The Emporia State football team is running sprints and the players are starting to get agitated. The coaches keep making them run more, because somebody didn’t touch a line or run all the way through.
In actuality, the coaches are making excuses to run the players more, just another way to test their toughness on a hot. But the players don’t realize this, and the wheels are turning as they start to play the blame game in their heads. Amongst all the frustration, Bryan Tarkington keeps talking to his teammates, his coaches, to whomever will listen.
“What you got?” Tarkington says with a smile, badgering a fellow defensive lineman.
“I like to talk,” Tarkington said. “I’m not going to lie about that. I’m pretty sure if you ask anybody on the team, they’ll let you know Tark talks.”
Tarkington’s favorite subject: Quarterbacks. It doesn’t matter what color jersey — even the black and gold — Tarkington loves talking quarterbacks.
“Me and Dre (Andre Sloan El) always talk,” Tarkington said. “Me, him and (Zach) Rampy we always talking. I tell them that my job is to come get you. I’m going to get in that head too.”
Before the season, the senior defensive tackle set a lofty goal for his one and only season as a Hornet.
“I’m definitely going for the sack record,” Tarkington said. “I don’t even know what it is, but I’m gonna break it.”
Six games into the season, Tarkington has been heard from in the MIAA. He’s second in the league in tackles for a loss (7.5) and seventh in sacks with 2.5. The sack record is 12 at ESU and he’s not quite on pace, but he still sees that as an attainable goal.
But it wasn’t Tarkington’s mouth that got him to Emporia State — his fifth college — where he is succeeding for the first time in years. Before he could succeed again, Tarkington had to learn to listen.
Tarkington started his collegiate career at Pierce College in California, where ESU defensive coordinator Ken Gordon was a defensive coach at the time. After Tarkington’s freshman season, there was a lot of turnover in the coaching staff and he decided to transfer to Moorpark Junior College.
At Moorpark, Tarkington set a school record with 16 sacks. His numbers got him noticed by Division 1 schools all over the country and he decided to go to Washington State in the Pac 10.
After taking a red shirt in 2005, Tarkington came into his junior season overweight and out of shape. He had to sit out his first three games but then played in the final eight and started four.
While he started to succeed on the football field, Tarkington struggled in the classroom. His grandma died that fall and with the distractions of her death and football, his grades slipped.
“I was kind of slacking,” he said, “not going to class and I wasn’t really focused in my practice. My grandma’s real dear to me so I kind of fell off with that. I didn’t care about anything else. I think I failed like two classes and I passed the rest of my classes.”
The next summer Tarkington had to take summer classes to make up for his bad grades during the school year. He took two classes and failed one. By failing the summer class, he was academically ineligible and because he could not sit out another year at a D-1 since he had already taken a red shirt, Tarkington was forced to transfer to an NAIA or Division II school.
Tarkington found out about his grades at the end of the summer and had to make quick plans to transfer. With few options, he picked an NAIA school in Oregon. Tarkington was miserable in Oregon and thought about quitting. He called his mom and told her the news.
“I told my mom I don’t know if I can do it if I’m not at D-1,” he said. “I don’t want to drop down to a D-2. I want to stay at D-1 and I told my mom I don’t know if I can do it anymore. I just don’t know. My mom said, ‘you know what, you’ve worked too hard from high school. You worked too hard from your JC to get to the D-1 level.’
“I didn’t pass my SATs, and that’s why I had to go to a JC. So fighting from my senior year all the way to my sophomore year of my JC. ... She said you’ve worked too hard, don’t do it. And I listened to my mom and it’s the best thing I’ve done. I’m glad I didn’t quit, because I don’t think I can do anything else. This is my life right here. This is like the best thing for me.”
Tarkington recommitted himself to football and to academics. In the middle of September last year, he got a call from Gordon who had talked to Tarkington’s high school coach and found out he was unhappy. Gordon convinced Tarkington to come to a school he’d never heard of and several days later, he was on a Greyhound headed to Kansas. He arrived on his birthday, Sept. 27.
“I hated it at first,” Tarkington said. “Watching people play for one. Sometimes I didn’t even want to come to the games because I didn’t want to watch other people play. It was hard. I learned the defense a little bit better — I could practice but I couldn’t play. ... I didn’t like sitting out that whole year, especially when we were struggling.”
Not being able to play helped motivate Tarkington for this season. He got his academics straight and has lost 30 pounds since he arrived. He worked out twice a day this summer to get in shape. He also became a calmer, more mature Tark the talker.
“I still have my times when I have coach tell me to chill out, calm down,” he said. “I used to talk a lot more when I was a freshman. Older guys were trying to teach me how to do stuff and I was like, ‘I don’t want to hear that. I’m out here doing what I gotta do.’
“But them teaching me and my mentor letting me know you can’t do that, there’s certain boundaries you’ve got to respect.
Watching from the sidelines, ESU coach Garin Higgins has been impressed with what Tarkington has done on the field this season. In a win against Augustana, he had four tackles for a loss, two pass breakups and a sack. Two weeks ago against Missouri Southern, he led the Hornets with two tackles for a loss and a team-high eight tackles, a rarity for a defensive tackle.
But it’s been Tarkington’s change in attitude off the field that has left Higgins even more impressed.
“Tark has come a long ways since he’s been here as far as maturity level and accepting how we do things here and being a part of our culture,” Higgins said. “I think off the field he’s come a long way. Being held accountable.”
While Tarkington has matured off the field, he still can’t slow his mouth on it. Last week at practice, Tarkington started talking to the ESU offensive linemen. His message was nothing new, he was letting them know he was going to get to their quarterback.
“I definitely calmed down,” Tarkington said, “but I’m still going to let them know that I’m here. That Tark is in the building.”
footballeyes (anonymous) says...
Where is everyone? Sure is quiet on the boards these days.
October 8, 2008 at 7:47 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )