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[click here for Part 1]
Q.
What did you take away from your Lincoln experience?
A.
NEVER QUIT! That was definitely one of the biggest things that I took away
from my time in Lincoln. No matter what. I went two winless seasons with
the varsity, and then we won two games my senior season. I learned to
never quit. It’s never as bad as you think it is, and there’s always
room for improvement. Go out there and do your best.
Last
season we won a lot of games here at ISU, and we went on to the national
semifinals and lost that game. We really wanted to come back and follow
last year with another fantastic season this year. We’ve struggled a
little bit, but we’re not quitting! We’re going to finish on a high
note. It takes determination, drive and dedication — all those things
and more to be successful.
I
think I learned all those things in football at Lincoln! Coach Renner was
a really good motivator, and he was really good at teaching us to expect
victory. That was our motto our senior year: Expect victory. Expect to win
and you’re gonna win. When everybody thought we’d go winless again, we
pulled out two games that year. I give a lot of the credit to coach Renner
and his staff. I know that they helped me a lot.
Q.
Are any of your teammates from the CS8?
A.
Not that I know of.
Q.
What about your last three games? How do they shape up?
A.
Western this week at Western is going to be a tough game. Western is
always a good team. They’ve had a really good season so far. Playing at
Western is a big advantage for them. They always have good crowd support;
they’re loud and rowdy down there. The biggest key to the game is that
our offensive line is going to have to be strong and physical. We must run
the ball effectively to have success. So, we will have to be dominating up
front.
As
far as Eastern is concerned, we match up with them really well. We are
just as athletic if not more so than they are. We will have to execute
well against them to win that game.
As
for Southwest Missouri (which just happens to be the alma mater of our LDN
sports editor, who did tell Andy to take it easy on his boyz), last year
we scored 21 fourth-quarter points to pull out the win. It will be a
battle! They are coming up here, and the last time that they did play
here, they did win. We made a commitment not to lose at home. We feel very
strongly about winning all of our home games. We don’t like losing here.
Our tradition of singing the fight song after the game is one that we hold
dear and that we feel proud about! With them coming back up here to play
us again, we have a saying that nobody dances on the bird! We’re just
going to have to make sure that that holds true — that we’ll be the
ones singing after the game.
[to top of second column in
this section] |
Q.
Speaking of crowds…you had a raucous crowd there last week — over
13,000. Tell us about your crowds.
A.
I’ve loved our crowds the last couple of years. My first two years we didn’t
have many coming out — maybe 5,000 fans. People just weren’t coming out
for games. Last year we were coming out to 13, 14, 10 or 11 thousand people
a game. We were having great crowds every week. This year, during our first
game we had something like 11 or 12,000. The game before we only had about
7,000, but this last crowd shows that it’s getting better. It is something
that I have really appreciated. Coming from Lincoln where we didn’t always
have a whole lotta people out there, I wasn’t used to the large crowds. It’s
a small stadium kind of feel, but you can still pack a lot of people in
here. They really made a lot of noise this past week and had a lot of fun up
in the stands.
I
think one of my favorite parts of the crowd has been this group of guys —
I don’t know if they’re the same ones from last year or not — but they
came out and painted their bodies and had ISU painted across their chests.
It’s like something you would see at the Big Ten schools. I thought that
it was really special, and I really liked it and that kind of fan
dedication.
Q.
What about off-the-field stuff, like classes and commitments football
players have away from the sport itself?
A.
When you first get here they take you to the Bone Student Center. It’s a
place where athletes and the other students can go, and there is a computer
lab with 36 computers. There is also a full staff with tutors and targeters
and people to help you find and use the resources or to help you with
computer problems. I think that that helps out a lot. It helps you manage
and get your studies done in a timely manner. When you first come in they
give you an assigned targeter, and you must sign in and do your homework.
You must put in a certain number of hours per week. It helps right from the
beginning in the sense of time management. It helps you put athletics and
academics in perspective. That gives you classes during the day, practice in
the afternoon and studies at night.
If
you can find any more time, there’s plenty of stuff to do. This year I’m
a campus legislator with the student government association. Other time
commitments are very difficult to work in. Learning to work your schedule in
the midst of so many time management issues is a good skill you learn here
at ISU. In addition to all that, you’ve got to find time to pay your rent
and all of your bills. You also have to take your focus away from the
classroom and get it on the field and vice versa.
Q.
What do you want to go into?
