‘“He wasn’t a natural football player, and I mean mentally. I’ll be quite honest with you, his parents weren’t too crazy about him playing football after he hurt his ankle in the eighth grade,” Goerge said. “What he did with his work ethic and how he improved and how he just made himself into a great player – I can still remember him and his dad in the summer. We would have early-morning workouts, 7 a.m. or whatever it was, and they would come an hour early, just to be on the JUGS machine. He was constantly working his craft. It just blossomed. He gained that confidence.”’