WSU's Andre Dillard drafted by Philly
From RotoWire
The Eagles
selected Dillard in the first round of the NFL Draft, 22nd overall.
Philadelphia
traded up three spots to get its guy in Dillard, who looks to be the heir apparent
for Jason Peters at left tackle. Dillard is considered the most polished tackle
product in this class in terms of pass protection. Per Mike Renner of Pro
Football Focus, Dillard had far and away the most "true pass sets" of
any tackle prospect -- thanks in part to the Washington State offense -- and he
turned out a high grade in those situations. Bottom line: he is both
experienced and adept in pass protection and will be a major help on the line
in keeping Carson Wentz upright.
::::::::::::::::
Eagles
Select Washington State OT Andre Dillard With 22nd Pick In NFL Draft
By CBS3
Staff April 25, 2019 at 10:49 pm Eastern Daylight Time
PHILADELPHIA
(CBS) — The pick is in! The Eagles traded up to No. 22 to select Washington
State offensive tackle Andre Dillard. In return, the Eagles traded their 25th
pick, a fourth- and sixth-round pick to the Ravens.
Dillard is
a 6-foot-5, 315 pound tackle, who has “good size and unique athleticism,”
according to ESPN, something the Eagles value highly in their linemen.
CBS Sports
ranks Dillard as their 15th-ranked prospect overall and the third-best
offensive lineman.
With Jason
Peters aging and facing injuries in the past couple seasons, Dillard may be
their heir apparent.
:::::::::::::::::::::::
Brandon
man: Gardner Minshew has a whole town behind him as NFL draft arrives
Thu.,
April 25, 2019, 5 a.m.
By Theo
Lawson Spokane S-R
BRANDON,
Miss. – From this charmer of a suburb in Central Mississippi, almost every
highway out of town leads you to some large college football outpost.
There’s
LSU and there’s Alabama, both reachable in less than three hours. Another 1 1/2
hours on the road gets you to Auburn. Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas are each
longer treks, but still manageable for the dedicated road-tripper. Within the
state of Mississippi, Ole Miss is fairly close in proximity and Mississippi
State is closer.
The point
being, Brandon, Mississippi, is supposed to be SEC country. So watching a
school from the Pac-12 North infiltrate the pecking order last football season
had to be unfamiliar and unprecedented – awkward and wholly gratifying – for
the southern community of 23,000.
Washington
State quickly climbed onto the college football totem pole in Brandon, at times
usurping the Crimson Tide and the Tigers (both Tigers) in television ratings,
and constantly matching the Rebels and the Bulldogs in general popularity and
fanfare.
When WSU’s
brutally late Pac-12 kickoffs kept the team’s quarterback up after hours last
season, thousands of Gardner Minshew’s town folk back home stayed up with him.
Curfews became optional when the Cougars were slated to play on national
television, and Brandon churchgoers neglected their Sunday obligations if
Minshew’s games bled into the early hours of the next morning – and they often
did.
“One time
I fell asleep then woke back up and finished watching it,” said Trey Rein,
principal at Brandon Middle School. “I think in (Brandon High Principal) Dr.
(Bryan) Marshall’s quotes, I think he made one of the papers earlier in the
year saying, ‘There were a lot of people that were late for church. Maybe went
to the late service a few times.’ ”
If Minshew
was a cult hero in Pullman, whatever depiction transcends that one is how the
WSU quarterback might be perceived back home in Brandon.
♦ ♦ ♦
Many of
the other NFL hopefuls that hope to hear their names called in this week’s
draft have been celebrated some way or another, but few of them had their
college games streamed on the jumbotrons at their high school stadium, as
Minshew’s were last year – twice – following Brandon Bulldog games.
After
Brandon High’s homecoming win, Marshall had video technicians patch in the ESPN
broadcast of WSU’s game at USC. He and a variety of coaches, administrators and
fans stuck around after to watch. When it was time to migrate inside to monitor
the homecoming dance, they projected the game onto a large cafeteria screen.
“So, I
don’t know how much of the dance I saw,” Marshall said, “but I saw a lot of the
USC game.”
As
Minshew’s fashion statements became trendy in Pullman, the look’s popularity
had already skyrocketed in Brandon. Two separate dress-up days at Brandon
Middle School – a “QB throwback day” and a “college day” – evoked dozens of
young Minshew lookalikes wearing white headbands, mirrored aviator rims and
stick-on mustaches.
“There was
never going to be a week where there wasn’t some kind of mustache,” Rein said.
“… Ten months ago, I’m not sure if people here knew Washington State had a
football team. And now all the sporting places around here, they struggle to
keep in jerseys.”
Tinges of
crimson – Wazzu crimson, not ’Bama crimson – were visible throughout town all
season. Steven Wallace, a family friend, hung the Ol’ Crimson flag on a pole in
front of his Brandon insurance agency. At least two other local businesses had
WSU mementos hanging up.
“Even our
rivals, everybody keeps up,” Rein said. “You sit there and you’re seeing
Mississippi and all the social media and all the coaches around the state.
They’re just bragging about the kid because everybody loved him.”
Minshew,
whose humility is served with a plate of self-confidence – and at times, a dash
of well-placed arrogance – should see his NFL dreams realized at some point in
the next 72 hours, another profound “told ya so” to the dozens of college
coaches and recruiters who passed on college football’s leading passer.
He’s
widely expected to be drafted by an NFL team – somewhere between rounds 4 and
7, probably – which unfortunately ends Brandon’s infatuation for the Cougars
and shifts the town’s rooting interest to whichever pro club picks up the
well-traveled QB, the one whose path included stops at Troy, Northwest
Mississippi and East Carolina before the football gods finally delivered to him
to WSU, which proved a wildly successful plot twist to Minshew’s fascinating
story.
While
other draftees host small watch parties throughout the week and into the
weekend, there had been talks in Brandon of staging a full-on block party for
Minshew.
A local
architect pitched that idea to the Minshew family, suggesting they rope off a
small area downtown during Thursday night’s first round of the draft and invite
local musicians and food vendors.
