Friday, April 18, 2008
Wake joins UVa, Tech in Andrew Miller sweepstakes
Reamon finds mother lode in new job
Doug Doughty
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Wake Forest has become the third ACC program to make a scholarship offer to Bassett’s Andrew Miller, a 6-foot-5, 275-pound offensive guard who ranks as the No. 1 football prospect in The Roanoke Times’ 19-county “Timesland” coverage area.
Other potential suitors would be best advised not to hesitate.
Bassett High School coach Jay Gilbert said Friday that he thinks Miller could make an announcement in the next 3-4 weeks. Boston College, Maryland and North Carolina State are among a group of schools that have requested film or otherwise have shown significant interest.
“The way it seems to work, as soon as one school offers, others follow,” Groh said. “Virginia was the first to offer. Then, Tech stepped up. Wake Forest came through [with an offer] this week.”
Tech has been considered the front-runner for Miller because his older brother, Tim, wrestles for the Hokies. The catch is, the Hokies want Miller to enroll as a wrestler.
It is Gilbert’s understanding that current Tech football projections allow for only one scholarship lineman in the class of 2009. The Hokies essentially are recruiting Miller for the football class of 2010 but want him to school on a wrestling scholarship, participate in wrestling during the 2008-2009 season, then join the football team in the spring.
Once he played in a football game for the Hokies, Miller would count against the football scholarship limit, whether he continued to wrestle or not.
“Tech is probably the frontrunner,” Gilbert said, “but I don’t know if he wants to go the wrestling route. There is the possibility that he could get hurt in wrestling.”
Wherever he goes, Miller will be the fourth Miller sibling to accept a grant-in-aid from an ACC athletic program. Oldest brother John went to Duke, where he played on the offensive line; sister Heather went to Wake Forest for basketball, and Tim is at Tech, where he saw limited action this year as a 197-pounder.
“Andrew’s dad was saying something about liking Virginia,” Gilbert said, “and I told him, ‘You really do want four children at four different schools.’ Virginia has done everything the NCAA probably allows to get him to commit in the last three or four weeks.”
Gilbert thinks that Wake Forest could quickly challenge Virginia Tech because of the Millers’ familiarity with the athletic program and the proximity of Wake’s campus to Henry County. Winston-Salem, N.C., is scarcely an hour’s drive from the Miller’s home.
Miller, who has a 3.67 grade-point average, has expressed an interest in majoring in agricultural science “and I’m sure that hurts Virginia some,” Gilbert said. “I’m sure there are some other majors that would challenge him but Andrew grew up on a farm. The agricultural part does interest him.”
Before the recruiting picked up, Gilbert said, he put a list of schools on a blackboard and asked Miller to rank them. Tech was No. 1 at that time.
“Andrew and Tim are real close,” Gilbert said, “but Andrew’s a really quiet person. I went up to Virginia with him last week and Andrew really could have loved it and I never would have known. He’s just that kind of kid.”
>> Gilbert has two other rising seniors, quarterback Rashawn “Boo” Woods and two-way lineman Dameon Hairston, whom he views as scholarship candidates at either the Division I-AA or Division II level.
Woods was named Timesland offensive player of the year after accounting for more than 1,000 yards both rushing and passing in 2007, when he helped Bassett to its first 10-0 regular season.
Woods has a 3.15 grade-point average, but his height (he’s 5-10, 191) probably will keep him from being recruited as a quarterback. At 6-1 and 295 pounds, Hairston, too, is height-challenged to play his position at the I-A level.
Miller joined Woods on the All-Timesland first team and Hairston was a second-team selection.
TOMMY REAMON, maybe best known as the Warwick High School coach of Michael and Marcus Vick, has come out of a brief retirement to take over the program at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach.
Landstown won the Group AAA Division 5 state championship in 2004, when Chris Beatty was the head coach and current University of Florida wide receiver Percy Harvin was the star player. When Beatty went to Hampton University, he was replaced by former Virginia Tech fullback Steve Canter.
Canter, 27, had a two-year record of 13-7 at Landstown before resigning March 17 to join the staff at Norfolk State.
Reamon most recently had been the coach at Glocuester, where he felt he had a couple of Division I-A prospects in tight end-defensive end Josh Lovell (6-6, 240) and wide receiver-athlete Ray Harris, a pair of rising seniors.
Lovell was a top target for Reamon’s son, Tommy Jr., last year’s Gloucester quarterback, but Tommy Sr. thinks he is best suited to play defensive end in college. West Virginia, with Beatty as the lead recruiter, has emerged as a leader for Lovell’s future services.
(Don’t be surprised if West Virginia also gets Damon McDaniel, who left Florida State after two seasons. McDaniel, who also has had Virginia Tech under consideration, played on Beatty’s great Landstown teams in 2004 and 2005).
At Landstown, Reamon has inherited one of the state’s top-rated running backs in Sterlin Phifer, whom Reamon describes as “big, big time.” Reamon has been identified with quarterbacks like the Vicks and Aaron Brooks, but he is a former running back, himself, who says Phifer will be featured.
Landstown has been known for athletic, all-purpose quarterbacks, the latest of whom, 6-1, 170-pound Alan Powell, is a “great athlete” according to Reamon. And, college recruiters are going to want more information about Justin Williams, a 6-5, 225-pound defensive end who moved to Virginia Beach after playing in Miami this past fall as a junior.
