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NIU32 Offline
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Post: #1
Great Paris Logan Article
Wow I never knew any of this stuff about him. Great story and kudos to him for the success he's had from where he came from

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/sports...8a8c3.html


Paris Logan is still an underdog, but now the NFL is his stage
ALEX SCHIFFER Apr 19, 2016 0

COLUMBIA — Rock Bridge High School sophomore Paris Logan sat with his head down on his desk. It was the last class on a fall day, and he had no interest in his schoolwork, no plan for his life and a tough situation at home.

Michael Lockett, a substitute teacher for the class and defensive backs coach for the Bruins football team, approached the sophomore with an idea.

Go out for football.

Logan was hesitant at first, partly because he didn’t have a consistent ride home and feared he’d be stranded at school. But he took Lockett up on his offer.

The result?

Paris Logan had a standout high school career, which led to an all-conference college career at Northern Illinois and a bachelor’s degree, along with an outside chance to be selected in this weekend’s NFL Draft.



Logan grew up with no father. When he was 8 years old, his mother was found guilty of aggravated assault. She served nine and a half years of a 10-year sentence.

He saw a lot of people abusing drugs, including his relatives and neighbors — sometimes in his own home. Logan said he quickly learned the effects drugs can have on people.

He learned to size people up and read them quickly.

“It seemed like every time I turned around, especially when I was young, every other week someone else was getting locked up and going to prison for something dumb or drugs and running the streets,” he said.

His maternal grandmother raised him.

“My grandmother could’ve just washed her hands away with us and said 'no, I don’t want to take that responsibility,'” Logan said. “She basically just stopped her life and took us in and raised three kids out of love for her daughter and grandkids. She definitely made a lot of sacrifices.”

College wasn’t even a thought.

“I never had that type of support system,” Logan said. “I’ve never known anyone in my family to go to college for sports and actually make it all the way through.”

Logan said he was an angry kid, but he kept it to himself.

“You go to school and see kids having a normal childhood, and you’re just like, ‘I wish I had that,’” he said.

“If it wasn’t for football, I’d probably be in the streets selling drugs or something,” he said. “I think that was the path where my mindset was."

***

Logan showed flashes of being a great football player the first time he went full pads for the Bruins his sophomore year.

Logan, who was 16 years old at the time and roughly 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds, played cornerback. His first assignment was against Jarred Henry, the Bruins’ 6-foot-2, 210-pound tight end who had committed to play college football for Weber State.

In a drill, Henry ran a vertical seam route. Logan ran full-speed into him and lifted him off the ground.

“Right then and there, we had something,” said Battle High School coach Justin Conyers, the Bruins’ defensive coordinator at the time. “He was going to be raw, but we knew we were going to be able to get something out of him."

Logan appeared in the Bruins’ last junior varsity game of the season, against rival Hickman.

He spent the offseason working on the fundamentals with Lockett and doing a weight training program in hopes of being able to crack the team’s depth chart the next year.

He did. Logan’s junior season established him as one of the team’s best defensive players and one of the best defensive backs in the state.

He held future Missouri wide receiver Marcus Lucas, a 6-foot-5 Army All-American, to only a couple catches in the Bruins’ game against Liberty. At the time, Lucas was considered the top offensive player in the state.

“We were never afraid to put Paris on the opponent’s best athlete,” Conyers said.

Logan embraced the newfound camaraderie of the Bruins’ program. He never missed a practice and attended every team function, from the workouts to the bake sales.

Rock Bridge coach A.J. Ofodile enjoys watching the players grow and mature.

“I look at it as one of the things that’s kept me addicted to this place — the potential,” Ofodile said. “We want to make things work for kids. We want to have kids have positive outcomes. We want them to see hope, and I think we also do a great job in seeing the potential in kids.”

In Logan’s case, Ofodile saw a natural. Ofodile sometimes wondered if Logan was getting football because he didn’t say much.

