04-05-2008, 07:53 AM
|
 |
Head Coach
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 10,790
Points: 498,995.40
Bank: 0.00
Total Points: 498,995.40
|
|
Quote:
Sports spotlight: Laurinaitis shows skill, perspective
Saturday, April 5, 2008
BY Todd Porter
REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER
COLUMBUS Pamphlets and poses aren't in James Laurinaitis' make up. Neither is the stack of cash the NFL would have deposited in his bank account.
But the Ohio State senior linebacker is just fine with what he doesn't have. Laurinaitis is the rare high-profile college football player. He doesn't particularly care about himself.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be in the middle of spring practice with the Buckeyes. He wouldn't be sitting in a room surrounded by reporters after practice Friday retelling how losing a second straight national title game somehow stung worse than the first one.
On a new pamphlet promoting the 2008 football team, Laurinaitis is on the cover. The rest of the cast is inside or on the back. He is the face of these Buckeyes.
It was another day of interviews and another Heisman Trophy hopeful walking off the Buckeyes' practice field.
"I still have the mind-set as the three-star recruit out of Minnesota that no one knew how to spell his last name," Laurinaitis said.
Ohio State and Minnesota were the only major schools to offer him a football scholarship. Notre Dame recruited him, and passed. Iowa looked at him, and passed. There were other offers.
"North Dakota State offered ... it was actually a good program," Laurinaitis said. "South Dakota State offered. ... I could've been a North Dakota State Bison running around in green and yellow."
Instead, he's a two-time major award winner whose future goals on a sheet he wrote his freshman season included nothing more than holding a starting job as a sophomore, making All-Big Ten as a junior and maybe ? just maybe ? being named honorable mention All-American.
"I reached high, because that's how I am," he said, seriously.
Instead, he has a chance to leave Ohio State and have his picture hanging in linebacker coach Luke Fickell's office. Laurinaitis walks in there and sees A.J. Hawk and Andy Katzenmoyer and then speaks of them with reverence.
The winner or the Butkus Award last season and Nagurski before that, Laurinaitis confirmed Friday what most thought. His early-entry papers filed with the NFL in December came back sealed in dollar signs so to speak.
He would have been a top-10 draft pick. Football players don't pass that up to return for homework and reading assignments that could put a pot of coffee to sleep.
Unless, of course, they have perspective.
"I was talking to 'Gonzo' (Anthony Gonzalez) and he told me you never hear seniors in college saying I wish I was in the NFL," Laurinaitis said. "But in the NFL you hear guys say, 'I wish I was back in college,' all the time."
|
CantonRep.com - Canton and Stark County News
Quote:
Laurinaitis: All signs pointed back to Columbus
Posted: April 4, 2008
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio State's Austin Spitler remembers the first thought he had upon hearing that the guy in front of him at linebacker, James Laurinaitis, was coming back for his senior season.
"Oh crap," Spitler said.
Spitler later looked at Laurinaitis' return as a positive, another chance to learn something from the finest collegiate linebacker in the country. He tried not to think of another year spent on the sideline, watching No. 33 roam the field making tackles.
Almost everyone figured Laurinaitis, who was tabbed as a top-10 or even top-5 pick in this spring's draft, would take the money and run. But the junior said the decision to stay for his fourth season as a Buckeye wasn't all that troubling.
"I just prayed hard on it and once you pray on something, you get a sign and you run with it and you don't have to worry about it anymore," he said Friday. "I took advice from the people closest to me and they were all kind of telling me, 'Hey, come back.' I took that as a sign."
|
SportingNews.com - Your expert source for NCAA Football stats, scores, standings, and blogs from NCAA Football columnists
|
LinkBacks (?)
Linear Mode
