Lance Kendricks is Rams' leading receiver

Kendricks finding his groove with Rams

BY BILL COATS

August 30, 2011

Unlike many of the better inner-city athletes in Milwaukee, Lance Kendricks turned down the option of attending high school in the suburbs, where the caliber of football was considerably better.

Kendricks also was seeking a good education, so he stuck it out at King High. The football wasn't great, he acknowledged. "As far as running a real offense similar to a college-style offense, it kind of lacks a little bit," he said.

The academics were top-notch, though. Today, Kendricks holds a degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin and is two classes short of receiving a second diploma, in economics. Some day, he'd like to dabble in real estate; he loves watching HGTV.

And, oh, by the way, he's off to an impressive start in his NFL career with the Rams.

Asked what he's seen so far of Kendricks, coach Steve Spagnuolo said, "A lot. He's a versatile guy. He's moving around at a lot of different spots. And the other thing, unless I'm missing something, I don't think he's missed a rep of practice. That's a credit to him and the way he prepared himself."

The Rams drafted the 6-foot-3, 247-pound Kendricks in the second round (No. 47 overall) of the draft. He was the second tight end selected, just four spots behind Notre Dame's Kyle Rudolph, who went to Minnesota.

The notion of bringing Kendricks along slowly evaporated when fellow tight ends Michael Hoomanawanui (concussion) and Fendi Onobun (groin) missed time early in camp with injuries. Onobun is back, but Hoomanawanui is out with a calf strain.

"There's been a lot of playbook thrown at" Kendricks," Spagnuolo noted.

"They kind of threw me in there," Kendricks said. "I was able to learn on the job and take a big leap and kind of land on my feet."

Admittedly a bit overwhelmed early in training camp, Kendricks said he's become more comfortable with his duties in new coordinator Josh McDaniels' offense.

"It's definitely getting better," Kendricks said. "The plays are getting more familiar. It's kind of like, 'OK, now I'm getting into the groove of it.'"

The results back that up: After three preseason games, Kendricks is the Rams' leading receiver, with eight catches for 82 yards. He's scored two touchdowns, also a team high.

"We practice so uptempo and so hard, I think by game time it's kind of calmed down," he said. "It's just like practice; nothing's really crazy. I don't really get nervous during the game."

Kendricks played basketball his freshman and sophomore years at King, and twice placed in the state track meet in the triple jump. He chose Wisconsin over Louisiana State and Arkansas despite the Badgers' run-first approach on offense.

At the time, Kendricks was a wide receiver, and he'd observed the success that St. Louisan Brandon Williams and Jonathan Orr were having at wideout for Wisconsin. "They were doing really well," Kendricks said. "So at the time my mind-set was, if I can come and be a big factor as a wide receiver, I can probably make a difference."

He also wanted to stay near home, so that his father, Leon, a retired machinist, his mother, Linda, a secretary in the Milwaukee public schools central office, and his three older brothers, Leon, Landon and Donte, could follow his career closely.

When he was switched to tight end, Kendricks didn't know what to make of it at first. But he became the fourth Badgers tight end in the last five years to be drafted, following Owen Daniels (Houston, 2006), Travis Beckum (New York Giants, '09) and Garrett Graham (Houston, '10).

Kendricks was a consensus All-Big Ten Conference performer as a senior, when he caught 43 passes for 663 yards, the third-highest total in the nation among tight ends.

He also developed into a solid in-line blocker. "You can't step on the field (at Wisconsin) unless you know how to block," Kendricks said. "A lot of the techniques carry over. I'm glad I'm able to use a lot of that stuff now."

And his background at wideout eased the transition to tight end.

"It helps me a ton," he said. "I can use a lot of what I learned playing wide receiver. And just watching the wide receivers here on film, I can kind of take some of their tools and use them for myself."

So, the shift from Wisconsin to the Rams hasn't been as dramatic as Kendricks might have guessed.

"It's pretty similar," he said. "Here, you also have the mentality of, you have to establish the run first; in that way, it's the same. But also here, it's more creative with the passing game. That's where it gets a little different.

"I'm trying to get adjusted to it, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job so far."

To clean up its image, North Carolina should hire Randy Shannon

By Gregg Doyel

August 23, 2011

The ideal hire for the scummy North Carolina football program would be the guy from scummy Miami.

And I'm dead serious.

North Carolina should replace Butch Davis with Randy Shannon.

That's something I first thought months ago, well before North Carolina found the backbone to get rid of Davis, and that thought hasn't been shaken by the sleaze that Yahoo found under 70-plus rocks in Coral Gables. Actually, that thought has been strengthened by the UM scandal, because there was one guy at Miami -- and only one guy -- who sniffed out Nevin Shapiro as the jock-sniffing piece of scum that he is.

And that person was Randy Shannon.

Shannon also is the same person who replaced a long line of impotent Miami coaches -- one of them being Butch Davis, come to think of it -- and put his, um, foot down and said, "No more."

No more arrests. No more academic embarrassments. No more of the stuff that had been going on since Jimmy Johnson begat Dennis Erickson begat Butch Davis begat Larry Coker.

No. More.

And you know what? There was no more. Well, almost no more. In his four years as head coach at Miami, one player was arrested. One! Contrast that to what was happening up the road in Gainesville, a city with fewer temptations than Miami, where the Florida Gators endured 25 or 30 arrests -- accounts vary because there were so damn many players arrested under Urban Meyer -- in the same time period.

