Alan Zemaitis (born August 24, 1982) is a former professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover Wide receiver, receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such Play from scrimmage, offensive running plays as sweep ...

. He was drafted by the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The cl ...

in the 4th round (#122 overall) of the

2006 NFL Draft The 2006 National Football League Draft, the 71st in league history, took place in New York City, New York, at Radio City Music Hall on April 29 and April 30, 2006. For the 27th consecutive year, the draft was telecast on ESPN and ESPN2, with add ...

. He played in the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

(CFL) for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and is an assistant coach for the East Lake Eagles High School Football team.http://hometeam.tampabay.com/blog/2009/sep/15/ex-buc-alan-zemaitis-joins-east-lake-staff/

College career

At Penn State University, Zemaitis, a tri-captain, was a three-time All-

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

and was second-team All-American in 2005. For two straight seasons he was a semifinalist for the 2004

Jim Thorpe Award The Jim Thorpe Award, named in memory of multi-sport athlete Jim Thorpe, has been awarded to the top defensive back in college football since 1986. It is voted on by the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. In 2017, the award became sponsored by Payco ...

, given to the nation's top defensive back. Zemaitis helped lead Penn State to an 11–1 record and a

championship in 2005. His three interceptions in the season finale at

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

helped seal a 31–22 victory that gave the

Nittany Lions The Penn State Nittany Lions are the athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University, except for the women's basketball team, known as the Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot is the Nittany Lion. The interc ...

the title. Despite a violent car accident in January 2003 that left him with several head wounds, Zemaitis played in every Penn State game over his four years and started 34 of his last 35. He finished his career with 181 tackles, and broke the

and Penn State single-season records with 207 interception return yards in 2003.

Professional career

Zemaitis was considered a good fit for the Buccaneers’

Cover 2 Zone coverage (also referred to as a zone defense) is a defense scheme in gridiron football used to protect against the pass. Zone coverage schemes require the linebackers and defensive backs to work together to cover certain areas of the fie ...

defensive scheme:. He played sparingly in 2006 (though not in a regular season or postseason game) due to injury and was released. He was signed by Hamilton as a free agent on August 29, 2008.

Personal life

He attended

Spencerport High School Spencerport High School is the only high school in the Spencerport Central School District, located at 2707 Spencerport Road, in Spencerport, New York, United States. Led by Principal Sean McCabe, the school has over 1200 students and staff and of ...

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...

. Zemaitis' surname is of ethnonymic origin and means "

Samogitia Samogitia or Žemaitija ( Samogitian: ''Žemaitėjė''; see below for alternative and historical names) is one of the five cultural regions of Lithuania and formerly one of the two core administrative divisions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

n" (''žemaitis'') in the

Lithuanian language Lithuanian ( ) is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the official language of Lithuania and one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.8 mill ...

References

1982 births American football cornerbacks Living people Penn State Nittany Lions football players People from Spencerport, New York Sportspeople from Monroe County, New York Players of American football from Rochester, New York Tampa Bay Buccaneers players {{defensiveback-1980s-stub