■ 21 August 2008 | 8:39 PM
Thirsty Thursday? Have a sip ...
Sorry for the late posting tonight. Nothing I can report from practice, since today was one of those off-limits workouts.
I like to imagine on such days – when the gates are closed to all outside eyes – that Frank Beamer is cackling into his bullhorn, “Muhaha! Muuuuuuuhahahahaha!” while scheming plays like the Ed Wang end-around and the receiver screen to Ike Whitaker, who then throws into the backfield to Greg Boone, who then throws a bomb to Taco Thompson, who would’ve been lined up in the slot for this particular trickeration.
I cannot confirm it, but I have a pretty strong gut feeling that's exactly what I’m missing during all these closed practices. Tomorrow, though, marks the biggest OPEN practice of the preseason. It’s the Hokies’ final scrimmage, the one after which the coaches say they’ll decide on a quarterback. Or two.
Tomorrow will also probably finalize the pecking order, at least for Week 1, in the backfield. I’d love to make a prediction, but that five-horse race is too close to call.
Anyhow … I’ll be there, notepad in hand, tape recorder in tow, to record the sights, sounds and reactions of that final game-like exercise. And I’ll report back as speedily as I can.
Until then, here’s a sneak peek at a story I have running in tomorrow’s Pilot, on defensive tackle Cordarrow Thompson. He finally lost most of the blubber that’s been holding him back, and it was interesting to sit down with him and talk about how it happened.
“Taco,” as he is affectionately know in Hokieland, seems to be another gentle giant, like fellow tackle John Graves. For a couple mountainous men, they sure are a soft-spoken, yes-sir, no-sir kinda pair.
See you folks back here tomorrow. For now …
DL COACH CHARLEY WILES
ON CORDARROW THOMPSON’S WEIGHT LOSS: “He had to. It’s something that hopefully will carry over in his life, because the kid doesn’t need to be walking around here at 350 pounds. I don’t care what you’re doing. And for him to be a productive player on our football team, he had to. He’s working at it, and it’s got to be a daily thing for him.”
ON HOW IMPORTANT THOMPSON IS TO THE D-LINE THIS SEASON: “We’ve got one (D-linemen) in our room who’s started a football game for us. John (Graves) hasn’t started. Taco hasn’t started a game. But I like what we’ve done in camp so far, don’t get me wrong. Still, it’s not like we’ve arrived. I told those guys today, just because those starters weren’t scrimmaging, don’t take this like, ‘Hey, you’re pretty good.’ We’re nowhere near where we need to be or can be. Today was just looking at those second guys, exclusively. That’s all it meant. You’ve got to make sure they know that. Cordarrow knows that. I keep an eye on him, and hopefully at the end of the year we’ll see a guy that got better and better and better. Here’s a guy who went from being our fifth tackle last year to being our starter this year. So there’s a lot of expectation, and he’s had a good camp. I’m proud of the summer he’s had. He’s got some quickness, his conditioning is better, he can play more plays in a row. He always had good pop at the point of attack and hasn’t lost any power. He’s got all his strength, but he’s just in better shape.”
ON TALKING TO TACO AFTER LAST SEASON ABOUT HIS WEIGHT: “I told him I wasn’t going to give him any reps in spring – he’d have been running with the third team – if he didn’t lose weight and make a commitment to the program. We met two or three springs ago and told him what he needed to do, where he was in the program, what he needed to do body-wise. Everybody met with him from a football and body standpoint. He comes back, same body. He sees where he is on the depth chart, sees he’s not getting many reps, and he comes in halfway through camp and says, ‘What do I need to do?’ Well, we talked about that in March. We’re not talking about it now. So this year, I made sure and told him right after the season, ‘We’re not going to fool with it this time.’ I know who he is at 342 pounds and if that’s where he was, we’d work with the other guys. But then he made that commitment. It was a good sign, that he wanted to help the team and wanted to help himself. And he’s made himself into a better football player.”
ON THOMPSON’S FUTURE PROSPECTS: “Cordarrow, he’s got a shot. He just needs to keep working on his body, keep getting better. He’s got two years. You never know. There’s not enough good defensive tackles in the world. There’s certainly a chance (he could be a pro). He’s got quickness, a lot of pop. Now, the thing he’s lacking, like a lot of our guys, is experience. When you lose the guys we lost, you lost experience, and they learn the most out there on the field.”
DT CORDARROW THOMPSON
ON HOW MUCH WEIGHT HE LOST: “Forty pounds. As soon as we got off the airplane coming back from the bowl game, everybody went home and I stayed here. Gas was too high and there was no point going home, being lazy, sitting around and letting time pass me. So I just got in the cardio room and started working, the first day back.”
ON WHAT WILES SAID TO HIM AT THE END OF LAST SEASON: “He told me a week before the bowl game … we’d had middle drill in practice and I was showing off, making tackles, disrupting everything, and he brought me to the sideline and told me, ‘We know you can play. You’ve got all these great abilities. If you want to start for this team, you need to lose the weight. If not, this spring you won’t get any reps.’ I took it as a motivation. I just shook my head, didn’t say nothing and got to work.”
ON WHY HE FINALLY GOT BUSY THEN: “It was just time. Time for me to stop being lazy. The guys that were here before, who are in the pros now, they looked at me before they left and told me it was my time and don’t let it pass. They told me when it was my time not to have any regrets. So I’d get my iPod and get on that treadmill and just run until I couldn’t run no more. I’d run one minute, walk one minute and keep going that way for an hour. I’ve been watching what I eat, practicing hard. I’ve been losing a lot of weight with camp.”
