i want to tell a story

[lostaussie]

i've been reading the thread about manual johnson of gilmer and how div.1 coaches look only for the 4a and 5a players to come to their school. my answer to that statement is BULL. back in the late 80's early 90's, hell i don't remember, there was a kid that played just outside of gilmer texas at a little school called union hill. the kid ended up being one of the leading rushers in texas high school history. the coach at that time, who is still one of my best friends to this day, told me a story about his recruitment. no big time texas coaches came calling. a coach from the pac-10 by the name of lovie smith came by to recruit the kid. in an interview with the coach, several character questions were asked. "the kid has hardly ever been out of upshur county" the coach replied. "he played for a 1a school so i do not how much real football knowledge he really has. he's a great kid, but i don't know if he can handle big time football". lovie replied with an ever assurring tone "coach, we can teach your kid to learn to be a fine young man out on his own, we can teach him anything about football that he is willing to learn, but we cannot teach him to be 6'5, 240 pounds and run a 4.4 forty. larry boyd went on to be an all pac-10 defensive player, lovie smith is today coach of the chicago bears, and my buddy, hell he's kicked back doing the superindent thing.

morale of the story: if you can play, they WILL find you.

[West22]

a couple of the big sandy boys of the past did pretty good

[lostaussie]

Originally posted by West22
a couple of the big sandy boys of the past did pretty good several of them, including the late david overstreet.

[Gobbla2001]

I forget which school, but a few years ago (could be about 5 or 6) a 1A school, maybe Emanuel (is that right?) had a highly recruited WR who played in the North/South all-star game...

[GreenMonster]

Some of the greatest players of all time came out of small schools. The best example I can come up with off hand is Bob Lilly. Hall of Famer Bob Lilly played HS football at little bitty Throckmorton, TX. Throckmorton is currently a 6-man school.

[Gobbla2001]

Scratch the name of the school being 'Emanuel', don't even know if a school by that name even exists... I believe that was his last name... for some reason, 'Jackie/Jacky Emanuel' is sticking out in my mind... if that is some other popular person lemme know, but I am almost positive that 'Emanuel' was the kid's last name... 1A school, awesome receiver... dunno what he's up to now, though...

[District303aPastPlayer]

i remember the name

[Swarm 51]

Another small school player who made good was Jack Pardee. He played 6 man football for a school in the western part of TX. Bear Bryant was coaching at Texas A&M, recruited Pardee and he turned out to be an all Southwest Conference player for the Aggies. Pardee was successful as a professional player and then later was a professional football coach. I think it was for the Redskins. I stand to be corrected if that is wrong.

[big daddy russ]

A modern example is Jeremiah Trotter (LB- Philadelphia Eagles) out of Hooks.