Ty Costabile likes to do things a little differently.
Three years ago, Costabile watched his Holy Spirit High School teammate Sean Burns throw for more than 3,000 yards on the football field. After Burns graduated, Costabile earned the starting quarterback spot as a sophomore. He reached a tough decision when it came to picking his jersey number.
“I wore number 15 my whole life, but Sean Burns wore it his senior year and he broke all these records, so I didn’t want to be the guy who wears the number right after that guy,” Costabile said. “So I switched it up to number 5, and it felt right.”
Although both Burns and Costabile lifeguarded on the Atlantic City beaches, no one would mistake their football-slinging style. Burns, who now plays for the United States Coast Guard, is a lanky 6-foot-2 right hander. Costabile is 5-11 and a sturdy south paw. However, both have an incredible compete level.
“Ty has got a lot of poise to him,” said Andrew DiPasquale, who is now in his fourth year as head coach at Holy Spirit. “He’s got a lot of moxie. He doesn’t care who lines up against him, he’s going to get the job done. That’s what you love about him.”
There’s a lot of evidence to back that claim. Costabile is now in his third year as the starting quarterback. He surpassed 1,500 passing yards his sophomore and junior seasons, combining for 37 career touchdowns. More importantly, he led the Spartans to a 9-2 season in 2023 and a 10-2 campaign in 2024. There’s a lot of optimism and momentum following back-to-back successful seasons.
“I’m excited,” Costabile said. “I feel like we have a really good team around us, and it’s going to start with the captains. We need to step up, and I think we’ll have a really good shot this year.”
The Spartans lost a lot of talent to graduation including leading rusher Jahcere Ward, leading receiver Ryan Mallen, and two leading tacklers, Nick Medina and Matthew Abbott. But Costabile was quick to point out the positives.
“We have a lot of guys who are ready and worked hard in the offseason,” Costabile said. “Freddy Marczyk, a junior captain, is playing middle linebacker. He worked every day in the offseason, even when we didn’t have lifts, he’d be going into the weight room. A guy like Ubrig Kurtz was a starter since he was a freshman and will step up on both sides of the ball. We return a lot of our skill guys like Taylor Cartwright and Emanuel Gerena, so I’m really excited to get after it this season.”
Costabile plans on using all those weapons. He spent the offseason preparing to do things a little differently.
“Just working on slowing down the game more and making sure the reads are sharp,” Costabile said. “I want to get the ball into my skill guys’ hands out in the open and let them go to work.”
Costabile also stars on the baseball team and hit .381 with 17 RBIs in the spring while playing great defense in the outfield. He’s undecided on whether he will pursue baseball or football at the next level but wants to study business in college.
“I want to get into a big business corporation and see how it’s run,” he said. “Then I want to own my own business one day. I want to be able to call the shots.”
To some degree, he will do just that on the football field this fall.
“We’ll put as much as we can on his shoulders,” DiPasquale said. “Being a three-year starter at quarterback definitely relieves some pressure off the rest of the team. You got a guy you can trust and a guy you can keep building off of year after year.”
More Online
Mark Zimmaro discusses which teams and players to keep an eye on this high school sports season on the Aug. 18 podcast. Visit talking.catholicstarherald.org.
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