PINELLAS PARK – It’s not always easy when you’re responsible for dozens-upon-dozens of young men and their well-being as well as be an effective coach, parent, teacher and so on. It’s a thankless job the vast majority of the time and often times the coaches are only as effective as those that are willing to be effected–meaning it takes the players buying-in and giving their absolute all for the coach–it’s a two-way street.
It’s also not as easy in the new frontier that is 2015–and soon to be 2016–to just boost a players’ image and give off the perception that favorites are being played. It’s easy to do your job, be a coach-parent-teammate when you’ve got someone like Class of 2017 DT Jordon Scott at Pinellas Park. The 5-foot-11, 340-pound tackle has been a behemoth–and a Godsend since his arrival on campus to Coach Kenny Crawford and his staff.
The past two seasons, Scott has compiled 133 tackles and 12 sacks on defense. He’s about to enter his fourth season as player on Varsity after being moved up his freshman season for five games–and the rest they say, is history.
Of course there’s doubts about his ability to play the position so effectively when coaches look at his size–and paper–because if you’re watch his film, you’re taking a decidedly different tone. When you find out what his work ethic and his approach is like off the field during the course of his workouts and his academic regimen–you’ll also have to take a moment to process it all. Simply put, it’s impressive–and so it Scott.
When you go and check out his clips, he’s got sixteen minutes of highlights–which in most cases is about 14:30 minutes too much since college coaches want to see the first couple of plays and will move on. Not with Scott–you’re stuck there for damn near the entire sixteen minutes. None of those plays are throw aways. Every two or three weeks, his head coach Kenny Crawford has to reshuffle the plays just to give coaches a different taste of what he can do.
Instead of the routine Q-and-A with the player–who better to give the unfiltered truth about one of his own than one of the most unfiltered and honest coaches around. Patriots Head Coach Kenny Crawford was kind enough to share his thoughts regarding his defensive tackle and share with the rest of us what a blessing it is to be around this young man. There’s plenty more on this kid to come, but for now–here’s Coach Crawford on his stud-DT, Mr. Jordon Scott.
BCP: Coach, can you describe what it was like the day he walked in the door with that frame?
Kenny Crawford: “When he walked in the door, he was a 297-pound freshman, we were wondering if he was going to be able to move around. You just hope that when they walk in the door as freshman that they can be ready as juniors and senior to be solid contributors and then we saw him get into a three-point stance and dominate the JV–we actually moved him up that year and he started five games on a 10-win playoff team–the only freshman that’s ever started for me since I’ve become the coach at Pinellas Park, so it definitely didn’t take long to make an impact.”
BCP: What is it that separates Jordon from the rest of the pack? Is it just one thing?
Crawford: “Number one, he’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever coached–in fact he’s THE hardest worker I’ve ever coached, but it’s not just that. He’s why I opened the weight room this morning on the day before Christmas Eve because him and his buddies wanted to lift weights. They don’t have anywhere else to lift–so I’m opening the weight room. I watched him as a kid who couldn’t bench press 170lbs, to a kid that will probably break 400lbs on the bench. He benched 360 last year.
BCP: That’s some pretty high praise from someone that’s been around this business for a little while to say the least
Crawford: “It’s insane. I’ve been doing this twenty years, we’ve had three D-1 defensive lineman walk through this door–with him eventually going to be the third–and they just don’t get it like this guy. The only question mark with colleges is–is he going to be too fat–and the only reason they (the colleges) have that question mark is because they don’t know him. This kid last year had me pick up three days a week before school to do sixty minutes of cardio–and when the season was over he’s got me in there doing cross-training on the heavy bag and doing yoga when everyone else is in their taking the two weeks off. He’s a machine. There’s a correlation everywhere–he dominates in the weight room–he dominates on thee field–he dominates in the classroom–he’s got a 4.0 GPA in all Honors and AP classes, too.
BCP: Sounds like that’s beyond just coach-speak and that he’s destined for big things.
Crawford: “You know, everybody has these kids that are awesome in the weight room and do the right things in the classroom, but how often are they 350-pounds? Guys that make play after play. That’s another thing–you get these 300+ pound kids and you try to get them to make plays and you try to put them in a gap to try and plug–but this guy does everything. He splits the tackles, throws countermoves and makes plays from number to number on the field.”