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New coach Art Briles is opening some recruiting avenues that haven’t been in place before on the Brazos. One of his incoming recruits next season is Frederic Plesius of Lennoxville, Quebec. The athletic 6-foot-2, 230-pound linebacker had five sacks as a senior at Champlain Prep School and even returned punts for his team.

Briles recruited several Canadian players while at Houston and is excited about bringing what is thought to be the first Canadian player to Baylor’s roster.

“These kids come in very mature, very hungry and very grateful,” Briles said. “Coming from Canada to the United States and the Big 12 for them is like walking out of Luby’s and finding a $100 bill, so all of a sudden, they feel good.”

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Well last week was Jordan’s big week up in Reno. It went well and their are 3 teams interested in signing him the Canadian Long Snapper. There were over 12 NFL Scouts there from around the league and EXCELL talked to several of them face to face. They watched Jordan’s snapping and charted times, it is quiet the show as you have 10 snaps to impress the scouts, not a very long audition. Now is the waiting game to see which teams are interested and where the best offer comes from.

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If you’ve never heard of the Wonderlic, it’s an exam given to players entering the NFL draft every year.

The Wonderlic is an exam comprised of 50 questions. Players have 12 minutes to complete the test. The average score (out of 50) is a 21.

Vince Young made headlines last year when it was rumored that he scored a 6. As we all saw in 2006, the Wonderlic doesn’t mean much. St. Louis’ Ryan Fitzpatrick scored a 50, and he’s nothing more than a backup quarterback.

Some sample scores of other players include: Drew Bledsoe - 37; Steve Young - 33; John Elway - 30; Dan Marino - 16; Deltha O’Neal - 15; Donovan McNabb -14.

Another example is Packers receiver Javon Walker scored only a 7 on the Wonderlic coming out of Florida State, but teams that researched his background and tested his learning abilities by other methods found that he was bright but had an attention-deficit disability that prevented him from learning or testing well on reading-oriented tasks.

So you can see that players are players and sometimes we focus in to much on the numbers when it comes football.

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Things are starting to move along in the Excell world. Today upon waking up I received the news that a player we have been trying to help is being signed by an NFL Agent and attending a free agent camp in Reno Nevada in 10 days. Jordan is from a small town like myself so I can only imagine the feelings he is having right now sitting in Winnipeg MB

 I called to talk to him while I was driving this morning and you could hear the joy in his voice. He called his parents and his high school coach and I am sure half the province knows by now. He will be the talk of the town in Yorkton Sask.

For that simple fact, I am involved with Excell!  As hearing the excitement and helping people realize their dreams are all things that are important to myself and Excell. Jordan even commented that I never would have had this opportunity without EXCELL Sports (www.excellsports.net)

 Hopefully this will be the first of many stories of how we have been helping kids receive athletic scholarships and achieve their dreams.

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We have just received the 2007-08 National Directory of College Athletics and it has blown me away how many options there are out there. Being a former collegiate athlete I thought I knew how many institutions were looking for athletes, but even I was caught unaware. Upon first glance, I noticed that there are over 230 Division 1 progrms that offer female golf, combine that with the 131 Divison 2 colleges and there is a real opportunity for high school golfers to receive a scholarship and continue playing the game they love.  As I turn the page I see Soccer is even more popular; with almost 600 programs offering soccer schlorships. It makes me wonder how many parents and high school students know that these opportunities exist.

I am looking forward to being involed with the Excell Sports team www.excellsports.net to help high school athletes continue on to college.  Admit it… How many of us would go back to college if we could and play the sports we loved. It does not really hit home how lucky we were as college athletes to be playing past high school. I look back and realize that so many of my friends are the friends I made while attending college.  These are the friends that I talk to on a weekly basis and can call on in a time of need. People change and the friends that we have in high school slowly fade.  It is the connections we make as young adults that we maintain throughout our lives.

 I am learning more and more about colleges, recruiting and the obstacles that high school athletes face in being noticed by the colleges around North America.

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