Martin Luther King Lineman Danny Pajuste commits to Mount Union
Tagged under: District 12, News, pfn, Recruiting
Anthony Franklin | April 22, 2024
Danny Pajuste is a 6-1 260lb offensive lineman who earned all Public League honors as a senior while helping his fellow MLK Cougar rushers gain over 1500 rushing yards. As a leader on the offensive line Danny helped lead MLK to the Public League Liberty Division championship as well as gave Imhotep Charter a competitive 5A championship game for a half. As for the recruiting process Danny expressed the hardest part was “definitely choosing one school after developing relationships with other coaches from other schools”. A resident of North Philadelphia, he will go from a inner city school to a university that resides in Alliance, Ohio with a population of roughly 22k people. Before choosing Mount Union, Danny also strongly considered Eastern University as he stated, “I connected with the coaching staff a lot”.
An addition to the MLK staff this past season was offensive line coach Eric Moran who previously coached at Ben Franklin. Danny stated “Coach E was a blessing to this program. He came in destined to teach our line not only how to be dawgs but be technicians of the game also. He can in and hit us with all types of techniques & terminology that even some teams on the next level struggle with, but he had faith & trusted that we would execute, and it was a huge reason we went on a 9-game winning streak this year. A way all of our coaches had a huge impact on our development this season was by doing mental health check-ins and that made players feel more comfortable because there can be a lot of stress on teens growing up in Philadelphia. our coaches understood that, and they not only teach us how to play football, but they also teach us how to be young men.
At Mount Union Danny intends to major in finance. “Growing up I definitely didn’t have the most money dream was always to have enough to live in a better environment & I feel like I could get a great paying job and also deal with money for a living”. Danny’s older brother Matt Pajuste is a MLK 2020 graduate who earned a scholarship to play football at the University of Buffalo as an offensive lineman. Matt has been a great help to Danny with navigating the recruiting process and has provided advice & tips for him upon entering his college football career. “My big brother just told me to be prepared to deal with adversity & the grind. You could build a whole relationship with a coach, and they could switch schools in a blink of an eye & there are also a whole group of guys battling for the same spot as you. Just never forget where you came from & keep grinding”. Matt knows a thing or two about coaching changes as he signed with Buffalo with Coach Leipoid who would accept the Kansas HC job before Matt arrived on campus as a freshman. His second coach Maurice Linguist this offseason resigned to take a position at University of Alabama.
Danny concluded by wanting to give a huge thank you to God first because “without him none of this would be possible. Also, I would like to thank my big brother Matt because without him I wouldn’t even be playing this sport. I’d also like to thank Coach Malik Jones, Coach Moran, Coach Jordan, Coach Dunn, Coach E, Coach Baldwin, Coach Corey, Coach Stew, Coach Jo Rogers & Coach Scott for teaching me over the years not only how to be a great player but a great young man as well. To the younger kids looking for an opportunity to play on the next level my advice is to never lose hope and it’s never too late. I came into high school at 5-6 230lbs with a max bench of 95 pounds & a max squat of 155lbs. After my freshman year I stayed in the weight room & stayed consistent never missing practices. People expected me to be as big if not bigger than my brother which clearly didn’t happen, but I never let it affect me. I also dealt with the fact that I am an undersized lineman standing at 6-1 260 lbs., questioning if I was even recruitable. My senior season I sent my film out to hundreds of coaches & barely got responses back. I really did think it was over until February 1st when I received my first 2 offers from Widener & Eastern Universities. At the end of the day stay in those books & keep grinding because that hard work will pay off because the game gives back what you give to it.
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