Northmont grad wants to stop cheerleading, start catching passes
By Sean McClelland
Staff Writer
Sunday, March 08, 2009
When Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel called, nobody in the Springer family knew quite what to think.
This was several years ago, long before Josh Springer, then a Northmont High School senior, seriously entertained the idea of making the Buckeyes as a walk-on.
Turns out Tressel had called as a favor to the cheerleading staff, encouraging Springer to choose OSU over Kentucky, which had offered him a scholarship to cheer.
How bizarre and ironic, then, that this 5-foot-11, 185-pound OSU cheerleading captain might be playing for Tressel after surviving a walk-on tryout last month despite never playing a down of football in high school. He wants to be a receiver.
"He's fairly athletic," Matt Springer, a college athlete in the early-to-mid 1970s, said of his son, who opened eyes by running a 40-yard dash in 4.47 seconds. "But it's still pretty surprising."
Especially so considering Josh's primary athletic endeavors in college have involved hoisting and flinging 100-pound females ? fine work if you can find it, but nothing that prepares one for the rigors of the gridiron.
"Has anyone ever hit me? No," Josh said. "I'm assuming that's one of the things I'm going to have to get used to."