WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana – To be a big man on the college campus, you must be a football star or a physically large person or a highly regarded student.
Once in a great while you get all three rolled into one.
Meet Ryan Kerrigan of Purdue University, a 6-4, 265-pound defensive end who meets the criteria across the board. An All-American on the field after recording 13 sacks and forcing a national best 7 fumbles, he is also an Academic All-American as a math major with a 3.38 grade point average.
Lott Profiles 2010 (No. 3, June 14)
The Q in Robert Quinn’s name does not stand for quitter.
Quite the contrary.
Quit when double teamed? No way. Quit when the play is on the opposite side of the field? No chance. Quit when they discover a tumor in your brain and tell you sports may be out of the question. Nope, not Robert Quinn.
The Imperial Valley lies deep in Southern California, tucked up against the Mexican border. It is farm land, where they grow tons of lettuce and thousands of pounds of onions. They grow plenty of melons and truckloads of sugar beets.
And one linebacker. One very good linebacker.
Mike Mohamed, the great-grandson of an immigrant farmer who built a thriving farm in Brawley, has grown to be a 240-pound tackling machine for the California Golden Bears.
NEWPORT BEACH, Ca. – For Cameron Heyward, the shadows are everywhere.
He plays football at Ohio State, a school with a rich history of All-Americans, major award winners and future NFL stars. He plays defensive tackle, a position manned by two of the first three selections in the most recent NFL draft, Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska and Gerald McCoy of Oklahoma. And he is the son of a former college and NFL star, the charismatic Craig “Ironhead” Heyward.
But Cameron Heyward is unfazed by those shadows. He wants to cast his own and is determined to be better than all who went before him.
RIVERSIDE, Calif.—The old pro could feel the earthquake 3,000 miles away. He watched the endless television reports, on two knees, wondering whether his future had suddenly become his past. He looked for familiar faces in the rubble, but ended up with a throbbing headache instead. He cringed at the thought of more funerals and woke up that first night in a sweat, flashing back to a cup of coffee that was never drunk, flashing forward to a house that never had kids. He decided there was nothing worse than an empty home. And at that moment, no home was more barren than the old pro’s.
NEWPORT BEACH, Ca. – All four finalists for the 2009 Lott Trophy, including winner Jerry Hughes of TCU, were selected in the first round of the recent NFL Draft.
Defensive Tackle Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska was chosen with the second pick by the Detroit Lions, Safety Eric Berry of Tennessee was selected fifth by the Kansas City Chiefs, Linebacker Rolando McClain of Alabama was picked eighth by the Oakland Raiders and Hughes was the 31st overall selection by the Indianapolis Colts. Suh became the second Lott Trophy finalist – joining Chris Long of Virginia who was selected by the Rams – to be the No. 2 overall choice in the draft.
LOTT TROPHY NAMES 2010 WATCH LIST
Newport Beach, Ca. – The Pacific Club IMPACT Foundation has announced the 2010 Watch List for the seventh annual Lott Trophy.
One spends summers on medical missions in Africa; one was diagnosed with a brain tumor in high school; another is coming back from cancer.
One led the country in sacks last season, another in interceptions.
They are just five of the 42 selected to the 2010 Lott Trophy Watch List, a cross-section of the finest student-athletes on the college football landscape.