pirate4state
03-09-2005, 09:57 AM
Shipley's ahead of schedule
Texas needs the former Burnet star to bolster its passing game
Matt Rourke/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
(enlarge photo) link to picture and article (http://www.statesman.com/horns/content/sports/stories/longhorns/03/9SHIPLEY.html)
Doctors told Jordan Shipley last August that he might be able to participate in a few drills this spring if he worked incredibly hard to recover from a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Shipley has exceeded all expectations and is on the field.
By Suzanne Halliburton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
In his high school days, back when he was a small–school shining star, injuries never really bothered Texas freshman receiver Jordan Shipley nor kept him off the football field.
Back in 2002, Shipley played the entire Class 3A state championship game against Everman with a big toe swollen to twice its size. He spent the next three days in a local hospital, hooked up to an I.V. filled with powerful antibiotics to combat a staph infection that had settled in the toe.
A year later, the tenacious receiver suffered a concussion in the first quarter of the state championship game against Gainesville, but didn't realize it. The do-everything Shipley — the state's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns — caught five passes for 121 yards, ran back an 85-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and kicked a field goal. Afterwards, he was disoriented enough that he couldn't find his locker.
Last August, however, just a little more than a week into his career as a Longhorn, a knee injury got the best of Shipley.
Doctors told him if he worked hard at rehabilitating his knee, doing the stretching and strengthening exercises, riding the stationary bike past the point where boredom numbs the mind, then he probably could take part in a few spring drills.
Make that all the drills, after Shipley spent up to four hours a day in rehab, taking off only Saturdays, when Texas played. His work ethic shouldn't be a surprise, given that this is the same guy who refused to lose even the most insignificant, practice-ending wind sprint when he was in high school.
"I'm having the most fun I've ever had as a player," Shipley said. "Football was something I had been taking for granted."
Six months after he underwent surgery to reconstruct his torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, an invigorated Shipley is back on the field.
He's wearing a green jersey, indicating that defenders shouldn't tackle him. In Shipley's mind, it really is more of a suggestion, given that everything he approaches in football is at full speed or as close to it as he can.
"I knew that if the doctors told him eight months, he'd be back in six," said Bob Shipley, Jordan's father and high school football coach in Burnet.
The elder Shipley lives close enough to Austin so that he can make the spring workouts. He's about the only one besides his son who can detect the subtle signs that Shipley is not all the way back yet, but very close to it.
"There's another gear he hasn't shown yet," Bob Shipley said. "He hasn't shown that he can go full speed, stop on a dime, then change directions. That'll come."
It seems ironic now that on the morning before he learned of Shipley's injury, Texas Coach Mack Brown was smiling broadly as he bragged on the speed and moves of the young receiver, and talked of how the freshman had already made the second-team offense.
It's likely he'll at least be second team when August comes, as the Longhorns start in earnest preparing for their season opener against Louisiana-Lafayette on Sept. 3.
Shipley was somewhat of an enigma before the start of last August's preseason drills, because he excelled on the small-school stage — at Class A Rotan High School his freshman year before the Shipley family moved to 3A Burnet when he was a sophomore. The perception is that talent consistently is linked to a school's enrollment.
Still, no matter the competition, he put up amazing numbers in high school, setting Texas high school career records for catches (264), receiving yards (5,424) and touchdown receptions (73). His marks for career yards and touchdowns rank second all-time nationally.
He's already answered whether his talent is legitimate, pre- and post-injury.
"Jordan's been amazing, to be as healthy as he is six months after that kind of knee injury," Brown said. "We have to watch him in practice because we want him to be ready this fall."
Bobby Kennedy, Texas' receivers coach, has told his group that he is operating through spring without a depth chart, meaning no spots are a given. Shipley is mostly being used as a flanker, gearing up closer to the line of scrimmage. With his speed, he can be a deep threat the Longhorns lacked last year or a possession receiver over the middle.
If Texas chooses to use a one-back, three-receiver set as its base, Shipley's talents will be a must.
"He could have helped us last year," Kennedy said. "But I'm glad we get him another four years."
