The recruiting process isn’t easy to navigate for a high school prospect in the portal age, when many college coaches default to older players to stock their rosters.
Luckily for Henry Sakalas, he had some good advice close at hand.
The rising senior safety recently was one of three Nazareth football players to make Power Four commitments, picking Michigan State.
The other two Nazareth elite commits are heading to Missouri: edge Chris Kasky and offensive lineman Luke Injaychock. All three are three-star prospects among the state’s top 35 in the 2027 recruiting cycle in the 247Sports consensus rankings.
Sakalas is the second Power Four athlete in his family, joining sister Stella, a rising freshman basketball player at BYU.
“She was kind of the same way, where her recruitment picked up super late … as well at the end of August, which is late for basketball,” Sakalas told the Sun-Times. “She was just telling me to be patient, just to understand that not everybody’s success is linear and not everything happens at the same time. … [But] as long as you put the work in, the results will show.”
Sakalas wound up with a variety of good options, with offers from Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska in the Big Ten, along with Cornell, Dartmouth and Yale in the Ivy League, among others.
The 6-4, 195-pounder wound up as the second local player in coach Pat Fitzgerald’s first full recruiting class, joining St. Rita defensive lineman and Romeoville transfer Ohimai Ozolua.
“First and foremost, the big appeal of Michigan State was the coaches,” Sakalas said. “No. 1 being coach Fitz, and coach [Joe] Rossi being the defensive coordinator. Those are people with very like-minded ideas to [Nazareth] coach [Tim] Racki and the people here.”
For Kasky and Injaychock, the opportunity to remain teammates for the foreseeable future was a big plus at Missouri.
“We played youth ball together,” Injaychock told the Sun-Times. “I played one year of football without [Kasky]. So we grew up on the football field together, and it was pretty cool now that we get to be able to carry it on on Saturdays, as well.”
Injaychock, a 6-5, 285-pounder, had two more SEC offers, from Arkansas and Auburn, along with Big Ten offers from Illinois, Ohio State, Northwestern, Minnesota, Purdue, UCLA and Wisconsin.
“I always had a great relationship with the [Missouri] coaches,” Injaychock said. “They showed up to Naz a bunch of times; they always showed me a bunch of love. I knew it was the best spot for me as this process moved on. They have great development on the offensive line, specifically.”
Kasky also had multiple offers from the SEC (Arkansas and Vanderbilt) and the Big Ten (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska and Purdue).
Like Injaychock, the 6-4, 225-pounder was sold on the Tigers’ coaches.
“As the recruitment process started, I realized … I always wanted to go where I was wanted,” Kasky told the Sun-Times. “And they showed up. … Everybody has the same facilities; everybody has the glamour. So it’s all about the people. And that’s what it really came down to, and that’s why I picked Missouri.”