Copley Senior David Arnold...

[Falconfreak90]

BGSU, among others, has offered this kid a schollie.

Training for tomorrow
Copley senior working hard to increase attention
By Gary Estwick
Beacon Journal sportswriter
COPLEY - The metal doors to the weight room at Copley High School are propped open. A midsummer breeze declines the invitation.

Inside, cotton T-shirts stick to ribs and backs as if glazed with Elmer's glue. Perspiration falls off football players and onto the equipment, then evaporates nearly as fast. Teenagers move from machine to machine like robots, punishing and pushing their pectorals, biceps, quadriceps, hamstrings and other muscles to new limits.

David Arnold has completed his lifting session, and his drenched T-shirt is proof. He and a group of teammates are at another workout station, located behind the school, up a small hill. They maneuver their legs above and around a set of blocking pads.

With Copley's season opener at Lake on Aug. 25 a little more than five weeks away, they head back indoors for another test of will. Coach Dan Boarman wants to see which of the nearly 50 players can execute the most push-ups.

Arnold lies on the floor near the squat machines and straightens his body. He wears a yellow ``Beat Tallmadge'' T-shirt, which at Copley never goes out of style. Several minutes later, he finishes third in the competition, not bad for a guy who one year ago was recovering from hernia surgery.

``At that time, he was an unknown commodity, even to the coaching staff,'' Boarman said later. ``I didn't know how good he was going to be.''

Arnold has spent the offseason before his senior year participating in Copley's football conditioning program and private speed training. He also reached the state track meet in the 1,600-meter relay.

The stronger he is, the faster he can contribute to a college football team, and the same goes for the rest of the nation's top Division I recruits.

``Not only are they in the weight room this summer, they have been,'' said Greg Gillum, assistant recruiting coordinator at Ohio State. ``More and more, the high school athlete is training year-round, whether they're in football or they're a multi-sport athlete.''

Arnold has little control over his height of 6 feet, but his 188-pound frame, increased strength and 4.4 speed in the 40-yard dash have made him a rising commodity.

Competing in a sport where three-tenths of a second in the 40 or a missed tackle on a game tape can decide whether a recruit signs at Ohio State or Youngstown State, Arnold's desire to improve has transformed him from an unranked prospect to a three-star recruit, according to the Web sites Rivals.com and Scout.com.

He already has beaten the odds.

Approximately 100,000 high school seniors are recruited every year, according to Dion Wheeler, author of Sports Scholarships Insider's Guide. Fewer than 5 percent earn Division I scholarships.

Since February, Arnold, 16, has earned scholarship offers from Illinois, Syracuse, the University of Akron, Indiana, Eastern Michigan and Bowling Green. That number could increase before national signing day Feb. 1.

His strength and speed certainly will.

Projecting the future

College football programs at every level utilize height, weight, speed and strength guidelines for every position. Being two inches shorter or 40 pounds weaker in the bench press, though, won't eliminate a recruit. It's simply a means to help coaching staffs decide which game tape they will watch first. Then the true evaluation starts.

How productive is a player? What kind of player is he? What kind of person is he? What kind of competitor is he? Is he a winner? Does he have a great work ethic?

That's where the recruiting business is so subjective, where one coach will project a prospect to play in the Big Ten, and another doesn't recognize him as Division I talent.

``(Former coach) John Cooper used to say at Ohio State, `If we're right 50 percent of the time, we're going to win the Big Ten title,' '' said Lee Owens, a former Buckeyes assistant coach and Zips head coach, now in charge of Ashland University's program.

``(In Division II) we have to be right about 90 percent of the time. The further you go down the (talent) food chain, the tougher it is, the fewer the mistakes you can make, the more evaluating you have to do.''

Most Division I colleges prefer safeties listed between 5-foot-10 and 6-foot-2, and weighing 180 to 215 pounds, depending on whether the player is a strong safety or free safety. The preferred 40 time is 4.5.

Even this changes from school to school. One defense might focus on pass coverage, so it needs smaller, more agile safeties. A run-stopping defense needs a safety with the body of an outside linebacker.

Arnold is a little bit of both. He has decent size for a defensive back and a knack for contact. As he learned last month at Ohio State's and Michigan's senior camps, his best attribute isn't man coverage against receivers, but that's not a primary responsibility of safeties anyway. He is willing to learn and hustle his way through.

Battling adversity

Midway through his sophomore football season, Arnold complained of pain near his groin. An initial visit to a doctor found him to be healthy. The pain persisted.

Several months later, he returned to the doctor and was referred to a specialist. In June 2005, his hernia ailment was diagnosed. Surgery quickly followed.

Arnold spent about one month recovering. He was unable to attend the University of Michigan's football camp for upcoming juniors. By the time he was able to lift, the season was nearly over. He struggled to lift 155 pounds.

In addition to playing his junior season with a limited amount of strength, he was still learning how to play safety -- he played cornerback and linebacker as a freshman -- and his offensive switch from running back to receiver was still in its infancy.

Tell that to the rest of the Suburban League, which voted him to its all-league team. Often relying on instincts, Arnold tallied more than 70 tackles and seven interceptions as a safety, and in his first year as a receiver, he caught 23 passes for 550 yards and three touchdowns.

``I don't really know how strong I was, but I wasn't that strong,'' Arnold remembered.

With his hernia injury healed, he lifted 185 pounds eight times during offseason tests between January and May.

Boarman estimates that Arnold can now lift 185 pounds 12 to 14 times. His squats (225 pounds) increased from 10 to 15 repetitions and his chin-ups increased from 13 to 15.

Copley administers an unusual speed test in which football players sprint up a flight of stairs near the school's gymnasium. Results are based on a calculation using the individual's finishing time and body weight. Arnold's result is considered above average.

Arnold also was tested once in the 40 and ran a 4.35 (hand-timed).

``The most important thing that he can do right now is hit the weights real hard,'' Boarman said. ``Mainly for the reason of keeping him on the field. Let's cut down on any of the trivial injuries, and we can do that by simply making the joints stronger.''

Arnold will need the extra strength this fall as he tries to earn an offer from one of the Top 25 programs recruiting him: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Boston College. Or he could accept one of his offers in hand before he loses them.

Decisions, decisions.


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Gary Estwick can be reached at 330-996-3826 or [email protected]

[Globetrotter]

I think its hilarious how overboard the author goes in the first part of the article.