It was
squashed quickly because the Minshews don’t want that much attention around
their son until he knows where he’s going. Instead, Gardner and a much smaller
group of family members and friends will watch at home all three days, deciding
to save the townwide festivities for Saturday night.
“I think
it’s a little surreal,” mother Kim Minshew said in late January from the living
room of the Minshew family home. “Like watching the (NFL) playoff games
yesterday. I was sitting there watching Jared Goff and Pat Mahomes and
thinking, just a few years ago they were kind of where he is. And I think,
they’re not that much older than him. So it’s just, sometimes I should take a
deep breath because it is surreal.
“What’s
the saying? You better be ready for the opportunity of a lifetime during the
lifetime of the opportunity. And he’s always been ready to take advantage of
that.”
By the end
of Minshew’s short five-month tenure in Pullman, WSU fans felt they knew the
“Mississippi Mustache” as well as any four- or five-year QB who has come
through the program. But if you want to truly capture Minshew’s essence, it
requires a trip to the suburban Mississippi town that raised him, and
conversations with the people that shaped him.
They have
plenty to tell you about Brandon’s favorite son.
Church
league
Sunday
mass isn’t the only thing that goes on at Brandon First United Methodist
Church.
For years,
before he had to commit to one sport and push all others to the side, Minshew
participated in the church’s 5-on-5 traveling basketball league. This was
designed to be a fun after-school extracurricular, but Minshew saw it as a
weekly opportunity to release his competitive juices – and there wasn’t much
that was holy about what Brandon’s team did to the other chapels.
“We went
over to kill people,” said Wallace, who coached Minshew’s church league teams.
“The best part was when we jump on a team, they call timeout, this lady – momma
– stands up. She starts going, ‘It’s church league! It’s church league!’
Anyway, we talked to them, we’re sitting on the bench with them. We talked to
them like, ‘Stay after it, stay on it’. Gardner goes, ‘Hey on three, church
league on three.’ I go, ‘Nah, nah, you can’t do that. You can’t do that.’ ”
The church
director sat squeamishly in a corner of the gym watching it all unfold. “He
wouldn’t sit with us,” Wallace said.
Minshew’s
team won one of those church league games by a resounding score: 60-2. But the
margin didn’t matter when Josh Stowers played suspect defense on a drive to the
hoop, giving the opponent a layup for their only basket.
“Obviously,
we won by 58 points, but just that ridiculous competitive drive,” friend John
Wilson recalled. “He still gives Josh a hard time about that. It needed to be
60-0.”
“Ultracompetitive,”
said Wallace, who added he made a tradeoff with Minshew. He’d coach church
league hoops if Minshew returned the favor and helped out with his son’s Pee
Wee football team.
Which
unearths another round of delectable Minshew tales.
♦ ♦ ♦
Pee Wee
Air Raid
Making
good on his promise, Minshew took the headset for the Brandon Warhawks Pee Wee
team of 10- to 13-year-olds, convincing an army of Brandon High teammates to
round out his coaching staff.
“When
Gardner was doing it, the only complaint we ever got was the parents going,
‘You’ve got so many high school guys, we can’t see the field,’ ” Wallace said.
“We got an O-line coach, we got a D-line coach, secondary, receivers …”
“Slot
receivers, inside receivers,” father Flint Minshew added.
By the
time Minshew left for Northwest Mississippi, he had two regional “Super Bowls”
on his resume – and large groups of opposing parents relieved to see him go.
But the Pee Wee scene pulled Minshew back a year later, when his successor tore
an ACL, and was unavailable to coach the Super Bowl.
Minshew
diligently returned from Senatobia, and NWCC, to lend a hand. He couldn’t
deliver a third consecutive championship for the young Warhawks, but Brandon
put up a solid fight against a team that should’ve routed them, running a
watered-down version of the Air Raid offense Minshew mastered at WSU.
“We threw
the ball 34 times, something like that,” Wallace said. “We ran the ball once in
the first half.”
Petal to
the metal
In
Pullman, Minshew’s name will be attached to a few of his most iconic games – a
gutsy 28-24 win over Utah, a 34-20 triumph over Oregon and a 28-26 thriller
over Iowa State in the Alamo Bowl, just a day after the QB famously proclaimed,
“We may have lost two games, but we’ve never lost a party.”
In
Brandon, for eternities, they’ll fondly remember his varsity debut against
Petal. That’s when freshman Minshew replaced the team’s injured starter, Trey
Polk, and coolly threw a 15-yard pass on his first snap. Brandon didn’t win,
but Minshew accounted for two touchdowns and effectively etched himself in as a
four-year starter. By the next week, Polk was a wide receiver.
“We know
he’s going to be a really good player, but as a freshman at a 6A level you
always wonder, is he going to be able to handle this kind of atmosphere and it
never fazed him,” Brandon defensive coordinator Greg Robinson said. “It was
just steady, like a surgeon.”
Over the
next 3 1/2 seasons, Minshew was responsible for mountains of passing yards. He
worked tirelessly behind the scenes to sharpen his mind and strengthen his
body.
Minshew
was so eager to learn, he regularly dipped into Robinson’s defensive meetings
just to see how things worked on the other side of the ball.
“Coach,
why do they do this? What are they looking at when they do this? Why is the
safety doing this? What are their reads? What are they looking at?” Robinson
said. “Because he wanted to see it from both sides. Just a true student of the
game.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Robinson
also oversees Brandon’s weight training program. Once, during Minshew’s
sophomore year, the quarterback performed a one-rep max 265-pound power clean –
impressive weight for any high school passer. Minshew had completed the day’s
workload, but he wanted another round with the barbell. Robinson had to chase
him away.
“I cut him
off. He’s like, ‘Nuh uh, I can do more,’ ” Robinson recalled. “I said, ‘No you
can’t. I’m not fixing to get our quarterback hurt, especially not in the weight
room.’ I said, ‘That’s enough, that’s all you need to do.’ ”
The
comedian, the caretaker
Mike
Howington wants to share a story about a ski trip. No, wait, multiple stories
about multiple ski trips.
