| Weighing In With Alex Welch | ||||
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It didn't take long for Welch to love the game.
But a six-year-old Alex Welch was not crazy about his parents, Austin and Lynn, pushing him to join the Victory Vipers. “At first, actually I did not like football very much,” Alex says. “I hated the helmet. I just didn’t like how it felt.” Besides the helmet, the youngster was frustrated by his inability to grasp the carioca drill. “He kept saying he didn’t want to play because he didn’t know how to do one of the drills and the coach would yell at him,” Lynn remembers with a laugh. “He would say, ‘I don’t want to play football.’” But his parents worked on the carioca with him in the backyard and he started to appreciate the game. By the time the season ended with a game at Elder High School’s Pit - which was named by USA Today as one of the nation’s Top 10 stadiums to watch a high school game - Alex knew that he wanted to suit up for the Panthers one day. Throughout his youth career, Alex was shuffled between running back, wide receiver and tight end. He even made a brief appearance at quarterback, but there was one spot that he wanted to avoid, the line. Always one of the larger kids, Alex had to fight to keep his weight under league limits. He would attend the Elder High School games on Friday nights before weighing in on Saturday morning prior to his own game. His stomach would ache as he watched his teammates munch on pizza and snacks from the Elder concession stand. “He had to eat turkey and carrot sticks,” Lynn says. “He would starve himself on Friday.” But he never missed weight. 
Welch always managed to make weight.
“He’d eat everything in sight once he weighed in,” laughs Lynn. When he finally enrolled at Elder in the fall of 2006, Alex had his sights set on playing defensive end or linebacker, but head coach Doug Ramsey had a different idea. “I was like, ‘You’re playing tight end?’” his father, Austin, remembers asking. “But Coach Ramsey said you’re going to be my next Kyle Rudolph.” The Welchs had known Rudolph since he was a young boy and they were friends with Rudolph’s parents, Dan and Jamie. By the time Alex arrived at Elder, Rudolph was among the country’s elite juniors at the position. “After I saw the way Kyle developed and I could see the similarities between the two, I thought Coach Ramsey knows what he’s talking about,” says Alex. Alex had a solid season at tight end for the Elder freshman team in 2006 before playing varsity basketball with Rudolph later that year. When he started playing varsity football for the Panthers the following fall, the coaches told him to watch Rudolph. “It was very helpful,” Alex says. “I just tried to do everything he did. I couldn’t do it as well at the time, so I just kept working and working.” But it wasn’t easy. “The coaches knew the potential I had, so they were pushing me,” Alex says. “I remember that whole year, I hated practices. I just hated it because the coaches pushed me. Everyone else would be running 40s and I’d be running 60s because I messed up. Their mentality for the year was just to try to push me as hard as they could. I just tried to learn from Kyle. “They were just constantly trying to get me to my full potential. That year, I learned a lot about football.” Just as he had to as a boy, Alex needed to take care of his weight, but this time he needed to add weight and keep it on. “I was so skinny back then, I couldn’t really block very well,” he says. Rudolph taught more with actions than words and, after Rudolph’s final season on the Elder basketball team, he brought Alex along with him to see a nutritionist. The nutritionist wanted to add size to Alex’s frame while keeping it as lean as possible. Alex weighed 206 pounds on his first visit, but got up to 225 as a junior and 240 as a senior. When Rudolph left for Notre Dame as the nation’s top-ranked prep tight end in the fall of 2008, football started becoming fun again for Alex. “They started treating me differently,” Alex said of the Elder coaches. “I thank them now. They just wanted to get me as good as I possibly could.” And Alex got good. He caught 32 passes for 480 yards and four touchdowns as a junior before reeling in 43 passes for 620 yards and five scores as a senior. The Panthers lost to St. Ignatius in the Ohio Division I championship game in 2008 before being eliminated in the state semifinals a year later, but Alex still looks back on those years as “unbelievable.” Alex fought through the final six games of his junior season with a 180-degree tear of his labrum. “He just sucked it up,” says Austin. “That was probably the most proud of him I ever was. We were in the playoffs and he was getting tackled from every angle. You could see he was in pain, but he kept getting back up.” Alex started receiving letters from colleges during his sophomore season, but the recruiting process really started heating up after his junior season. His first offer came from North Carolina State in February of 2009 and by April the offers were pouring in. “It was crazy,” he recalls. “Really every day, someone was coming in with offers. That whole month of school was a lot of fun.” He was blown away when Oklahoma came in with an offer, until his dream school followed with an offer the very next day. The Welch family has always been a Notre Dame family, going back to the 1970s when Lynn’s brother, Steve Heimkreiter, played linebacker for the Irish. When Alex was born, Lynn even took him home from the hospital in a Notre Dame onesie. Austin grew up an Irish fan over Ohio State and remembers watching Notre Dame replays on Sunday mornings with his father. 
Welch was a Notre Dame fan from the start.
So when Charlie Weis and the Irish extended an offer, Alex’s entire family got together for a party at a local restaurant. “I hadn’t even committed yet, but they just wanted to celebrate,” Alex remembers. “We had a big party and he’s like, ‘What are you guys doing? I just got an offer. I didn’t accept it,’” says Lynn. “But we all knew right away that’s where he was going.” Alex talked with Rudolph nearly every day as he tried to make a decision. His mentor did not pressure Alex to follow him again, but Rudolph told him that he would know where he belongs after his visits. Alex took a quick trip to Notre Dame and two weeks later he called Weis to inform him of his decision. “I was thinking, ‘I know I belong at Notre Dame. That’s exactly where I fit with my personality,’” recalls Alex. This time, his family was already together at the family’s camp in northern Kentucky to celebrate his sister’s graduation. “Everybody was jumping up and down and cheering,” Lynn says. “The joke was that he stole the limelight from his sister.” Alex was disappointed when Weis was fired, but Brian Kelly tried to recruit him to Cincinnati and he was happy he got the job. Any concerns were alleviated when he spoke to Rudolph about the offense. “He loves it,” Alex says. “He loves being able to be spread out and work against linebackers He’s happy. He’s ready to go.” Alex’s family has always been among his biggest supporters. “My mom and dad made me the person I am today,” he says. “If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be playing Notre Dame football and I wouldn’t be the person I am.” Throughout the process, Austin reminded his son not to change. “All of these people are fussing over him and wanting his autograph,” Austin says. “‘Just remember what got you there. Part of the reason why you’re successful is because people like you and pull for you and you want to remain that way.’” The advice stuck. “The number one thing is just to treat people the way you want to be treated,” Alex says. “I tried to be humble through the whole experience. It’s hard when all of these coaches are calling you and asking you to come to their school and wanting you that bad. You have to stay humble and be the person you would be without that.” Alex’s grandparents also played a huge role in his life. His father’s mother served as the family’s matriarch until she passed away the night before a game his junior season. “I remember I had a one-handed touchdown catch that night and the announcer said, ‘That was a little help from Sis Welch from up in heaven,” he says. “She loved Notre Dame.” Lynn’s father, Fred, shared that affection after watching his son play for the Irish and would call every night to make sure that Alex was working on his agility by jumping rope. “He didn’t want to lie to him, so he’d be jumping,” Austin laughs, adding that Alex had his ropes with him when they dropped him off in South Bend last month. “I don’t know if you can even do it in the dorm room. It’s not very big.” Austin and Lynn are eager to watch their son continue to grow on the field and off of it during his time in South Bend. “We couldn’t be any prouder than we are,” Austin says. “We’re more proud of the kid that he’s grown into than his athletic ability.” |