A. Computer
networking. I’m looking to go into information security/computer security,
network administration and intrusion detection systems — making sure that
the bad guys aren’t breaking into the good guys’ computers (I love it
when our interviewees go into layman’s terms for this LDN writer…I
wouldn’t have a clue otherwise!).
(To be
continued)
Click
here to read more about Andy King:
http://www.redbirds.org/FB/King.html
[Jeff
Mayfield] |
|
Q.
Andy, how has the season gone up to this point?
A.
Actually, we started off pretty good in our first game. We racked up
hundreds of yards in total offense and walloped our opponents by
almost 80 points! So, it started off really well, and it looked like
we were going to have a good season.
I
still think that there’s a chance to have a really good season.
Especially since we have really come together the last three games.
The offense has picked it up; we’ve cut down on our dead-ball
penalties and on our turnovers. We have struggled a little in the
interception department. We’re still getting used to reads and
stuff like that.
From
our scrimmages this summer, I think we all thought that we had a
good chance to have a spectacular season like we did last year. I
think after that first game, we went up to Northern Illinois and
kind of didn’t do as well as we wanted to, against a team that we
thought we could have done better against. I’m not sure if that
just put a damper on some of our spirits — it kind of cut into
some of our confidence maybe — and we struggled through the next
few games. We had a chance to upset a nationally ranked team in
Youngstown State, and we lost by two points there — again, because
of offensive turnovers and dead-ball penalties. Part of that is
getting used to the new coaches and their play calling and the whole
game chemistry.
I
think it’s really starting to come together now over the last
three games. I definitely feel like we could win out and finish at
7-4.
Q.
Would that be enough to land you in the playoffs?
A.
There’s been speculation on that. There were some hopes that we
could move on…if Western Illinois wins out…or if Youngstown
State beats Western. I’m not even sure what combination we need to
have happen. Then we still need to get the right votes in order to
get in. I haven’t really paid a whole lot of attention to it. I’ve
been more worried about winning the next game!
Q.
What position are you playing and how has your individual season
gone?
A.
This has been my best season since I’ve been here. I think my
techniques have really improved. The last two games I‘ve struggled
some, and I’m not sure why. For one reason or another, I haven’t
done as well as I did at the beginning of the season. I started out
doing really well, and I’m determined to get back to that kind of
focus and back to where I was.
The
great thing is playing with those other guys in the offensive line
— guys like Dan Hama, who is an All-American; a center like
Teddy Wulf calling the formations out and getting everybody organized;
Mike Rodbro, an All-American over at right guard; and Aaron Peterson at right tackle.
All four of those guys are great friends to have up front with me,
helping me out and protecting for our quarterback.
[to
top of second column in this section]
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At
the left tackle slot I feel like I’ve made a lot of improvements
going into this season. Our past coach, coach Etheridge, has really
pushed hard for me to do my best, work hard every day in practice.
He has helped me learn from day one. Our new coach, coach Vice, has
worked us a lot on our footwork and going out and striking hard. Hat
on hat, getting the hat on the right side — basically just going
back to the basics. Working on our steps and making sure that we’re
getting off in the right direction. Making sure that as lineman that
we get our first step in the ground and your hat on the right side
of the ball.
Q.
That seems to be paying off, as you’re averaging 475 yards a game,
right?
A.
Yes, and the offensive line is a big part of that. Also, we had only
allowed three or four sacks going into the game before last. We’ve
had a few since then, but we are strong up front. We could still
finish off the season having fewer sacks than games!
Q.
What’s the difference between high school and college ball?
A.
The biggest difference is speed and size. Lincoln seems to be the
only school in the area that doesn’t have more physical players.
It always surprised me that we didn’t have bigger people and
faster people.
The
basketball program is really big in Lincoln, and it is really good.
I know in talking to some of the parents that I’m friends with,
they really like their kids to be involved with the basketball
program. They will say things like, football might harm my son’s
chances for basketball.
I
haven’t gone through that with my dad, because I played both
sports. My sophomore year I decided to go straight with football. I
wanted to optimize my chances there.
The
coaching is also more personalized. You’ve got more individual
coaches with a lot more experience. I had a pretty good coaching
staff my junior and senior years with coach Renner and his people.
In college you’ve got people that have been coaching for years,
coaches from major universities and coaches with lots of experience.
They really know what they’re doing, and they really care about
their players and want them to do well. That’s one of the biggest
differences that I’ve experienced.
(To be continued)
Click here to read more about Andy King:
http://www.redbirds.org/FB/King.html
[Jeff
Mayfield]
[click
here for Part 2]
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