Minshew’s
former youth pastor, Howington once took a group of high schoolers to the Ober
Gatlinburg Ski Resort in Tennessee. The balcony of the hotel room Minshew and
his companions were staying in was perched right above a river. There was a
plastic chair sitting on the balcony. You can imagine what the mischievous
group decided to do next.
“So it
wasn’t (Gardner), but one of the other guys threw it in the river and I found
out and I went up there and I was getting on them,” Howington said. “I walked
in and I said, ‘Hey guys, who threw that chair?’ ”
Minshew’s
cheeky response?
“ ‘Well,
you know my friends, I’m the only one that could’ve hit that river from here,’
” Howington recalled Minshew saying. “It ended up not being him. He didn’t do
it, but that’s just how Gardner was. He made it a joke, laughed, and sure
enough he went down with those guys and fished it out.”
A few of
Minshew’s gifts are his humor and wit – both things that can cut the tension in
a room at any time. Another would be his compassion.
During the
following ski trip, a friend got himself into a hairy accident on the slopes.
The wounds didn’t seem too bad at first, so the majority of the group went
about their day, planning to check in later. But Minshew vowed to stay by his
side – “you would’ve thought Gardner was his nurse,” Howington said – and when
doctors eventually discovered the boy was bleeding internally – the result of a
lacerated spleen – he was transported to the hospital.
“At that
moment, (Minshew) didn’t care about himself or the fun that everyone else was
having, he was worried about his friend that was hurting,” Howington said. “He
sat there for hours just to monitor him and to make sure he was all right. …
Those things just matter to him and he wasn’t going to leave a brother.”
Tennis
matches …
John
Wilson and Connor Aultman both swung a mean tennis racquet, but the letter
jacket-wearing, girl-fetching high school jock subculture was never quite for
them.
Aultman
confesses, “I’m not a superior athlete by any standard.”
Wilson
doesn’t want to portray himself this way, but he does so just to drive the
point home: “I’m kind of nerdy, like an intellectual guy.”
Yet both
formed tight relationships with Minshew, the rare high school football star who
never took the popularity scale into account when selecting his friend groups.
“He knows
he’s good. Everyone knows he’s good,” Wilson said. “You’d expect those kind of
guys to be standoffish, or not necessarily standoffish but not willing to
include and get to know folks. But Gardner is nice to everyone he meets, treats
them like they’re the only person in the room.”
“The
cooler (people), the status quo,” sister Callie Minshew said. “He broke that.”
♦ ♦ ♦
So if
Minshew, Aultman and Wilson couldn’t bond over football, what could they bond
over? Tennis, for one, and Aultman wants it on the record that he’s the better
player. He also knows that will fire Minshew up, arranging their next match.
“If he
sees that in writing,” Aultman said, “he’s going to text me and say, ‘Next time
I’m in town, we have to play so I can beat you.’ ”
Minshew
gave up tennis at the competitive level after middle school, but he’d still
come to support his friends at high school matches. That requires some
essential context. Never the conventional spectator – or dresser, for that matter
– Minshew arrived at Brandon’s varsity tennis matches wearing Rex Kwon Do
American flag pants – inspired by “Napoleon Dynamite” – a white cutoff tee and
aviator shades. While Wilson and Aultman worked their opponents’ backhand,
Minshew tried to rattle them from beyond the fence.
“He was
always ready to heckle somebody,” Wilson said. “Support his boys.”
… And
panini parties
As Brandon
High seniors, Minshew, Wilson and Aultman all took Nichole Robinson’s English
composition class, a college course designed to speed up academically inclined
high schoolers.
The 10
a.m. class fell right before Minshew’s football lifts and there wasn’t a
designated hole in his schedule for a meal. But he had to fuel up somehow, so
the three boys convinced Robinson to let them set up a makeshift panini kitchen
in the hallway outside of her classroom. They’d scurry from their last class
and fire up Wilson’s George Foreman grill, then heat up the day’s sandwich
creation.
“I said,
‘You are not eating in my classroom,’ ” Robinson recalled. “(Gardner) found
some kind of loophole in the rules and he comes in and he said, ‘Now
technically, if we had a club and we were doing it for that purpose.’ … And by
the end of this whole fiasco, I allowed them to cook in between classes. As
long as it was cooked when I start teaching and the food is on your desk, you
may eat.”
“We called
ourselves the Panini Party,” Aultman said. “Kind of like the Republican or
Democratic Party. … We taped a picture of the American flag and we said the
Pledge of Allegiance before we grilled our sandwiches. And we would listen to
music and grill our sandwiches while everybody was walking by in the hallway.
So it was kind of a big deal.”
Minshew’s
sandwich concepts ranged from a six-cheese panini, to the traditional ham and
cheese, to a savory chocolate chip-filled sandwich. Most were smothered with a
coat of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce.
To this
day, Robinson guarantees, “No other student could’ve convinced me it was OK to
eat in class and get ready for football.”
Aultman
and Wilson remain close with Minshew. They traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi, to
watch their him win a NJCAA national championship with Northwest Community
College. They visited Minshew at East Carolina for his 21st birthday. More
recently, they made the short drive to Mobile, Alabama, to watch him play in
the Senior Bowl. Wilson also ventured West for WSU’s road game against Colorado
in Boulder.
Aultman, a
football equipment manager at Mississippi State, couldn’t get away during the
football season, but he recalls cleaning up the Bulldogs’ locker room after a
loss to LSU and simultaneously watching Minshew and the Cougars finish off
Oregon at Martin Stadium.
“I just
started crying because it’s just crazy,” Aultman said. “That’s one of my good
buddies and just watching him have that success and become a national icon is
just something you can’t really put into words.”
Wilson has
his own proud moment, watching in Oxford, Mississippi. He too broke into tears
when fans scattered down to the field and lifted the QB up on their shoulders.
“I think
of all the moments of the season, that was the sweetest,” he said.
