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By BRENDAN MCGAIR Sports writer Jordan Monk may not record a tackle or reception, nor see action on special teams for N.C. State this fall. There’s a chance he might not even dress up for home games, a cruel reminder Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger desperately sought to remedy during his publicized Notre Dame career.
Still Monk, the former St. Raphael standout, both in football and track, could take quantum leaps – both physically and mentally – in the weeks and months ahead.
Monk is a walk-on for coach Tom O’Brien’s Wolfpack. Translation: the Saints’ answer to Everyman is a little fish in a huge pond. To go from getting significant snaps in four varsity seasons with the Saints to not even being sure if scout team duties are available can be somewhat frustrating, perhaps even downright frightening.
Still, locking horns with players currently boasting significant strengths over Monk doesn’t seem to scare him away. The six-foot, 180-pounder knows he’s on the lower end of the gridiron food chain, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do something that makes the coaching staff remember him besides the number on the back of his jersey.
“It will probably test my patience,” said Monk when asked what he’ll be leaning on to guide him through his freshman year. “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to put my head down.
“Each practice and film session is a chance to get better,” continued Monk, whose family moved from Providence to Seekonk after his sophomore term at SRA. “You have to treat every practice hard and take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. Always give 110 percent and always hustle to the ball.”
Legend says walk-ons are to be seen and hardly heard. They are non-scholarship student-athletes ho seldom get the chance to strut their stuff. They are the last ones to receive tape jobs and are forced to fend for themselves at dinnertime while the “big boys” chow down at the dining hall.
In short, nothing is handed to you.
Then again, just because a walk-on wasn’t awarded a scholarship doesn’t rule out the chances of landing one. Scouting college football hopefuls – make that the recruiting efforts for all sports and genders – is far from an exact science. Peruse the rosters of the 119 members of the Bowl Subdivision and chances are there lurks plenty of diamond-in-the-rough stories, stories that prove it can be done.
Monk is seeking to have a similar tale told about him someday. N.C. State opened camp on July 31. Practices, he says, were intense and long, often starting at 6:30 in the morning and lasting right up until 9 at night.
Though it seems foolish to compare camp run by an Interscholastic League member and one who resides in a BCS conference, but Monk was able to draw some parallels between camp-then and camp-now.
“At SRA we would come in for 7:30 practice, then have 3-4 hours off in the middle of the day before coming back later,” said Monk. “(With the Wolfpack) there’s practices and meetings. The playbook is much thicker. We ran 4-3 defense at Saints, but now there are hundreds of blitzes and ways to attack multiple receiver sets.”
By his own admission, Monk feels he’s standing up to the on-field grind. This despite the coaches’ zest to “keep you hungry.” The only area he’s trying to catch-up on is getting down the terminology, but that should be expected from someone in Monk’s current position.
That doesn’t rule out Monk making a difference, even if it’s hardly noticeable to Joe Fan. “My job on the scout team is to get the first- and second-stringers ready to win for that week,” he said.
Monk knows he took a bit of gamble going to N.C. State. He could have stayed at home and played football at URI with his brother John, a redshirt sophomore. In fact, Monk could have chosen to play at New Hampshire and Hofstra, but all changed when a little birdie informed him that he had the necessary gifts to play at a higher level.
Those gifts were portrayed on a video shipped to the N.C. State coaching staff. From roaming the secondary to breakaway speed as a receiver and kick returner, it was all packaged neatly together.
The crowning highlight, of course, being the 68-yard punt return that helped set up St. Raphael’s game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, a play that capped off a perfect season and a perfect ending to Monk’s high school career.
“Coach O’Brien said he didn’t have a scholarship to offer me, but he wanted me,” said Monk. “The highlights (which were posted to youtube.com) show I can play both sides of the ball.”
Monk understands the fervor surrounding N.C. State’s season-opener at South Carolina, set for Thursday night. “I’ve been hearing about that game for weeks,” he said. “People come up and ask ‘How are you guys going to do this season?’”
N.C. State, picked to finish last in the ACC’s Atlantic Division by Blue Ribbon Yearbook, doesn’t come north to face Boston College this year but will next autumn. Monk is already envisioning the day the Wolfpack venture into The Heights, which would afford him the chance to play before well-wishers.
A lot must happen before then, but it sounds like Monk has a firm goal in mind: to boldly shed that walk-on label he headed down to Raleigh, NC with. Becoming the next “Rudy” isn’t in the cards.
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