ON HIS HIGH AND LOW WEIGHTS: “I got up to like 340, 345. Now I’m at 300. Coach Wiles was impressed. He was shocked. He said, ‘You did all the hard work. Let’s see your abilities now. Let’s see how quick you can run to the ball, how you can get off blocks, move lateral, get out in space.’ I feel myself improving every day. I can go longer than three plays. Way longer. After three plays last year, I was tired. Four, five, six plays, I’d be exhausted. I was always exhausted. And I couldn’t really move. I didn’t feel fast. The only way I could go was straight, just clog stuff up, because I couldn’t move well.”
ON WHY HE STRUGGLED TO LOSE WEIGHT BEFORE: “My mind frame wasn’t right. I knew the plays, wasn’t interested in losing the weight. I saw other guys could play at that weight, so why couldn’t I. But I guess Coach Wiles saw more in me. He saw somebody I didn’t see at the time. Everybody kept saying to lose the weight. I guess they all saw somebody I couldn’t see. But now I’m starting to see what they saw.”
ON HIS BODY FAT PERCENTAGE: “It’s down to 23. It was 29 percent. I had to get those numbers down. That’s not healthy. My father was on me every day. I was getting it from him and the coaches, and I guess I just didn’t want to hear it anymore.”
ON WHAT KIND OF DIET HE USED TO BE ON: “Just eating. Heavily. I wouldn’t eat sweets or anything. Just a lot of junk food, a lot of meats. I’d stay up late at night and get hungry. Then I’d go home, and my mother’s like a chef. She cooks a lot, and I’d just eat, eat until I couldn’t eat no more. Then I’d wake up and eat again.”
ON HIS FAVORITE GUILTY PLEASURE: “Fried chicken. I love chicken. All the time chicken. I’d get a bucket of KFC and take it down myself. Yep, in one sitting.”
ON TECH’S SPORTS NUTRITIONIST, AMY FREEL, TAKING HIM GROCERY SHOPPING: “Yeah, she took me shopping. She helped me pick out breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. She asked what types of fruit I liked. She picked out different things. I told her I liked pretzels, so I eat those for snacks now. I love cottage cheese and pineapple, so that’s my breakfast every morning. For lunch, Subway, $5 Subway. Then my girlfriend, she’d just cook baked chicken and rice. She’d make my plate, make it a healthy plate, and that’s all I’d eat for dinner – all before 6 p.m. If I ate past that time … sometimes I’d get bored and come over here at 1 or 2 in the morning and get on the treadmill.”
ON WHAT HE’D NORMALLY BE DOING AT 1 A.M.: “Eating chicken. So I ran instead. Then I’d be so tired from doing that, I’d just go to sleep. Then wake back up at 6 or 7 and go do Gentry’s workout.”
ON HOW HARD IT WAS TO GIVE UP OLD EATING HABITS: “It was hard. I’d drink gallons and gallons of water to stay full. And I’d force myself to go to sleep early. I had to sleep. If I couldn’t, I’d just come get on the treadmill. Even if it was 2 or 3 in the morning. I’d come on weekends, too.”
ON BEING IN THE STADIUM CLUB WITH THE OVERWEIGHT OFFENSIVE LINEMEN, WALKING STADIUM STEPS FOUR DAYS A WEEK: “Yep, the coaches had us walking 6:30 in the morning, then I’d turn around and run 16 110s (16 consecutive sprints of 110 yards) twice a week. The coaches were impressed I could handle it. They got me in great shape.”
ON BEING DETERMINED TO BE A STARTER: “All that hard work, like they say, it pays off. Keep working hard and things come to you. That’s all I think about every day.”
ON DEFENSIVE TACKLE BEING A CONCERN HEADING INTO THE SEASON: “That’s what everybody’s worried about, but me and John Graves, we’ve talked and we plan to get things done. We want to get things right. We don’t want to take a step back. I want to be where those other guys are (in the NFL) and have a chance. And have no regrets.”
ON HOW HE GOT THE NICKNAME “TACO”: “Noland Burchette (former Tech defensive end), the first time I met him he asked my name. I told him Cordarrow. He was like, ‘That sounds like something I get from Taco Bell. You’re going to be Taco from here on out.’ I was like, ‘Well, OK.’ So now the coaches, my girlfriend, my mom, everybody calls me Taco. Nobody knows my real name. I guess it was easy to remember. Everybody figured: He must love tacos. I don’t like Tacos, but it’s just a nickname. They call me Slim Taco now. It don’t much matter to me. I’m just ready to play.”
ON OTHER BENEFITS OF THE WEIGHT LOSS: “All my clothes fit too big now. I was wearing a 46 or 48 (inch waistband). Now I’m wearing 42 or 44. I could be on the next Jared commercial (Subway), because I have lost A LOT of weight. I looked at the picture from my freshman year … I looked like Snorlax off of Pokemon. (((Do yourself a favor and do a google image search of Snorlax. You will laugh.))) I just couldn’t believe that was me.”
ON WHAT THE OTHER PLAYERS SAY: “They’re proud of me. They just want me to keep working hard. They want me to be ready. Orion Martin, John Graves, Jason Worilds, they all stay on me to make sure I’m eating the right stuff. Without them, I don’t think I’d be here right now. They stay on me every day.”
ON NOT WANTING TO BE THE DEFENSE THAT LET’S COORDINATOR BUD FOSTER DOWN: “The guys that left told us to keep this program just where they left it, or take it to another level. Me and John take that as a motivation. We don’t want to let Coach Foster down. We’ve been here and we know the system well, so there’s no reason for us not to do the same things as those guys that just left.”
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