Tales of
Beowulf
The
archaic English poem “Beowulf” was part of the curriculum for Robinson’s
English class. Minshew was hooked by the literature for two reasons. One, the
story is littered with inspiring quotes and proverbs that could be applicable
on a football field.
“There
would be times he literally would stop and say, ‘I need to write that line down
to tweet. That’s a football line. Why don’t we have that in the locker room?’ ”
Robinson recalled.
Robinson
had to verify this part, but she has vague memories of Minshew blurting out to
the class that his grandfather, Billy Minshew, once voted to name him Beowulf.
“Beowulf
is considered one of the greatest warriors because he can achieve anything and
won’t let anything stop him,” Robinson told the class. “And (Gardner) said, ‘My
granddaddy wanted me to be named that, because that’s what he wanted me to be.’
”
And if you
thought a mustachioed quarterback named “Gardner Minshew” drew enough attention
in 2018, just imagine the chaos that would have ensued had the Cougars’
record-setting passer been “Beowulf Minshew.”
Granted,
those odds were never great.
“My dad
wanted to name him Beowulf,” Flint Minshew verified, “and that’s about as far
as that got.”
Gardner
graduated from the English class with a “solid A,” Robinson said, but the
letter grade still paled in comparison to the impression he left on his pupils.
“If you
could have a classroom full of Gardners, it would be wonderful because he made
everyone feel like they had a gift or they were special,” Robinson said. “… His
energy was contagious.”
Robinson
only had one issue with Minshew in their time together. While his classmates
were completing writing assignments in Robinson’s room, Minshew occasionally
pulled up game film and football cut-ups on a school-administered MacBook
because, as he explained to Robinson, he had to get his head straight.
“So we
laughed about it,” she said.
Robinson
still considers herself one of Minshew’s biggest fans, only to be rivaled by
her daughter, Ellen, who as a 6-year-old forged a proposal ring of flowers for
Minshew and now says, “I’m pretty sure that proposal sticks, right?”
Gardner
Minshew poses for a picture with “Ms. Brandon High School” after winning “Mr.
Brandon High School. Family friend
An older
daughter of Robinson’s played on the same youth soccer team as Minshew’s
youngest sister, Callie, so Gardner entertained the much younger Ellen during
matches.
“He’s watching
her flip and tumble,” Nichole Robinson said. “He even tried to teach her to
throw a football and told her, ‘Never try that again.’ But she loved him.”
So the
small girl was gutted when Minshew didn’t show up to one of the soccer games
because he’d already left Brandon to enroll early at Troy.
“She just
started crying,” Robinson said.
When
Minshew was named “Mr. Brandon High School,” he was fitted with a sash, a
flower lapel and taken to a stage for photos with “Ms. Brandon.” That’s when
Ellen, backstage, came dashing out to get in the picture.
“I said,
‘Ellen, come here. What are you doing?’ ” Robinson said. “And she said, ‘I
don’t know why they put that other girl in the picture with him because I am
his girlfriend.’ ”
#LetsGoScore
Wyatt
Rogers is Brandon’s Air Raid-obsessed offensive coordinator. Long before Mike
Leach got a hold of Minshew, Rogers was the one marking up greaseboards with
Y-corner concepts and mesh routes for the QB.
He became
infatuated with the simplistic but productive Air Raid passing schemes while he
was the running backs coach at Delta State. Conference rival Valdosta State
came to town one weekend and Rogers fell in love with the offense Hal Mumme and
Leach were running for the Blazers.
(Rogers
was floored when Minshew convinced Leach to send him a personalized video
message earlier this season.)
In four
years with the Bulldogs, Minshew accumulated more than 11,000 passing yards,
threw for touchdowns and, a feat he’d probably say trumps both, he never lost to
Pearl – a bitter rival just down the road.
Always in
tune with his OC, Minshew and Rogers would communicate through a headset
whenever the Bulldogs were in striking distance of the end zone. The famous
last words that carried from Rogers’ booth in the press box to the earpiece in
Minshew’s helmet never changed.
“Every
time we were in a close ball game and he would come off the field and get on
the headset – same thing my son’s doing – and we would talk,” said Rogers,
whose son Wyatt is Brandon’s starting QB now and a Mississippi State commit.
“And before we got off the headset, the last words he and I would say to each
other was, ‘Let’s go score.’ And it’s continued. He’ll hashtag it sometimes.
#LetsGoScore.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Last
summer, months before Minshew had taken a snap for the Cougars, Rogers told The
Spokesman-Review, “The WSU fanbase will fall in love with him,” and then got a
taste of it when he traveled to the Palouse for an October game against Oregon,
coinciding with ESPN College GameDay’s inaugural visit to WSU and a party
Pullman will long remember.
Minshew
buttoned up a 34-20 upset win for the Cougars with a late touchdown to Dezmon
Patmon and students sprawled out onto the field, lifting the QB into the air.
“I thought
it was damn Paris Hilton walking off the red carpet,” Rogers said. “… I grabbed
him and we gave each other a hug. I’ve still got the picture and I just told
him how proud I was of him and it was just, ‘Love you, love you.’ ”
Big
brother
Meredith
and Callie Minshew have adjusted to the gradual escalation of big brother’s
stardom, but they both admit that it took awhile.
Meredith,
a student at Mississippi State, submitted a paper to her plant science
professor last semester – this in the dead center of WSU’s record year. He
skimmed over the “Meredith Minshew” on top of the assignment and glanced up at
the student.
“He was
like, ‘Minshew. Minshew,’ ” Meredith said, recounting the story. “I was like,
‘Yeah, you a football fan?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I am.’ I’m like, ‘Well,
Gardner Minshew.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s what it is.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s
my brother.’ He just sat back, he’s like, ‘Wow.’ ”
Meredith
had to finagle herself out of a statistics final this week. The teacher was
accommodating and more than willing to reschedule, but asked why she’d be gone,
then agreed returning home to watch your brother get drafted in the NFL is a
pretty fair reason to play hooky.
“He’s
like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re excused. You’re good,’ ” Meredith said.
