We’ve seen a lot of Bloomingdale’s Sam Skinner over the past three seasons–both regular and offseason. But we haven’t had a chance to draw the curtain and get to know the young man. Well, we’ve fixed that. Skinner is entering his senior season for the Bulls and has recently added tight end to his job description on top of being a standout defensive end the past the two seasons. The 6-foot-3-inch, 225-pounder has always flashed athleticism at camps, but he’s taken that athleticism from football and started to step outside the conventional two-sport combination–and it’s working.
Skinner’s first two seasons on varsity were filled with quite a bit of success–especially from a team perspective. The Bulls were 6-4 his sophomore season in 2013–technically Bloomingdale’s only winning season (on the field) in their school history that dates back to 1987. Although the Bulls had finished 6-5 four seasons prior, that was due to a forfeit from their game versus Spoto after finishing the season 5-6, but in the postseason nonetheless.
Enter new head coach Brian Surcey, following the departure of John Booth to Manatee in 2014 and Skinner and company posted their best season in school history by a landslide winning nine games and taking Dr. Phillips to the wire in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs. Fast forward to 2015, and the wheels were falling off and there was oil leaking all over the place. The Bulls finished 1-9 and went through the kind of implosion that nobody ever wants to face.
All the while, Skinner’s production steadily rose along with his role as a team leader in spite of the pieces falling down like dominoes all around him and his teammates. As a sophomore, Skinner posted just 17 tackles, but was already making his presence felt from the edge with three sacks. During that magical nine win season, Skinner was was integral part of the Bulls’ success with 57 tackles–15 of those for loss–along with six-and-a-half sacks.
Last season, in the midst of turmoil, Skinner was a bright spot with 72 tackles–14 of those for loss–with seven-and-a-half sacks, four hurries, two blocked punts and a fumble recovery for a touchdown. As mentioned, he even added some offense to his repertoire with nine receptions for 153 yards.
Now that 2015 is in the rearview mirror, Skinner poignantly opens up about last season–plus his offseason regimen that has included playing a sport that is unconventional from the normal basketball-baseball-track pairing that most football players find themselves participating. The Bulls begin a new era under the direction of Max Warner, who, is Bloomingdale’s eleventh head coach in just under three decades, but one that brings an excitement to the program and a pedigree that could put things back on the right track–and in a hurry.
“In the beginning (of the offseason) I was playing lacrosse for a little bit, so that included a lot of running and lifting weights and stuff. Once that ended, I had like four or five weeks of offseason workouts with the football team, so it’s been pretty good so far,” said Skinner speaking about his offseason thus far. Skinner highlights that his offseason has been concentrated on a few things plus his feelings regarding his new position that has already earned him an Xecutives invite at his new spot.
“I’d say working on footwork was pretty important to me this offseason and working with my hands a lot–such as getting off blocks. I thought offense was little more fun this year because it’s a new thing and I haven’t been doing it long–so it’s a new experience. That was certainly a little more fun, but I love playing defense,” said Skinner. “I feel like the first steps off the ball were the hardest thing to adjust to at first, but catching it was pretty natural. It didn’t take that long to start catching balls pretty good.”
We mentioned the adversity Skinner and his teammates had to deal with–and “deal” with it he–along with a few others–did quite well when faced with it. The Bulls’ season could have started dramatically different had they been able to finish their first two games of the season. They lost to Newsome 10-7 and Gaither 20-14 and had plenty of chances to secure victory–but didn’t. An 0-2 start isn’t the apocalypse by any means when you’re a talented ball club, but when you’ve got Armwood, Tampa Bay Tech, Durant, Plant City, and East Bay to play in consecutive weeks following those devastating defeats, things can fall a part (or escalate) quicker than the fight seen in Anchorman.
Bloomingdale ended up getting outscored 166-63 during that five game stretch, good for an average margin of defeat of three touchdowns, but still managed to fight in their week nine game versus Lennard and were on the doorstep before losing 21-17. The finally got their first win of the season against a winless Strawberry Crest team before losing big to their rivals Brandon 41-0. Skinner wasn’t shy about what happened–why it happened–and what had to be done in order to do something to help his teammates and his program play with some pride.
“We didn’t really expect last season to happen at all. Our first two losses were close games that came down to the final seconds and those were very hard losses. Towards the end of the season, I was trying to stay positive and say to myself that I could always find ways to make myself better. There were kids that just didn’t want to go anymore and I thought that if I kept working at it that other players on the team would take notice and just keep working. At the end, there were plenty of us that were working hard and just trying to win games and enjoy the game again.”
With that season buried and eulogized we started talking his “second” sport, lacrosse. We asked Skinner about what it takes to play it effectively and whether or not his football skill-set translates into being a better lacrosse. There’s obvious ties to the sport with names like Jim Thorpe and Jim Brown having played the game(s) at such high levels. The stopping-and-starting is similar in terms of conditioning, and the hip-work and feet are expected to do the same thing as they would on the gridiron, but accomplish the task in a slightly different manner. Skinner explains:
“In lacrosse, there could be times where you’re holding still for three to four minutes while the offense has possession of the ball and the defense just sits and waits, but in a turnover situation or a fast-break situation–it can be chaotic–there can be a lot of chaos. You’ve got be able to turn your hips just like football when they teach you to flip your hips in defensive end or d-line drills. That skill actually came in very handy as defensive player to be able to turn and run laterally with the offensive player and catch up to kids that should have been twice as fast as me.”
Skinner goes on to describe how his tight end position could benefit from playing lacrosse this season for the first time, albeit with a stick in his hand–his hand(s) are still required to do something that all tight ends have to do–and do well.
“Playing tight end and having to get in front of someone and block them is similar to lacrosse because you don’t want your attacker to get past you. Playing defense in lacrosse as a defensemen is like pass blocking. You want to shoot your hands and don’t let them get across your body. It’s the same way if you have a stick in your hand in lacrosse and you’ve got to square-up and stay in front of them.”
So is this a legitimate goal to play the sport at the next level is possible?
“I don’t think I’m good enough to play lacrosse at a higher level (he says chuckling). This was my first year and I was alright, but I wouldn’t say I’m good enough to play higher up”—he stops himself and then says with excitement–“that WOULD be pretty cool if I could play both, though.”
We start discussing the nature of specialization. Nowadays, you see kids getting burned out or injured from doing the same things over-and-over again without much progress being made at times. Although multi-sport athletes are back on the rise after what felt like a hiatus for short while, there’s an absolutely important component to understand about picking and playing other sports to play beyond football that can ENHANCE not hurt your skills. It’s not a black-eye on the sport whatsoever, but if you think of it and approach it the way that Skinner has, you can put the sport into its proper perspective. Think of it as a sporting-spiral-curriculum that adds new skills on top of the old skills while performing both simultaneously.
“I’d agree with that. You can do as much as you want to do in football, but at some point there are certain aspects that would teach you things about your agility or skill-set that football wouldn’t teach you,” said Skinner.
“Sometimes you can get tired of doing something every single day and it’s nice to have something available to switch it up. I was going to football workouts and then I’d run straight over to lacrosse. I actually did both for about four or five weeks. I’d say I was probably in the best shape I’ve ever been doing both of those.”
With his senior season looming, Skinner reflects and projects a feeling that ALL players are starting to incur at the moment–whether they are about to walk the stage at graduation, or prepare to be the next ones in line this time a year from now.
“It’s really crazy how fast it went by and it went by so fast that I really didn’t have time to think about it–but it hit me a couple of weeks ago that this is really the last year I’m going to play high school football with all my friends–it’s kinda sad, but I feel like it’s going to be a really good year and I can’t wait for it to get started.”