Pete Gonzalez shares the athletic feats of his son, Penn State commit Peter Gonzalez

Most proud parents will brag about their kids when given the chance. It’s one of the most natural things for a proud father to praise the accomplishments of his young son. For Pete Gonzalez, the father of Peter Gonzalez, Penn State’s latest wide receiver commitment, he’s a proud sports dad.

“I’m very confident that that boy is north of 37,” Gonzalez told BWI, referring to his son’s vertical jump.

The older Gonzalez, whose first name is Pedro, but goes by Pete, spoke about his son’s athletic accomplishments with the glowing pride of a father who knows his son is impressive.

But you wouldn’t know it by Gonzalez’s recruiting rankings. The Pittsburgh native is a middling three-star prospect by all four major recruiting services. His highest ranking, which comes from 247Sports, ranks him as the 14th-best prospect in the state of Pennsylvania. 

But there’s a reason. 

Bad injury at a critical time for development

In February of 2022, the younger Gonzalez tore his ACL while competing in a 7-on-7 tournament. And in that instant, the promising junior season for an up-and-coming prospect was cut down.

But more than the injury, Gonzalez hadn’t made any waves as a prospect. That’s because early on, Gonzalez was more interested in basketball, according to his father. 

“As we went through the process, Peter thought he’s gonna be the next Steph Curry,” Gonzalez said. “He played a lot of basketball, and that’s what he thought. And then one day he said, ‘Hey, dad, there’s not many [6-foot-3] basketball players that have okay handles.’ And I said, ‘No, son. It’s a different world in the NBA. You’ve got to have some kind of specific skill set.’

“So he tried football. He didn’t start until the end of ninth grade. So in terms of football years, he’s new to football.”

With promising but raw sophomore film and no time to train or get better before his all-important junior season thanks to his injury, Peter was an easy afterthought for recruiting services. 

Tracking down Gonzalez’s athletic profile

But what about before the injury?  

Unlike some well-meaning fathers that inflate their son’s height or leaping ability to impress coaches, Pete can back up his assertions about his son’s skills.  

“I would see him touch the rim in our backyard on the hoop that I put up. He’s probably 11 years old. He’s already touching the rim. And like, ‘Man, this kid is about to dunk pretty soon.’” 

“It was probably the summer going into his freshman year. He came out, and he goes, ‘Dad check this out.’ And he freakin’ just jumped and threw it down. I was like, ‘Wow!’” Pete told BWI.

Don’t believe him? Gonzalez has receipts of his son’s skills, sharing clips of a young Peter dunking in a JV game during his ninth-grade season. 

“That was the first play in his first series of JV. They run a trap, and at the top of the key and he steals the ball. We’re like 30 seconds into the game. He goes coast-to-coast and freaking dunks it. Just drives it down. It was sick. He was 13; he hadn’t even turned 14 yet,” Gonzalez explains. 

Penn State gets confirmation of Gonzalez’s skills

Clues like this help build a picture of Gonzalez that we don’t have from the football field. That basketball prowess and athletic skill didn’t go away after his injury. While it may have obscured his skills during his junior season, Gonzalez proved what he could do this summer at Penn State’s first prospect camp, which we detailed in his film room. Those impressive athletic testing numbers match what you see in Pete’s videos. 

What fans see of Gonzalez in his 2022 football highlights isn’t an accurate representation of his physical skills. According to his father, Gonzalez came back prematurely from his ACL injury. Pittsburgh Central Catholic, a force in WPIAL football, struggled out of the gate last fall, going 2-3. Even though he was only seven months removed from his injury, the young Gonzalez insisted on playing. 

“There’s such a brotherhood there amongst those players,” Gonzalez said. “Peter was like, ‘I have to come back and help the football team.’ 

“So Peter came back, but he came back at 80 percent. I was scared because, you know, a rupture that guarantees you another year of surgery, and it’s just not healthy. But he was so competitive. He said, ‘I’m coming back. I don’t care. I’m coming back.’ 

“So that just shows his commitment and his competitiveness. He would rather compete at 80 percent and give you everything he has rather than sit on the sideline.”

The commonly held timeline for return to play from an ACL is roughly nine months. But fully recovering from such an injury usually takes more than a year. To return after only seven months is incredible. 

For those that are still skeptical of Gonzalez’s physical feats, he comes by his skills honestly. Pete is a former quarterback at Pitt who spent some time in the NFL. Gonzalez’s mother, Mandy, is a former volleyball player at Clarion University. According to Pete, his wife supplied Peter with his hops. 

“She was an outside hitter. At 5-7.” 

Mandy’s father, Rod Kirby, also played at Pitt and was drafted in the 11th round of the 1974 draft by the Buffalo Bills to play linebacker. Yet despite those football ties, Gonzalez hasn’t been immersed in football his whole life. Even after he switched from basketball, he hasn’t received specialized coaching. 

“Peter has never trained with a true receiver coach,” his father said. “So everything he’s learned receiver-wise, he learned from me from the quarterback perspective. So what I’ve taught him is how to run routes like a quarterback is looking for. Which is different from knowing how to run routes as a receiver.”

“He’s never been coached, but he has the intangibles that people look for.”

But after working out with Penn State receivers coach Marques Hagans during the June 5 prospect camp, Gonzalez got the green light to become a Nittany Lion. While some schools will pump kids up with false praise, Pete says that Hagans was honest and upfront about Gonzalez’s skills.

“I want to see him get out of his breaks better. I want him sinking his hips. He’s a little tight in his hips,” Gonzalez recalled. But more than the evaluation, the Gonzalez family left with a sense of what was to come. 

“It was, ‘Can he play at Penn State? Absolutely. Does he have a skill set that we can develop? Absolutely. Do I love the kid? You know, the character kid and check-the-box kid? Absolutely.”

So while his recruiting ranking reflects past events, Pete is confident in what’s in store for his son. And it seems Penn State’s coaching staff agrees with him. 

And if he’s right, Penn State got a steal with incredible potential. 

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