Sports have surrounded Fuzz French his entire life.

His father, who played football at TCU, passed his love for the game down to his children, including Fuzz.

“I have always loved football,” said French.

French was born in Dallas, Texas, and moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, with his family at a young age.

After their move, his mother was contacted by the track coach at Notre Dame Academy, Coach Nowak.

His mother then became part of the track team and took Fuzz and his siblings to many track practices. Fuzz started to grow a close relationship with Nowak.

“I just walked up to him and sat in his lap one day at practice,” French said.

From that day forward, Nowak proved to be a mentor and role model for French. Nowak was like a ‘grandfather’ to French.

French considered quitting football after his freshman year of high school, but he decided it would be too hard to tell Nowak, who was the football coach.

“He (Nowak) was always very kind to me and mentored me,” said French. “He was always there for me.”

With his high school football season coming to an end last week, French is considering a profession that involves football. He is not necessarily interested in playing football, but rather coaching or being a sports broadcaster.

However, his high school experience is not over yet.

French finished as first runner-up in last year’s highly anticipated competition of Mr. NDA and was recently voted into the December contest again. French has been helping in acts for the past nine years.

French is also involved in Student Government at Notre Dame Academy. He is on the Executive Board and runs the Twitter account for the school.

Mrs. Carolyn Brown, an English teacher at Notre Dame Academy, has taught French in many of her classes.

“I have had the privilege of teaching him in both IB English classes and Journalism classes,” said Brown. “His was one of the first letters of recommendation I wrote this year.  I said he wasn’t going to be in the Top Ten of his class, but he could very well be voted the Outstanding Senior by his peers due to his involvement and leadership.”

Maddie Jalozsynski contributed to this story.