![]() “He was out there to fuck people up,” says Myles Jr. Zac was shorter and slower, but he was the toughest son of a bitch on the field. ![]() Zac's elder brother, Myles Jr., was taller, faster, talented enough to earn a college football scholarship and a spot in his high school's sports hall of fame. Zac loved Brett Favre-he had the same swagger. The Easters were a Minnesota Vikings family, but early on Zac defected and chose the Green Bay Packers. On Saturday afternoons in the fall, they'd sneak up to the overhead track at Simpson College's century-old gym and listen to their dad's halftime pep talks. They'd come to practice every day and hang off to the side with the kickers. “I was getting to the point where I loved it more than the kids did back in high school.” Not that the boys didn't love it, too. He never made his boys play football-it was more like it was just assumed. Before Zac was born, Myles took a job as defensive coordinator at Simpson College, a Division III school in Indianola, Iowa, a town of 11,000 known for an annual hot-air-balloon festival. He and Brenda got together in 1982, soon after his football career ended, and they married two years later, which meant she was now married to football, too. ![]() talks about his own football career, there's a joyful worship of the sport's violent side: “I just wanted to knock the fuck out of somebody.” He was a safety at Drake University, a small school in Des Moines. He was perfect for the one thing that mattered most in the Easter family: football. Zac was fearless, certain of his invincibility, confident he could push his limits to the very edge yet always stay in control. “GODDAMMIT!” his dad, Myles Sr., would yell from the porch as he shot by. He'd fly through the woods, build jumps and hurdle over them. As a teenager he graduated to the family's Honda Recon ATV, his first taste of real adrenaline and real recklessness. The Easter family's acreage was off a dirt road, surrounded by cornfields, just east of where The Bridges of Madison County was filmed, and Zac and his brothers would go on hikes to the creek, bringing along an artillery of Black Cat fireworks to blow up minnows and bullfrogs. He was Tom Sawyer reborn: unleashed, unbound midwestern middle-class American boy. ![]() As he got older, the blast radius got bigger. Faulty wiring? It turned out Zac was taking swings at the bulbs with a baseball bat. One winter, the family couldn't figure out why the lightbulbs on the Christmas tree kept bursting. ![]() He went through four of those unbreakable steel Tonka dump trucks-broke the first three and disassembled the fourth, trying to figure out how it worked. Cross Country Cross Country: Twitter Football Football: Facebook Football: Twitter Football: Instagram Golf (W) Golf (W): Twitter Soccer (M) Soccer (M): Twitter Softball Softball: Facebook Softball: Twitter Softball: Instagram Swim & Dive (M) Swim & Dive (M): Twitter Tennis (W) Tennis (W): Twitter Tennis (W): Instagram Volleyball Volleyball: Twitter Volleyball: Instagram Basketball (M) Basketball (M): Twitter Basketball (W) Basketball (W): Facebook Basketball (W): Twitter Swim & Dive (W) Swim & Dive (W): Twitter Wrestling (M) Wrestling (M): Facebook Wrestling (M): Twitter Wrestling (M): Instagram Wrestling (W) Wrestling (W): Facebook Wrestling (W): Twitter Wrestling (W): Instagram Baseball Baseball: Twitter Golf (M) Golf (M): Twitter Soccer (W) Soccer (W): Twitter Tennis (M) Tennis (M): Twitter Tennis (M): Instagram Track & Field Track & Field: Twitter Cheer Cheer: Twitter Cheer: Instagram Pommies Pommies: Twitter Pommies: Instagram Color Guard Color Guard: Facebook Color Guard: Twitter Color Guard: Instagram Vocal Music Band Band: Twitter Orchestra Orchestra: Twitter Theatre Theatre: Facebook Theatre: Twitter Theatre: Instagram Scholar Bowl Speech & Debate Speech & Debate: Twitter Esports Activities Director Activities Office Staff MSHSAA Activities Calendar Game Day Protocols Sports Marketing Branding Guide Twitter Athletic Trainer Guide to Concussion Concussion RTL Concussion RTP Greater KC Suburban Conference Truman North Kansas City Fort Osage St.He was a sweet, curious kid, and seemingly programmed to destroy. ![]()
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