30 AUGUST 2021 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED
BY TYLER HORKA
Z
eke Correll was quite literally
born into the heat of competition.
Eighteen years after Steve
and Lisa Correll had their first
child, Sarah, they had their last, Zeke.
In between, the Correll family grew
by seven children, four of which were
boys. The youngest of five brothers,
Zeke learned from an early age noth-
ing would be handed to him.
Absolutely nothing.
"Our whole family is competitive,
and Zeke hated — hated — to lose,"
Steve Correll said. "They wouldn't
give him any slack. They'd go out to
play hoops, they'd beat him and he'd
start crying. They wouldn't let him
win. And this was every day."
The consolation of getting his teeth
kicked in — not literally, of course, un-
less it was an accident — on the daily?
"It made him better," Lisa Correll
said.
It made him good enough to be the
SINK OR SWIM
The youngest of nine children,
Zeke Correll is prepared to take on
his new offensive line role
Correll, a Cincinnati native, is viewed as the likely starter at
center for the Irish entering his junior season. He brings a ultra-
competitive mindset honed by growing up in a family of athletes.
PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS
