ARLINGTON – TCU defensive tackle Ross Blacklock pulled up his purple, overmatched short sleeve – the oversized triceps and biceps of a lumberjack pushing the limits of fabric — to show he was a marked man.
Tattoos decorate his right arm, dem bones accessorized from the tip of the shoulder blade to wrist.
One represents life’s chief aspiration, the gateway to heaven. A reminder that that destination is not given but earned. The next is a devotion to his late uncle. Next, a clock marking his birth and a reminder that time is so precious a commodity it can never to be reclaimed.
“This is very first tattoo, a lion. The heart of a lion.”
The last, too, are meaningful.
“This is a memorial for my coach who passed away,” Blacklock said at this week’s Big 12 Media Days at AT&T Stadium. “He passed away a long time ago. I dedicated these two pieces to him. He was a great mentor to me.”
Robert Brooks was Blacklock’s mentor and track and football coach from about the age of 5 until he passed away suddenly during Blacklock’s days in junior high. Blacklock believed he was in the eighth grade.
“He was my track coach. He helped me train for football. He’d stay up with me ’til it was dark, dark outside. No lights. We’d be out there working out.”
A brain aneurism was to blame for a life cut short, Blacklock said.
Blacklock said on Monday that he was “110 percent” healthy after missing all of last season with an Achilles’ injury sustained during fall camp. It was a difficult time. Not only could he not play, he couldn’t even attend last year’s Ohio State game, watching instead at home, with his scooter nearby.
Despite the hardship, Blacklock said the injury made him a better player and person.
Blacklock believes you’ll see “a better me than when I last played.”
The injury and the experience have changed his perspective.
The lost coach is still very present, it’s obvious.
“I try to make him proud every time I step on the field.”
What would Mr. Brooks, the mentor, have offered about last year’s lost season.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Blacklock answered. “God has a plan for all of us. Whatever plan He has for you, it might not seem like it at the time, but He has a plan for everybody. It took me awhile to swallow that pill, but I truly understand it now.”
Sitting at the podium to the Horned Frogs’ Paul Bunyan was Jalen Reagor, the TCU wide receiver who runs and thinks the same way, briskly.
Reagor, a junior from Waxahachie, is a can-do type of guy whose energy invigorates.
It’s clear he is driven by his desire to be the very best receiver in the country. The prestigious Biletnikoff Award he has announced is at the top of his evolving bucket list.
Reagor missed spring practice after undergoing a procedure, a “minor cleanup” of his ankle.
“I feel brand new … scary,” he quipped. “I woke up feeling dangerous.”
After watching him the past two years, he is undoubtedly among those names mentioned as the best receivers in the Big 12, including Tylan Wallace, a Biletnikoff finalist a year ago, who played at Fort Worth South Hills High School, and Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb.
“I feel I’m the most versatile,” Reagor said. “What receivers do you know that play running back? What receivers do you know, besides CeeDee, really returned the ball like I did? It’s about likeness in this world. It’s whoever they like, that’s who they’re going to promote. I don’t find motivation in any of that. I’m going to work hard and do my job to the best of my ability week in and week out.
“I’d go block a punt or field goal if I had to to touch the ball.”
Taking a stroll down interview lane, there was Les Miles, the new coach at Kansas, who had drawn a crowd of reporters for all the wrong reasons.
This considered attention is very un-Kansas for football, but Miles’ handling of Pooka Williams’ run-in with the law. Allegations that Williams roughed up an 18-year-old woman drew only a one-game suspension, though Miles asserted more had been done over the past year that we didn’t know about.
He was more than willing to detour into talk about chewing grass or his role in the recent indie drama The Last Whistle, filmed and produced in Fort Worth, where presumably Hollywood begins.
The Last Whistle tells the story of a strict Texas high school football coach’s ambition leading to the death of one of his players.
Miles’ bit role is of antagonist to the coach at a local bar.
“I read for it,” Miles said. “The guy said, ‘listen, we’d love for you to do this.’ So, I did. Had a blast. Had a great time.”
He then recited part of the scene in which he confronts the coach, even using the inflection he deployed for the role.
They say you kilt him. / I mean, who said it? / Everybody, the whole town is talking. You kilt him.
“Thank you very much. I appreciate the applause,” Miles joked to the assembly, which was not asking for an encore.
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy worked as an assistant under Miles at Oklahoma State.
Gundy is now the second-longest tenured head coach in the Big 12, and you’d think he had seen it all, until … .
Mike, were you surprised to see Kliff Kingsbury taking the giant leap from fired at Texas Tech to the NFL?
“Weren’t you? Yeah, everybody was. When you first heard it, I think everybody was surprised. But when you see the trend and direction it’s going in the NFL … that league latches on to things, and that’s the newest thing out there. Honestly, for what resume they’re looking for, he’s a perfect fit. Basically, he’s a play caller, different from a head coach not calling plays. That’s what they were looking for.”
If it works, Gundy surmised we might see a flood of college coaches moving up.
Probably won’t be him, though. Once upon a time maybe, but that ship has sailed. He likes the environment of the college game. There is still teaching and molding young men.
“That’s important to me,” Gundy said. “I don’t think that’s a big part of the NFL. I think the NFL is pure business. I’m not saying I wouldn’t ever do it, but, boy, I just don’t know if it’s something that would do a lot for me.”
