Beaudreault, Partosan sign on dotted line

Spencer Beaudreault had to stop in the hallway for one last bit of advice from the man who has guided him through the last four years.
Beaudreault, heading into the Windham High School gym, handed football coach Brian Crudden his tie, neatly folded in his hand, and Crudden took it and showed his quarterback how to tie a “Windsor” knot.
Fortunately, Crudden’s teaching on the football field was much more effective than it was in tie-tying 101 as Beaudreault was lost on the second step of the process.
What was not lost on Crudden, Beaudreault, or teammate Chaz Partosan was the significance of the moment. This is what the conditioning drills in the August heat the games in the November mud and the summers of weightlifting are all about; a cold day in February with flashes going off around the two of them as they signed on the dotted line of ceremonial Letters of Intent to play football for Sacred Heart in Fairfield next fall.
“I went on my official visit a couple of weeks ago and I really liked it,” Beaudreault said, “plus, it was the only Division-I offer I had.”
Partosan wasn’t sure about his future until a week or two ago when Sacred Heart came forward with an offer for both Whippet players.
“It was quick because I hadn’t talked to them before that,” said Partosan who will play on the defensive line for the Pioneers, “I talked to a lot of colleges before that and I was most likely going to go to a different college, then they came up.”
Not every high school football player gets the chance to play at the next level, Beaudreault and Partosan are two of the chosen few who got to put the ink to the paper on National Signing Day.
“I think it’s a dream come true for those guys,” Crudden said. “I know that their intent for four years has been to work every day to get better, be a better football player at this level to move on to the next level and they’ve accomplished that.”
Together.
Partosan moved to Willimantic from Norwich when he was in the eighth grade and quickly struck up a friendship with Beaudreault. The two played youth football together and moved on to high school where Beaudreault threw the passes and Partosan chased down opposing quarterbacks for the first couple of years. Partosan then began catching those Beaudreault passes as a junior tight end and the two, according to Crudden, are like “peas in a pod.”
“It’s fitting,” Chaz’s mom, Linda, said of the two moving on to the same college.
“If either of them went without the other,” Partosan added before quickly re-thinking that statement, “it wasn’t going to happen, they were going to go (together), regardless.”
Partosan said the Division-I AA Pioneers plan to use him on the defensive line while Beaudreault may get a shot at quarterback early as an injury could slow down the progress of Sacred Heart’s incumbent quarterback. If not, Beaudreault hopes to get a shot at either slot receiver or in the backfield where Beaudreault could utilize his biggest weapons, his legs.
Just as important; the classroom. Partosan plans to use his scholarship to study political science at Sacred Heart, Beaudreault was going to enter the criminal justice program, but went to a criminal justice class on a second visit to the institution and may have already changed his mind.
“I like the psychological part of it, criminology, forensic science — I want to be in the FBI,” Beaudreault said.