I didn't know if the link above would require subscription to their online paper so I just cut & paste, but there is a picture that didn't transfer in the cut & paste process. :D
Texas needs the former Burnet star to bolster its passing game
Matt Rourke/AMERICAN-STATESMAN
(enlarge photo) link to picture and article (http://www.statesman.com/horns/content/sports/stories/longhorns/03/9SHIPLEY.html)
Doctors told Jordan Shipley last August that he might be able to participate in a few drills this spring if he worked incredibly hard to recover from a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Shipley has exceeded all expectations and is on the field.
By Suzanne Halliburton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
In his high school days, back when he was a small–school shining star, injuries never really bothered Texas freshman receiver Jordan Shipley nor kept him off the football field.
Back in 2002, Shipley played the entire Class 3A state championship game against Everman with a big toe swollen to twice its size. He spent the next three days in a local hospital, hooked up to an I.V. filled with powerful antibiotics to combat a staph infection that had settled in the toe.
A year later, the tenacious receiver suffered a concussion in the first quarter of the state championship game against Gainesville, but didn't realize it. The do-everything Shipley — the state's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns — caught five passes for 121 yards, ran back an 85-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and kicked a field goal. Afterwards, he was disoriented enough that he couldn't find his locker.
Last August, however, just a little more than a week into his career as a Longhorn, a knee injury got the best of Shipley.
Doctors told him if he worked hard at rehabilitating his knee, doing the stretching and strengthening exercises, riding the stationary bike past the point where boredom numbs the mind, then he probably could take part in a few spring drills.
Make that all the drills, after Shipley spent up to four hours a day in rehab, taking off only Saturdays, when Texas played. His work ethic shouldn't be a surprise, given that this is the same guy who refused to lose even the most insignificant, practice-ending wind sprint when he was in high school.
"I'm having the most fun I've ever had as a player," Shipley said. "Football was something I had been taking for granted."
Six months after he underwent surgery to reconstruct his torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, an invigorated Shipley is back on the field.
He's wearing a green jersey, indicating that defenders shouldn't tackle him. In Shipley's mind, it really is more of a suggestion, given that everything he approaches in football is at full speed or as close to it as he can.
"I knew that if the doctors told him eight months, he'd be back in six," said Bob Shipley, Jordan's father and high school football coach in Burnet.
The elder Shipley lives close enough to Austin so that he can make the spring workouts. He's about the only one besides his son who can detect the subtle signs that Shipley is not all the way back yet, but very close to it.
"There's another gear he hasn't shown yet," Bob Shipley said. "He hasn't shown that he can go full speed, stop on a dime, then change directions. That'll come."
It seems ironic now that on the morning before he learned of Shipley's injury, Texas Coach Mack Brown was smiling broadly as he bragged on the speed and moves of the young receiver, and talked of how the freshman had already made the second-team offense.
It's likely he'll at least be second team when August comes, as the Longhorns start in earnest preparing for their season opener against Louisiana-Lafayette on Sept. 3.
Shipley was somewhat of an enigma before the start of last August's preseason drills, because he excelled on the small-school stage — at Class A Rotan High School his freshman year before the Shipley family moved to 3A Burnet when he was a sophomore. The perception is that talent consistently is linked to a school's enrollment.
Still, no matter the competition, he put up amazing numbers in high school, setting Texas high school career records for catches (264), receiving yards (5,424) and touchdown receptions (73). His marks for career yards and touchdowns rank second all-time nationally.
He's already answered whether his talent is legitimate, pre- and post-injury.
"Jordan's been amazing, to be as healthy as he is six months after that kind of knee injury," Brown said. "We have to watch him in practice because we want him to be ready this fall."
Bobby Kennedy, Texas' receivers coach, has told his group that he is operating through spring without a depth chart, meaning no spots are a given. Shipley is mostly being used as a flanker, gearing up closer to the line of scrimmage. With his speed, he can be a deep threat the Longhorns lacked last year or a possession receiver over the middle.
If Texas chooses to use a one-back, three-receiver set as its base, Shipley's talents will be a must.
"He could have helped us last year," Kennedy said. "But I'm glad we get him another four years."
I didn't know if the link above would require subscription to their online paper so I just cut & paste, but there is a picture that didn't transfer in the cut & paste process. :D