There
almost promises to be some kind of wrestling match between the three siblings
at some point the next three days – perhaps between one of the draft’s
commercial breaks.
“He really
loved to wrestle,” Meredith said, “which started as a fun time and he would
think we were brothers sometimes and would just play a little bit too hard.”
“Picks on
me being the youngest, makes me cry sometimes then he gets in trouble,” Callie
said. “Typical sibling stuff.”
♦ ♦ ♦
But the
goofy, goodnatured brother who’d study football training videos while Meredith
and Callie watched movies on family roadtrips was also an integral role model
for his sisters, showing them the values of perseverance and patience
throughout his winding college football career.
“He’s had
seasons where he loses almost every game and just to see him go through that
broke my heart, but now that he went to Washington State and he’s living it up.
He’s the big guy now,” Callie said. “It’s crazy to see how his football career
basically flipped upside down and I’m just so proud of him. He deserves all of
it because he worked so hard and he never gave up.”
Callie is
a two-sport star at Brandon High who committed to Mississippi State for
volleyball. Inside the Minshew home, placed between Gardner’s Johnny Unitas
Golden Arm and Alamo Bowl MVP trophies are Callie’s Mississippi 6A Gatorade
Volleyball Player of the Year trophies, from 2017 and ’18.
She claims
to be the superior athlete of the family. Anyone you talk to backs that up,
even as the eldest Minshew sibling prepares to sign his NFL contract.
“I think
we’ll all be on the edge of our seats just listening, waiting,” Callie said.
“But we’re all going to be excited.”
Second-grade
smarts
It’s no
wonder Minshew scored a 42 on his Wonderlic exam, second best among
draft-eligible quarterbacks. The test, administered to most NFL prospects,
measures cognitive ability and problem-solving – and Minshew has a lot of both.
The woman
who taught him second grade saw it from a young age.
“He was a
very bright boy and he always wanted to know more,” said Martia West, Minshew’s
teacher at Rouse Elementary in Brandon. “We had this little running thing
because he was so smart and he’d always ask me questions. So I told him, right
now, this year, I’m smarter than you. Now when you graduate, you can come back
and you can tell me that now you’re smarter than I am.”
Minshew’s
ability to solve problems as an elementary school student might also explain
his prowess for diagnosing defenses as a Pac-12 quarterback. West remembers
when he and a group of his second-grade classmates asked their teacher how old
she was. She wouldn’t give up that information, but they could ask questions
that would direct them to the answer.
“Finally,
he and another little girl figured out. They asked, ‘Well, would you tell us
the year you were born?’ ” West said. “So I told them the year I was born.
Well, they were only in second grade so it took them a little while, but by the
end of the day they had figured it out.”
In another
instance, the school held a penny drive for the local humane society, and ended
up with quite the haul when a classmate donated a bucket of rusted coins from
his father’s barn. West tasked her students to count up the pennies, so they started
setting them aside one-by-one until Minshew finally piped up: “Isn’t there a
better way to do this?”
West
replied, “Well, you know how many pennies are in a dollar?”
So Minshew
began dividing the pennies by 10s and then 100s.
“And I
didn’t have to tell them,” West said. “That’s just kind of what they did.”
♦ ♦ ♦
West saw
the compassionate side of Minshew, too, often illustrated through small
gestures at the elementary school. He’d befriended Devin Brezak, a young boy
who walked around with a diabetes pump, and saw Brezak fall on the playground
one day, presuming someone had pushed him to the ground.
“And I
mean he was all there ready to fight him,” West said. “That was not who Gardner
was, but he was going to fight for the friend.”
West’s
grandson, Trey Sparnecht, was waiting with Minshew after school one day. Flint
Minshew arrived to pick up his son, but Gardner insisted they wouldn’t go home
until Sparnecht’s ride came, West said, “or we have to take him home, because
we can’t leave him here.
“(Gardner)
is just one you remember.”
‘Burn the
boat’
Minshew
might list off hundreds of coaches, teammates, family members and friends that
guided him to the doorstep of professional football. Over the last four months,
nobody has been as instrumental as Ken Mastrole.
A
QB-specific trainer whose clientele list includes the likes of Teddy
Bridgewater, EJ Manuel and Jacoby Brissett – and dozens of others – Mastrole
has worked with Minshew in Boca Raton, Florida, to clean up his inefficiencies
as a passer and prepare him for predraft events that he’s gone through, such as
Senior Bowl, scouting combine and pro day.
Through a
mutual friend, Minshew reached out to Mastrole for individual help a few years
ago, then reunited with him after WSU’s bowl win in San Antonio. Minshew spent
long days at Mastrole’s facility in Boca – many of them beginning around 8 a.m.
and ending between 3-4 p.m. In line with the stories you hear from coaches at
Brandon and WSU, he was always the first there.
“He was
beating everybody to the facility – literally,” Mastrole said. “We were putting
money on every time somebody would be late and I don’t think he lost once.”
Mastrole’s
been at this long enough, he’s usually able to filter out the players who
aren’t in love with the game, or in it for the right reasons. So players with
the devotion and dedication of Minshew are a breath of fresh air.
“The best
part of this is, what I do and the way football is sometimes, Mastrole said.
“It’s such a smoke and mirror show, it’s about putting these kids like they’re
beauty pageant, all the fluff and all these marketing ploys to get guys to play
quarterback.
“I hate
all that stuff. I want hard-working, down to earth. So to see a blue-collar kid
make it and have the kind of success without all the fluff and all the social
media presence, I’m really, really happy for him. That’s the best part about
it.”
In January,
Mastrole phoned Flint Minshew to relay a story about his son. Mastrole’s
quarterbacks had spoken to a group of high schoolers in Florida. Gardner stole
the show.
“One of
these quarterbacks gets up and gives the generic, ‘Well, you’ve got to make sure
you’re …’ – and we know this quarterback and he doesn’t do this – ‘Hey, you’ve
got to make sure you go to class and get your degree and this,” Flint said.
Minshew
was up next.
