Everyone needs to go pick up the DO today...

[The Consumate Showman]

if you can. There is a realy good piece today about Austin Box, our top ranked LB/Safety commit. Really makes me feel like we will be SOLID on D for a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time coming if we can continually get kids like him...

If you can, go look at it on-line. All you have to do to register is put in your name, address, and email...it's free for all of you who live outside of Oklahoma. So check it out.

Sorry to lazy to copy or put up a link. Busy with recruiting stuff today guys. See ya!

[OKC-SLC]

http://www.newsok.com/article/2836990/?template=sports/ou

ENID - Austin Box always wanted to keep his jersey number when he went to Oklahoma.

Now, he wants No. 7 even more.

The number has become a reminder of the trouble in Soonerville. Before being booted off the football team for accepting pay for work he never did, Rhett Bomar wore No. 7. Now the team isn’t using it, and the fans aren’t sporting it.

Box hopes to change that.

“I would love to get the chance to wear it just to ... make a new name for it,” the Enid High superstar said. “Make No. 7 a number to remember in Oklahoma history.”

And he might just have the talent to do it.

Box is considered the state’s top recruit, ranking first according to Rivals.com and Scout.com. The latter recruiting service went even further in its praise, tabbing the 6-foot-3, 215-pounder the best safety in all the land.

A year ago, though, Box was a relative unknown. Folks in Enid knew him since he’s lived there his whole life and played varsity football and baseball since he was a freshman.

The most diehard of recruitniks knew him, too.

But beyond that, he was a good player on a decent big-school team.

Now, he’s Austin Box.

But who is Austin Box?

To know that, you need to know the story of No. 7. Why his father first had him wear it. Why it fits him so well. Why it carries great promise and great pressure. Why, too, Box just might meet all its expectations.


---
Austin Box came by his love of sports naturally. Genetically, even. His father played football at Northwestern Oklahoma State, his mother volleyball. With his two older sisters playing sports, it was a constant part of his life.

Box and his father, Craig, watched sports on television all the time. Baseball. Basketball. Football.

And when they weren’t watching them, they were playing them.

“He was always out in the yard teaching me stuff,” Box said of his father. “I’m sure he wasn’t out there by choice a lot.”

Craig Box said, “Used to wear me out every night.”

His broad shoulders bounced as he chuckled.

“Throw me one more pass,’ or ‘Throw me one more ball,’ or ‘Hit me one more flyball.’ ”

Craig Box always did, not only because he could see how much Austin loved it, but also because he’d seen a glimpse of what his only son might become.

Austin was 4 years old when he started playing tee ball. Because the rest of the kids were 5, he usually played outfield or third base. The last game of the season, though, he moved to pitcher. No spot is hotter in tee ball.

Sure enough, a kid hit a screamer right at him.

“I mean, right at him,” Craig Box said. “For a split second, I’m going, ‘Oh, my God.’ ”

Austin dropped down and snagged the ball, then stood up and made a perfect throw to first base.

“He hadn’t had one like that hit to him all summer,” Craig Box said, still marveling all these years later. “He didn’t flinch. He just made the play.”

Austin, his father figured, needed to wear No. 7.

Just like Mickey Mantle.


---
No matter the sport, Box seemed a natural. He was always the biggest kid in the class - he was 6-1, 165 pounds in sixth grade - but he never bumbled or stumbled around. He skipped the awkward phase entirely.

“He’s always been the star,” friend and teammate Matthew Athey said.

That remained the same even when Box started high school. He began like all freshmen on the freshmen football team, but before the leaves turned, he moved to varsity.

“He went from sitting in the stands with us to making interceptions,” Athey said.

Lots of interceptions, actually. Even though Box only played a shortened varsity season, he picked off seven passes.

The next season, teams that tried to pick on him as a freshman did the exact opposite. They threw away from him and knocked his interception total down to nothing.

A mid-season injury only added to an already tough year.

“After my sophomore year, nobody knew who I was,” Box said. “I had to make a name for myself my junior year.”

All he did was go out and run for 815 yards and throw for almost 1,500 yards while recording 73 tackles. Even more than the numbers, Box became known for his physicality. He tracks down ballcarriers, closes on them, then levels them. He runs like someone smaller but hits like someone bigger.

Much bigger.


---
The Choctaw running back hit the hole, sidestepped one guy, then juked another. Then he got to Box. Or rather, Box got to him.

He stopped.

His helmet did not.

“That’s why I love football, just getting to lay licks like that,” Box said of the hit during a preseason scrimmage a week ago. “That’s the ultimate reward, I think, even over scoring a touchdown or getting an interception.”

Off the field, Box is one of the guys. He hangs out. He cuts up. He watches TV and plays video games.

“But ever since he was little, when he crossed those white lines, he was a fierce competitor,” his father said. “He’s always wanted to compete at the highest level.”

Always wanted to win, too.

Losses have reduced him to tears. And not just as a kid in the car after a little league game. Last season when Enid finished the regular season with losses to Ponca City and Stillwater that kept it out of the playoffs, Box’s emotions boiled over.

“He cried like a baby,” said his dad, a lawyer in Enid. “It just killed him to lose.”

His mom, Gail, a counselor at the high school, said, “He’s the hardest person on himself. I have to remind him occasionally, ’You can’t be perfect all the time, son.’ ”

Box understands that, of course, but it doesn’t keep him from striving for that perfection. He wants so badly to be great. To be the best.

Like Mickey Mantle. Box has read as much as possible about the man who wore No. 7 for the New York Yankees. He knows, then, that Mantle grew up in Oklahoma, that he honed his skills in the yard with his father, that he played with tenacity and passion, and that he hit with power that was matched by few.

Box knows, then, that he has more in common with Mantle than just his number.

“Being an Oklahoman, he’s always been someone I idolized,” Box said. “He’s just kind of a go-getter.

“That’s what I want people to remember me like.”

[Blues1]

Give Him The Number --- 007

Lets have 007 on The Sooner FOOTBALL Team ---- !!!!

BOX The Secret Agent MAN....!!!! 007 ----- :)

[Sooner-N-KS]

Rivals.com has him as a 4 star, 3rd at outside linebacker, and 67 overall.

Scout.com has him as 5 star, 1st at safety, and 9 overall.

[sooner94]

Sounds like he might be able to play the Roy position.

[OUGreg723]

He'll be a linebacker. This kid is for real. I cant wait untill he is here. I think he'll be a combination of Rufus and Teddy Lehman.