At Miami, Shannon also had the third-highest lifetime APR among active coaches in Division I-A. The only coaches ahead of him were at Navy and Air Force. Not at Duke or Vanderbilt or Stanford, by the way. Only two service academies. That was Miami's academic company under Randy Shannon.

But he won only 28 games in four years, so Miami fired him. Before that could happen, though, Shannon saw through Nevin Shapiro -- the same guy you've seen smiling in this photograph with the Miami president, Donna Shalala, who is such an astute judge of character that she ran off Randy Shannon but embraced Nevin Shapiro.

Shannon didn't embrace Shapiro -- he loathed him. He told his players multiple times to stay away from that snake, and he told his coaches he would fire them if they associated with Shapiro.

That's how clean Randy Shannon is as a football coach -- and North Carolina needs somebody spotless. North Carolina football is very much like Oklahoma basketball after the Sooners were dragged into the swamp by Kelvin Sampson, then held there by a staff member under Jeff Capel.

Oklahoma needed the cleanest coach it could find, and it found him in Lon Kruger. The guy doesn't have a Hall of Fame résumé, but Kruger wins a lot more than he loses, and he's so clean that he squeaks when he walks. Oklahoma needed a guy like that to restore public confidence in its program, and Oklahoma got him.

Now it's North Carolina's turn, but I'm not confident the Tar Heels understand what they need. Lord knows they didn't know it was time to get rid of Butch Davis when it was clearly time to get rid of Butch Davis -- a year ago, when the NCAA was investigating separate scandals, when nearly 20 percent of the team was suspended and when Davis' close friend and recruiting coordinator, John Blake, was being exposed as a longtime runner for an agent.

North Carolina needs Randy Shannon, but North Carolina was the last to know it didn't need Butch Davis. Then again, a different athletic director will be making this hire at UNC, so there is hope. Also, the list of realistic candidates for the job won't be impressive, given the NCAA sanctions sure to be facing the Tar Heels. There will be some ambitious head coaches at smaller schools willing to do anything to get into a BCS conference. There will be veteran assistants at big-time football schools who've never been able to land a BCS head-coaching gig.

And there will be the guy who went to three bowls in four years at Miami, graduated his players, kept them out of arrest reports and was the only person on campus who tried to steer the UM football team away from Nevin Shapiro.

If North Carolina can do better than Randy Shannon, do it. But I'm telling you, it can't. North Carolina needs the cleanest good coach it can find -- and Randy Shannon emerged from the muddy mosh pit at Miami without a grain of sand on him.

A high school hotbed

Glenville coach Ted Ginn Sr. talks to his team. Ginn's rolling showcase helped make his team the top Big Ten recruiting factory since 2002.

By Dirk Chatelain

August 20, 2011

The best high school football factory in the Big Ten started when a security guard rented a seven-passenger van.

A decade later, Glenville Academic Campus in Cleveland is the most important place on every recruiting map. You want to build a Big Ten dynasty? You'd better start here.

With Ted Ginn Sr.

He has sent 31 players to Big Ten schools over the past decade. No other school in the country has produced more than 12.

How did it happen?

Ginn's mother moved him from New Orleans to Cleveland when he was 11. He played for Glenville in an era when Glenville didn't win anything.

Two years after he graduated, his mother died.

The head coach made Ginn volunteer on the football staff “so I wouldn't go astray.” In '97, Ginn took over the program. School security guard by day, head football coach by night.

Soon he established a bold plan to draw attention to his players. Instead of waiting for college coaches to call him, Ginn took his players on the road. He packed them in a van and spent most of the summer ushering them to college camps.

Sometimes seven or eight slept in the van. Sometimes they piled into one hotel room. The next morning, they showed up at a campus, spent an hour or two running through drills, then hit the road for the next stop. They drove as far as LSU.

Ginn recalls telling college head coaches like Nick Saban that he had five kids in his van who could run a 4.3-second 40-yard dash.

“Everybody used to laugh at me,” Ginn Sr. said.

Until they observed the talent in the van. Pierre Woods was the first Glenville player to take advantage of Ginn's recruiting showcase on wheels. In 2001, he signed with Michigan.

Why limit the journey to seven passengers, Ginn decided. He got a bus. Picked up kids all over Cleveland. Why limit it to Cleveland, Ginn decided. He picked up kids all over the state. Columbus. Dayton. Toledo.

“When you're driving around and putting on a show like that, word is going to travel,” Ginn said.

Now Ginn's teams regularly compete for state championships. Now the Glenville Tarblooders attract players from all over the city.

“It's kind of the all-stars of Cleveland,” said Bill Conley, a former Buckeyes assistant.

Ginn, who knows Bo Pelini, recalls days when eight or nine Big Ten coaches came to Glenville. The most frequent visitor: Ohio State.

Of the 31 Glenville players who signed with Big Ten schools the past decade, 17 landed at Ohio State.
Pretty good players, too. Troy Smith, Heisman Trophy winner. First-round draft picks Donte Whitner and Ted Ginn Jr.

In February, the Glenville pipeline continued. One player signed with Indiana, one with Michigan, one with Ohio State.

Ted Ginn Sr. doesn't need a van or a bus. Now the recruiters come to him.