Although he doesn’t know yet where, Baylor’s John Mackey is assured of a college football scholarship.
Just four days after the Red Raiders finished the 2010 football season as the Division II-AA runners-up, the defensive tackle knows he’ll be wrestling and looking for his second state championship and his fourth trip to the wrestling finals.
“I can say for sure that John has made the commitment [to wrestle], and we think we’ll get eight or nine [football players]. I had not talked with any of them because I wanted them to be focused on football,” said Ben Nelson, who is in his first year as the Red Raiders’ head coach. “I’ll tell them to take as much time as they want but ask that they be respectful of the team’s needs.”
Mackey already has offers from VMI, Furman, Air Force, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Tennessee State, and Virginia Tech called looking for some more tape on the 6-foot, 235-pounder so he might miss some weekends while making football recruiting visits.
Tennessee football players are through now and Calhoun is the lone area school where boys’ basketball and wrestling coaches are being forced to bide their time. The Yellow Jackets will play for the AA state championship in the Georgia Dome on Saturday.