“ ‘Man,
let me tell you,” Flint said. “ ‘I’m going to contradict this guy a little
bit.’ He’s like, ‘I’m like Hernan (Cortes) settling into Mexico.’ He goes, ‘I’m
unloading my guys and I’m burning the boat … We’re only going forward, we’re
not going backward.’ ”
Mastrole’s
heard good things about Minshew from pro scouts on the NFL draft trail. He
wouldn’t identify which teams had reached out, but multiple clubs called “to
get my two cents,” Mastrole said.
“I think
that’s always a positive sign, if you’ve got guys calling me to check in.”
Brandon’s
man
College
players are given a $700 travel stipend after playing in bowl games, which
allows them to return home during the holiday break. Minshew got thrifty,
pocketing the money and hitching a ride with a few Brandon-bound buddies who’d
made the trip to San Antonio to watch him play.
The group
returned Saturday night. The next morning, Minshew was in his church pew, next
to family members, at Brandon United First Methodist. The preacher invited him
to say a few words and Minshew did, though he was reluctant because that’s
something that probably wouldn’t have happened before a fifth-place Heisman
finish, a Pac-12 passing record and all the new-found notoriety.
“He goes,
‘I’m Gardner, I’m coming to church,’ ” Howington said. “ ‘I’ve come to this
church every Sunday that I’ve been here in my life.’ ”
A changed
man in so many ways, but unchanged in so many others.
Later that
same evening, Minshew herded a group of friends and saw that someone open up
the basketball gym adjacent to the church – the one that’s already sealed with
his sweat. They hustled up and down the court for a few hours, exhausting their
legs for old times’ sake, until it was finally time to quit.
A few days
later, Brandon’s favorite son was gone again. He’s returning this week to take
in the draft, but this visit, too, is just temporary. Maybe someday, one of
them will be permanent. Don’t put it past Minshew to run this Mississippi
suburb somewhere down the road.
“Ideally,
he’d love to make enough money in the NFL and come back and coach Brandon,”
Flint said.
“That’s
what he says,” Kim said. “He and (friend and HS teammate) Tayler (Polk), that
has been their goal since high school.”
“Let me
tell you,” Flint said, “If they do, you better quit.”
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
WSU Track
& Field will be host of Cougar Invitational Saturday
COUGAR
INVITATIONAL
>
Saturday, April 27 | Pullman, Wash. | Mooberry Track and Field Complex
> Sat.
Event Start - 10:00 a.m. (PST)
OREGON
STATE HIGH PERFORMANCE
>
Friday-Saturday, April 26-27 | Corvallis, Ore. | Whyte Track and Field Center
> Fri.
Event Start - 3:30 p.m. (PST)
> Sat.
Event Start - 11:30 a.m. (PST)
WSU TO
HOST HOME MEET SATURDAY
>>
The Washington State Track and Field program turn the focus to Pullman this
weekend, as the Cougars will host the Cougar Invitational, Saturday, April 27
at Mooberry Track and Field Complex, on the campus of WSU. The home meet will
look to begin at 10:00 a.m. The Cougars will also be sending a small group of
distance runners to Corvallis, Ore. to compete in the Oregon State High
Performance meet throughout the weekend as well.
COUGARS
COMPETE AT MULTIPLE MEETS IN CALIFORNIA
>>
The WSU men's 4x100-meter relay team of Emmanuel Wells Jr., Ja'Maun Charles,
Ethan Gardner, and Jake Ulrich continued to dominate as the squad picked up
another victory with a time of 40.51 seconds at the Bryan Clay Invitational.
Multiple PR's were posted on the men's side throughout the day, which included
Brock Eager at the Beach Invitational in the hammer throw with a mark of
235-feet 11 inches (71.90m) to see him jump to sxith in the nation in the
event. Peyton Fredrickson hit 7-feet 1 inch (2.16m) in the high jump at the
Bryan Clay Invite, and is currently ranked 23rd in the nation as well. Jacob
Englar posted a PR in the pole vault at 16-feet 8 3/4 inches (5.10m), Sam
Brixey with a PR in the long jump with a mark of 23-feet 11 1/2 inches (7.30m),
and Paul Ryan recorded a lifetime best in the 1500m invitational run with at
time of 3:44.36 overall.
>>
Molly Scharmann picked up the victory in the pole vault event at the Bryan Clay
Invitational with a mark of 13-feet 3
1/2 inches (4.05m) to lead the Cougars. Kristina Schreiber turned in a PR
performance in the 400-meter run at 57.08, and Jordyn Tucker recorded a
lifetime best in the 100-meter dash at 11.85 seconds. Chrisshnay Brown posted a
fourth place overall finish in the shot put with a mark of 49-feet 8 1/2 inches
(15.15m) on the day as well. The Beach Invitational featured two WSU throwers
in Aoife Martin and Stacia Bell, with Martin placing 26th overall in the hammer
throw at 178-feet 8 inches (54.46m).
>>
The 4x100-meter relay team of Emmanuel Wells Jr., Ja'Maun Charles, Ethan
Gardner, and Jake Ulrich set a new meet record of 40.25 at the Pacific Coast
Intercollegiate. Wells went on to break a second meet record during the day in
the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.54 overall. Nick Johnson continued to
provide a stellar season running the 110m hurdles as he turned in a time of
13.77, moving him up to seventh all-time in WSU history in the event. Johnson
now ranks third in the NCAA West Region in the event, and is 13th overall in
the nation as well.
NCAA
DESCENDING ORDER LISTS
The NCAA
uses national descending order lists to determine the competitors for the 2019
Outdoor Championships...these lists can be viewed at the United States Track
& Field/Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Track & Field
Results Reporting System website (www.tfrrs.org)...the top 48 in each event
advances to the East or West Region Preliminary Rounds...Pac-12 Championship
competition is set for May 4-12 , and the West Region Prelims are May 23-25, in
Sacramento...WSU's 2019 outdoor season bests marks can be found at www.wsucougars.com
:::::::::::::
BASEBALL Cougars
Continue Road Stretch at No. 2 Oregon State
From WSU
Sports Info
WASHINGTON
STATE (8-28-1, 1-13-1 Pac-12) at No. 2 OREGON STATE (28-10-1, 14-4 Pac-12)
Corvallis,
Ore. | Goss Stadium at Goleman Field (3,315)
Friday,
5:35 p.m. | Saturday, 1:35 p.m. | Sunday, 1:05 p.m.
