a distance was difficult. He is a two-time Chopped champion as a chef.
“Before we went to California for the bowl game, I almost lost my father to emergency surgery,” Zavala said. “It was a seven-hour procedure. He was dead on the table for 10 minutes. He had to have surgery that day, then in mid-February and his last surgery was in mid-April.
“If I didn’t have the coaches, that women over there, Ms. Annabelle [Myers] and D.D., it would be a really hard time.”
Zavala started 20 games at Fairmount State, a Division II program in Fairmount, W.Va. The Boynton Beach, Fla., native had only played one year of high school football after growing up playing soccer and basketball. Zavala had his grandmother pass away on his father’s side of the family, and his grandfather on his mother’s side also passed away. They were both big Miami Dolphins’ fans and loved football.
“I just kind of took a shot,” Zavala said.
Zavala figures he was about 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds when he started playing football his senior year. Now, he’s 6-5 and 325 pounds.
“My dad gave me a diet everyday,” Zavala said. “He’s a chef, so he told me what to eat and what not to eat. I had five full meals a day and three snacks.”
Zavala has cut down his eating to four full meals a day now.
The insertion of Zavala at left guard and possibly sophomore Anthony Belton at left tackle will make NC State pretty massive on that side of the line.
“We are very big on the run game,” Zavala said. “We don’t want to be mainly a pass team.”
NC State junior running back Jordan Houston is confident that he’ll get some quality push from the left side of the line.
“I’d say Chandler is probably the strongest 0-Lineman we got right now,” Houston said. “He’s freakishly strong.”
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