Early Years
Jeff's father, Sam Samardzija, was a semi-professional hockey player, and his older brother, Sam Samardzija Jr., was an All State football and baseball player who attended Indiana University and is now a sports agent of Major League Baseball. When Samardzija was in high school his mother, Debora Samardzija, died of a fatal respiratory disease.
Samardzija grew up in Valparaiso, Indiana, where he attended Washington Township Elementary School &Valparaiso High School, and was a letterman in football, basketball, and baseball. In football, he was a three-time first team All-State honoree, and was twice named the team's Most Valuable Player. After his senior year, he was invited to participate in the Indiana football All-Star game. In baseball, he was a first team All-State honoree. He graduated from Valparaiso High School in 2003.
Read more about this topic: Jeff Samardzija
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A bird’s cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)