Were you to design the perfect athlete from scratch, he probably wouldn't look much like Bobby Dattilo.
At 5-foot-6, he's not that tall, and at 160 pounds, he's not especially strong, but Astros coach Brian O'Reilly said that there's one thing Dattilo has that he would absolutely put into the perfect competitor.
"I would take his heart," said O'Reilly, who coached Dattilo in both football and lacrosse. "That's more important than other attrtibutes, especially in contact sports. It comes down to what you have inside of you. A lot of large kids are playing sports, they're big and strong, and they don't excel. I found that it's becoming more and more prevalent that kids don't have that inner drive. They're not as determined as they were a year ago. I leave that to the experts to determine whether it's video games or just being couch potatoes, but he's a throwback to a tougher time."
There likely wasn't a player in New Hampshire that worked harder for every yard, of which Dattilo picked up 639 to lead the Astros, but he always found a way.
"It's a sport of physical size and strength and he's always making the big play," said O'Reilly. "He'll figure out how to get it. He won't run over you, but he'll slip in between that other guy. What he lacks in speed, he makes up for in quickness. He can see things others don't on the field, and make the move ahead of time. Things are a little bit slower motion for him than other kids."
It was that elusiveness that allowed Dattilo to pick up five touchdowns on the ground and four through the air this season, in which he was a second-year starter.
"I knew I could compete with everyone else no matter what size I am," he said. "I see that as another challenge. In football, I love going against a big kid and going right by him. I just rely on my skills that I have and all the time I've put into it off the field in practice."
Football, though, wasn't even his best sport. Dattilo was a four-year starter for mighty Pinkerton lacrosse, and is going to Hobart College on a full scholarship by virtue of a pair of All-American performances in his junior and senior year. He has bested his junior year total — 36 goals and 24 assists — with a 31-47-78 line this spring in leading Pinkerton to the Division 1 state title game and was named the state's Co-MVP.
In his eight seasons of Pinkerton sports, Dattilo won four state titles (three in a row in football, one in lacrosse). He went to the finals twice more in lacrosse. It's no coincidence that Dattilo played a big role in most of those games.
"That's awesome, just to be a part of the team that can win that much," he said. "Not just winning one in football, but back-to-back-to-back, and another in lacrosse. I'm really lucky. My sophomore year we won in both. That was a great year. As a sophomore starting for football and lacrosse, I got to make an impact on the team. It's a great feeling."
O'Reilly said he wishes there was a way to instill every one of his players with Dattilo's drive. If there was, four state titles in eight seasons would be nothing.
"If I knew the answer, I'd make sure all my players were like him," said O'Reilly, who has likely seen just about everything in his coaching career. "He never quits. He always does the extra thing that needs to be done. A lot of kids give up in practice or games. Maybe they don't run quite as fast at all times, and they save themselves or pace themselves. They try to turn it on and off during games, and that's not the way to go. The message doesn't get through to a lot of kids. When it gets through, they excel. He always had that, even as a freshman."
Every year, Dattilo just improved and improved, exhibiting uncommon skill and exemplifying that off-field intangibles go a long way toward on-field performance. In lacrosse especially, he was typically playing well above everyone else's level.
"I don't know what else you can do to get better," O'Reilly days before Dattilo scored a goal and two assists against Bishop Guertin in the lacrosse state final this spring. "He's marked by everybody, everybody knows he's the best player, the best players cover him. He's just the best player and he just goes at it and goes at it and goes at it."
Dattilo goes to Hobart next year as a highly-decorated player with many great onfield achievements and proving that simply being big isn't always as important as playing big.
"It's not normal for a kid like him to have as much success as him," said O'Reilly. "He was the running back on the last two state championship teams, and he was a two-time All-American in lacrosse. That's all you need to know about the kind of athlete Bobby is."
