Bonner-Prendergast

By ROB PARENT

rparent@delcotimes.com

UPPER DARBY — It’s one thing to be the most visible team leader. It’s another to have the attention of not only your school and its football fanbase, but the attention of national recruiters, too.

Collin DiGalbo has such a spotlight on him this season, but the glare goes one megawatt higher.

The senior quarterback for Bonner-Prendergast is literally playing every down with his father and older brother looking over his shoulder.

Which isn’t, of course, necessarily a bad thing.

If you ask Bonner-Prendie head coach Greg “Bubba” Bernhardt, DiGalbo is a leader with an unmatched support system, and it shows.

Two older brothers, Anthony and Dom (now playing with Coastal Carolina) played football at Bonner. His father, Anthony, a longtime CYO administrator and head football coach at St. Joseph’s of Collingdale, is the quarterbacks coach on Bernhardt’s staff. And then there’s another bigger brother, Christian, Collin’s twin, except he’s listed at 70 pounds heavier...

Which is why he spends his time snapping the ball to his brother.

This is starting to sound like Collingdale’s version of the Manning family. The Bonner-Prendie football think it sounds like the makings of an exciting season.

“I love it,” Collin said of taking snaps from his literally big bro. “We’ve always been with each other and we always know what we’re going to do. It helps us sometimes that way. We think the same things. Like when we run a quarterback sneak, we both know at the same time what’s going to happen; we have that same mindset of what’s going to happen on a play.”

It also helps that Christian has had a little experience running that play himself.

“My whole life I was actually a quarterback,” Christian said. “Then going into my seventh grade year (at St. Joseph’s), I had to get surgery on my hip, so that knocked me out for the year, playing. So my dad had (Collin) take over at quarterback. When I came back ... I was kind of bigger than a quarterback should be.”

A long layoff with lots of hospital bed time can do that.

“Yeah,” he said, “and a lot of ice cream. I couldn’t do any activity for a year. I came back for football and I was kind of big. So Dad put me at center. I’ve been there ever since.”

You might wonder if part of Collin’s outstanding play has to do with whispered quarterback tips from his center.

“Nah, he doesn’t do that too much,” the quarterback of the family said. “Well, he tries to, but I just don’t listen to him.”

But he does respect his elders. Christian, after all, is five minutes older.

The DiGalbo twins, who have played Senior EDCO baseball together with oldest brother Anthony, a standout pitcher in high school, made quite the tandem for the St. Joseph’s Spartans. Even though the Archdiocese of Philadelphia put that school on its target list to close at the end of the 2009-10 school year, literally breaking the brothers up for their last year of elementary school, the school’s football team fought and won the right to play under the St. Joe’s banner the following fall.

Of course, they ran all the way to a championship. Collin starred at quarterback for St. Joseph’s while attending Holy Cross. Christian, with all that missed time behind him, opted to go to Harris Elementary in Collingdale.

“My seventh grade year I was home schooled for a little bit, then I went to the public school in the middle of the year because I didn’t really feel like going to Catholic School,” Christian said. “Well, I felt like going, but ... I don’t know how to say it. I didn’t really have that grab toward Catholic school at that time, because I was already at home ... so I was lazy. ... It was hard.

“It was hard. ... But I knew all along I would be going to Bonner.”

Call it a twins thing if you wish, but it was almost mandated that Christian’s football development would take a plotted course alongside Collin’s. As they came up through the ranks, their co-leadership constructed a rock-solid foundation for what this year has the potential to be a memorable football season at Bonner-Prendie.

“It’s Collin’s fourth year,” Bernhardt said. “He got a chance to play as a sophomore, which was kind of a growing year for him. Then last year he really developed and now, it’s his team. He’s a really, really good leader, and it’s the same with Christian. They both do a really good job both inside and outside of football of that.”

For Collin DiGalbo, a watershed moment of leadership came last season against Cardinal O’Hara.

The Friars were down by four touchdowns at the half. But DiGalbo led them back and would account for all six Friars touchdowns, running one in with 1:41 left to key a 41-38 victory. Of course, that act couldn’t have been a shock to his teammates. DiGalbo passed for 325 yards that day ... six short of the school record he owned.

There’s also little surprise that he is drawing increasing Division I interest and is a popular preseason choice of those who like to think about things like All-State football selections in August. Maybe his coach is one of those guys. Bernhardt hasn’t bothered hiding his excitement about this year’s team, while calling Collin “one of the top QBs in the state.”

How it all turns out for Collin and the Friars has much to do with the offensive line, which means it has much to do with Christian. As a senior center, the 6-3, 265 pound will anchor a very big but somewhat green Friars line. He’s joined by returning guard Lou Lombardo (6-4, 270), and newcomer tackles Sal Cinaglia (6-4, 270 sophomore) and Gay-Lorte Breeze (6-0, 275 junior).

Most of the large bodies turn around and play defense, including the elder DiGalbo.

They will try to protect his QB bro, while the QB bro searches for solid receivers in Tyler Higgins (6-5, 240 tight end) and Joe Oquendo. That line will also try to pave holes for talented O’Hara transfer Donovan Pierce, a do-everything tailback, and other Bonner ballcarriers.

“We’ve come together,” Collin DiGalbo said. “We’re closer to being a brotherhood. I think this year we’ll be closer than we’ve ever been.”

He’d know a little something about that.