COUGARS
CONTINUE ROAD STRETCH AT NO. 2 OREGON STATE
Washington
State heads to Corvallis, Ore. for a weekend series at defending national chamion
and second-ranked Oregon State. The series begins Friday at 5:35 p.m.,
continues Saturday at 1:35 p.m. and concludes Sunday 1:05 p.m.
PROBABLE
STARTERS
Ky Bush |
Fr. | LHP | 0-3, 12.77 ERA, 24.2 IP, 26 K vs. Brandon Eisert | Jr. | LHP | 7-1,
1.88 ERA, 48.0 IP, 63 K
A.J. Block
| Jr. | LHP | 0-5, 5.51 ERA, 47.1 IP, 44 K vs. Bryce Fehmel | Jr. | RHP | 6-0,
3.29 ERA, 63.0 IP, 47 K
Brandon
White | Fr. | RHP | 2-6, 6.51 ERA, 37.1 IP, 37 K vs. Grant Gambrell | So. | RHP
| 3-1, 3.50 ERA, 46.1 IP, 55 K
ON DECK
Following
a seven-game road stretch, WSU returns to Bailey-Brayton Field to host
Washington next weekend on graduation weekend.
:::::::::::
Mile High
City, here we come?
Flights to
Denver hub could become a possibility, if airport can secure a carrier
By Anthony
Kuipers Moscow Pullman Daily News
Apr 25,
2019
The
Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport is pursuing a grant that will help attract
another airline to provide flights to a new travel hub, possibly Denver.
The
four-year $750,000-$1 million Small Community Air Service Development grant
from the U.S. Department of Transportation will help the airport secure a new
carrier and flights to another airport.
The
airport offers Alaska Airlines flights to Seattle.
The grant
is funded by overflight fees that are paid when an international flight passes
through the U.S.
Airport
Executive Director Tony Bean said the most likely hub is Denver International
Airport, which would give flyers an additional 39 one-stop connections.
Denver
International is the largest airport in the U.S. and the fifth busiest,
according to the Airports Council International’s 2017 figures.
Bean said
Wednesday during a Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport Board meeting that SkyWest
and United are the most likely options to offer flights to Denver.
He said
the carriers would be able to provide additive services to the airport that
would not compete with Alaska.
Bean said
there is no guarantee the airport will be awarded the competitive grant, but he
likes its chances because of the area’s growth and the work being done to
realign the runway to meet Federal Aviation Administration standards.
“I think
we’re in a very, very good situation because the market is here, it does exist,
the growth has shown significant,” he said.
Bean also
said the community’s investment in the airport shows airlines that it is
serious about air service.
The
airport will try to raise $300,000-$350,000 to advertise the new airline’s
services after it begins operations in Pullman.
It will
ask for pledges and letters of support from the community, including the
universities, businesses and private citizens.
Bean said
USDOT will look more favorably on the airport if a large number of partners
send letters of support explaining why Denver flights will be beneficial to
them.
Bean said
the letters will need to be sent when the grant details and rules are finalized
this year, though he does not yet know when that will be.
Jenny
Ford, Moscow Chamber of Commerce director, joined Bean on a conference where
they met with representatives from various airlines. She said SkyWest and
United were familiar with the improvements being made to the Pullman-Moscow
Regional Airport.
“So I view
that as an extreme positive,” she said.
Bean said
the new runway’s instrument approach landing system to improve visibility for
pilots will also be an important feature in attracting a new airline.
Paving of
the new runway began this week.
A crew from
Poe Asphalt placed asphalt on the runway Wednesday, which is set to be 9 inches
thick when it’s finished.
The new
runway is scheduled to be open Oct. 10.
::::
Area
farmers are waiting on the weather
Showers
slow spring planting; tariffs, trade agreements expected to add to crop woes
By KATHY
HEDBERG Lewiston Trib April 25th of 2019
April
showers may bring May flowers, but the soggy ground has also put a damper on
farm plowers.
“We’re a
little delayed with spring planting this season — sort of like last spring,”
said University of Idaho Nez Perce County Extension agent Doug Finkelnburg.
“There are
a lot of folks that would like to be out and doing spring work. We have a few
more weeks before we start complicating the situation. Ultimately we’ll run
into crop insurance deadlines (around the middle of May) and people will have
to decide if they want to plant if they can’t insure it.”
Finkelnburg
said the slower start to spring work affects not only planting but also
spraying, fertilizing and cultivating that are being held off because the
ground is too wet to get into the fields.
Some of
those earlier downpours have left behind puddles — and worse — in some farm
ground.
“There’s
some evidence of erosion in the typical places … but I haven’t seen any major
washout-style erosion in the area,” Finkelnburg said. “Winter crops — other
than some limited erosion, I’m not aware of any issues with crops coming out of
the winter and from what I’ve seen driving around, it looks like a decent crop
so far.
“But a lot
of things can happen between here and harvest.”
One of
those variables is grain prices, which, so far, aren’t much more promising than
a year ago.
According
to the U.S. Wheat Associates price report, wheat futures prices fell this week
after news of expected favorable growing conditions and large harvests in some
of the world’s top wheat-exporting regions, including Russia.
Current
soft white wheat prices at Portland are $5.71 to $5.90 a bushel, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture reported. That’s about the same as wheat prices a
year ago in April and May. Farmers inland must subtract the cost of shipping
from the Portland price.
Marketing
is also complicated by the U.S. failure to rejoin the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, which affects trade relations with Japan and other Pacific Rim
customers.
