'Big Tasty' Caleb Fyock More Than a Moniker

Most nicknames are given. Caleb Fyock didn’t get the memo.

The Ohio State sophomore goalie nicknamed himself in elementary school.

“Caleb has always been different,” his mother, Jessica, said in a sing-songy way before letting out a chuckle over the phone.

“The Goldbergs,” an ABC sitcom set in the 1980s, was a staple in the Fyock household. Caleb, the second of three children in his own family, identified with the middle child on screen, Barry Goldberg, otherwise known by his rap name, “Big Tasty.”

Like Troy Gentile’s character, Caleb Fyock is outgoing and infectiously goofy. A free spirit. He loves on his sister, Addison, who has Down syndrome. The two share a connection filled to the brim with watching cartoons and playing board games.

When Fyock is home, he’s often shirtless. He wears shoes without socks. When he talks, his words flow like the curly black hair behind his ears, as if written in cursive, comfortably strung together one after the other.

The nickname fit quite literally. Always stout but now 6-foot-2 and 285 pounds, Fyock is a Chipotle connoisseur who looks more like a football player than a lacrosse player. His order: a bowl with a tortilla in it, with white rice, double chicken, lettuce, corn, sour cream, hot sauce, cheese and guacamole.

“I mean, it’s in the name,” pointed out his older brother, Aleric, a goalie at Penn State from 2019-23 and now assistant coach at Gettysburg College. “He’s a big dude. But he’s got some swagger to him, and he’s a handful. Sometimes I do forget his actual name is Caleb.”

“Big Tasty” echoed around the house and at school in his hometown of Bowie, Maryland. The moniker traveled with him to the lacrosse field, where he played club for the Annapolis Hawks and the Baltimore Crabs, and where he starred as a top-flight recruit and burgeoning social media icon at St. John’s College High School (D.C.).

But as game time neared, his teammates quickly learned he could turn into what he calls a “whole different person.”

“He can flip his mindset like a light switch,” Aleric Fyock said.

Ohio State head coach Nick Myers believes that’s partly why defensemen and middies love playing in front of him.

“The guys really appreciate both of those feelings. He’s happy, he’s excited, he brings a great joy and attitude,” Myers said. “But he’s a winner, he’s a hard worker and he’s a scholar-athlete – those are things that I think really speak to the man that he is, and sometimes that gets lost in the ‘Big Tasty’ and the aura and the vibes.”

“There’s a fierce competitor inside,” said Myers, now in his 17th season leading the Buckeyes.

That fierce competitor as of press time ranked third in the country in save percentage (62.6) and second in goals against average (7.13). He’s Big Tasty, and he’s also a big reason why the Buckeyes bolted to a 11-1 start and made a rapid ascent to a top-two ranking in national polls.