Sports
Chicago Bears Sign Plainfield North Grad Andrew Starks
Andrew Starks signed a three-year deal with the team; he is a 2013 Princeton graduate.
The Chicago Bears last week signed a three-year contract with 2009 Plainfield North High School graduate Andrew Starks.
The 6-foot-2, 240-pound linebacker is a 2013 graduate of Princeton University. The PNHS alum will play his first pre-season game on Friday against the Carolina Panthers.
Starks is the son of Kevin and Lenora Starks of Plainfield. He earned all-state, all-area and all-conference honors as a safety at Plainfield North and was named conference player of the year and conference defensive player of the year when he was a senior at PNHS, according to his bio.
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Mom Lenora Starks said the contract is a dream come true for her son.
"We are all very excited," Lenora Starks said in an email to Patch.
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Starks, 22, said his mom and his two sisters, Jennifer and Jordan, got to be there with him during his first practice at Soldier Field on Saturday night.
"To share that stage with them was incredible," he said.
He credited his coaches at Princeton and Plainfield North head coach Tim Kane with helping him get to this level.
"At Plainfield (North), obviously, we were a new school, and we kind of battled a lot of adversity," Starks said. "One of the things Coach Kane taught us was to handle that adversity ... You can carry on and move forward or you can fold."
Starks said his love of the game started when he was a kid in his native Tennessee. After moving to Plainfield when he was in fifth grade, Starks played with the Plainfield Junior Cats before becoming a football standout at Plainfield North.
Signing with the Bears has always been his dream, Starks said.
"I remember playing in my backyard with my friends and pretending we were on the Bears' roster," he said. "It's a dream come true for me."
Starks, a politics major, played in 39 games during his four-year career at Princeton, recording 298 tackles and three fumble recoveries, according to the Daily Princetonian.
“Andrew Starks is an unbelievable leader and an unbelievable worker," coach Bob Surace told the paper.
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