U.S. Wheat
Associates said negotiations between the U.S. and Japan are continuing and “for
U.S. agriculture the concern is that the U.S. trade deficit with Japan seems
poised to increase due to the disadvantage of being outside the Trans Pacific
Partnership.
This
month, in fact, Japan lowered its trade barriers further to imported agricultural
products from many of the world’s major suppliers, but not the United States.
Consequently, U.S. products, including wheat, are more expensive for Japanese
importers.”
Tariffs in
some of the countries that have been major buyers of Pacific Northwest garbanzo
beans, peas and lentils have contributed to sorry prices for those commodities,
as well as fewer acres expected to be planted this spring.
Tim
McGreevy, chief executive office for the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council at
Moscow, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts a 38 percent drop
nationwide in the number of acres planted to chickpeas this year — down from
839,000 acres last year to 519,000 acres this year. In Washington there is an
expected 32 percent decrease in chickpea acres, from 189,000 acres last year to
110,000 acres this year.
Idaho’s
drop from 133,000 acres of chickpeas last year to 84,000 this year is about a
23 percent difference, McGreevy said.
The story
is similar for lentils and peas, he added, although Washington and Idaho are
showing a slight increase in acres planted to those crops this year.
“Chickpeas
have been particularly hard hit,” McGreevy said. “They faced the Indian tariffs
and it was their biggest market and those tariffs have persisted.”
In
addition, because of a record number of chickpea and lentil acres planted in
the past there has been some carryover stock that has kept prices low.
Chickpeas
have dropped from about 40 cents per 100 pounds last year to 21 cents per 100
pounds this year.
“Lentils
we’re seeing in the Pacific Northwest have stayed about the same pricing,” he
said. “Prices are not fantastic, but there’s nothing that’s fantastic right
now.”
::::
Back with
Pack, Madison says 'life was on the line'
Apr 23,
2019
By Rob
Demovsky
ESPN Staff
Writer
Mental
health concerns kept Cole Madison away from the NFL last season, but the 2018
fifth-round draft pick said the speculation that it was because of former
Washington State teammate Tyler Hilinski's suicide was untrue.
Madison
left the Green Bay Packers last summer after he went through offseason
workouts. He was placed on the did not report list when training camp opened in
July, and his return to the Packers on April 8 for the start of this year's
offseason program came as a surprise.
"This
last year was really just focused on myself," Madison said Tuesday in his
first interview in nearly a year. "Not even football or nothing, just
myself and my mental health and everything like that. I was dealing with a lot
of things off the field for a long time that I was putting off, and it finally
caught up to me, and I had to take care of that, make a grown man decision. I
did that, and then after that I decided I wanted to come back and play some
football. So that's why I'm here.
"At
that point, football -- I love football -- but at that point, it was my health,
and my life was on the line. I had to go help myself before my football career.
If I didn't get my chickens in order back then, I don't think I'd be here right
now."
Madison
said his mental health concerns came before Hilinski's death in January 2018.
"I
was going through some stuff for a long time that I was putting off, and they
caught up to me with the decisions off the field I was doing," he told
reporters. "I wasn't making good decisions, and it led to bad thoughts.
"This
was before Tyler. Tyler, if anything, helped me with knowing that other people
go through things, too. It was a little light at the end of the tunnel -- light
in a dark area. This stuff originated a long time before Tyler."
Hilinski
had just finished his redshirt sophomore season at Washington State when he was
found dead in an apartment in January 2018. He was expected to take over as
starting quarterback the next season.
"If
anything, when that happened, it was a first beginning step of a wake-up call
for me, how I needed to handle my mental health was after that entire
situation," Madison said. "Me and him were great friends. I would
have never known any of that was going on or vice versa. I had my demons going
on, and no one had any idea what was going on. It's just one of those things of
taking that step when you've got those things and not to just bat them down and
talk to someone and opening up."
When the
Packers picked Madison at No. 138 overall last season, they viewed him as a possible
starting right guard, but his future was in question until he reported back to
the team earlier this month.
"They
really had my back through this process of last year," Madison said.
"They told me to take my time and get my head right, and that's what I
did. ... real happy for them and grateful for them and grateful to be
back."
Madison
said he started to feel like himself again late last year, "about three
months into meeting with somebody, talking to somebody."
"After
that, it was getting over the hump, that period of, 'I feel like me again.' I
haven't felt like me in God knows how long, and I finally started to feel
positive, feel like, 'Hey, I can do this' and no second-guessing myself. That
was my whole thing: A lot of things in the past caught up to me and was
second-guessing a lot of things."
General
manager Brian Gutekunst said this week that Madison's return was "a
pleasant surprise."
"He
came back in great shape," Gutekunst said. "He's been working, and
there's no limitations on him from that sense. It looks like the 6-[foot]-5,
300-pounder that we drafted. I'm very optimistic to see him progress this year.
"I
think he actually probably fits this scheme as much if not more than what he
was last year. I know that Matt with Tennessee, those guys thought he was very
much a fit for them. Those guys in San Francisco, where [Packers O-line coach]
Adam Stenavich was, those guys thought he was very much a fit for them. Yeah,
he's an absolute fit for what we're trying to do."
The
Packers signed veteran offensive lineman Billy Turner in free agency as a
likely starter at right guard, but Madison could compete at guard or center.
"We
were really high on Cole when he was coming out, and I'll tell you what, we're
certainly glad that he's back in this building," first-year coach Matt
LaFleur said. "So he's been great. And I know Adam Stenavich, when he was
with the Niners, he worked him out ... he told me that the Niners were planning
on drafting him, but he got picked a couple picks before they were going to
pick him. So certainly we feel like he adds a lot of value to what we can do
with him in our system."
Said
quarterback Aaron Rodgers: "Yeah, it's great to see Cole back. He's happy
to be here, it seems like. We're happy to have him back. He's a talented guy. I
actually didn't quite recognize him the first time I saw him because he cut his
hair off because he had some nice locks when he got here last year. But we're
happy to have him here. He's a Packer, and it's important that he feels like
this is home, and we're definitely doing everything we can to make him feel
comfortable."
#
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