“I don’t even know if he knows this, but we were friends on Facebook,” Ofodile said. “I would see quotes that he would post that resonated with him, and it was some of this really well thought-out, really deeply profound stuff.

"And I’m like, you know, he doesn’t say two words, but this is definitely a still-waters-run-deep situation. This is a really deep thinker. So you knew, this is a kid who had really high-level intellect, high-level understanding of things in a much deeper sense than someone his age should have.

"And now you know you really have something special.”

Logan’s strong high school career continued into his senior season. He shut down another future Missouri receiver in Wesley Leftwich. As a senior, he had a team-high five interceptions and 74 tackles and earned all-district honors.

Although Logan played only two varsity seasons in high school, it looked like he had a chance to play college football.



Following Logan's senior season, Ofodile’s phone stayed quiet.

The Rock Bridge football coach had been telling Logan for more than a year that he was going to get a Division I scholarship, but no schools called.

Logan had the deck stacked against him in the recruiting process because he had only two years of experience, was a small cornerback and had academic issues — all considered red flags for recruiters.

In the summer before his senior year, Wisconsin took notice of Logan. But his grades from his first two years of high school were holding him back, and he was unable to qualify for a scholarship to become a Badger.

Kevin Kane, who was a graduate assistant for the Badgers at the time, was impressed with Logan’s speed. When he was hired by Northern Illinois in December 2010 as the tight ends coach, he made Logan his first priority as a recruit.

Kane was from Kansas City and knew Rock Bridge had a reputation for producing quality football players. On top of that, the Huskies were in dire need of cornerbacks to fill out their recruiting class.

Logan was offered a scholarship by Northern Illinois and committed to play for the Mid-American Conference program just west of Chicago.

Finally, it was real.

“It’s funny how everything falls into place,” Ofodile said. “I’m a big believer that nothing happens by chance. That the coach would get the Northern Illinois job at the exact right level and the exact right situation to take this kid, I think some of that stuff is too much to be coincidence.”

Logan still had work to do in the classroom. His senior year spring semester schedule included two science classes, two English classes, two math classes and a history class to qualify.

Logan worked with Mary Grupe, who tutored him.

“He had no room for any mistakes,” Grupe said.

“When he left for college his freshman year, it was a reminder to me that good things still happen to people when they really needed it,” she said.



Grupe drove with him to the NIU campus. She even influenced the roommate he had his first year away from home.

“I switched Paris’ freshman year roommate key with Juwan (Brescacin) when Juwan walked in,” she said. “I saw his mom, I heard them talk to each other, and I thought these are the two that should be in a room together. So without Paris knowing, or Juwan knowing or Juwan’s mom knowing, I went down and switched the keys.”

After redshirting his first year, typical for many Division I athletes, Logan became a prolific defensive back and reliable special teams player for the Huskies.

“He kind of took that next step to challenging the guys ahead of him, as in saying, ‘I’m not just going to wait back and wait for you guys to graduate,’” Brescacin said. “He was trying to take spots.”

Logan knew he had a chance to leapfrog the starters on the depth chart. More than that, he was named first team all-MAC his junior season, which established him as one of the top defensive backs in the league. He made SportsCenter’s top 10 plays for an over-the-shoulder, one-handed interception against Northwestern and was on the Jim Thorpe Award watch list, which is given to the top defensive back in college football.

“His biggest weakness in football was always his confidence,” Grupe said. “The ability to read people — I think once he translated that onto the field, it was awesome.”



When NFL commissioner Roger Goodell steps to the podium innumerable times this weekend to announce the players teams decided to take a chance on, the odds are against Logan once again.

He wasn’t one of the 37 cornerbacks invited to the NFL Combine, and CBS Sports draft analyst Dane Brugler has Logan going undrafted in his seven-round mock draft. Logan's 5-foot-9 frame and 4.57-second 40-yard dash time work against him. But Brugler stills thinks Logan has the chance to make an NFL team out of training camp.

“Paris Logan is a coordinated athlete who does some of his best work when the ball is in the air,” Brugler said in an email after watching Logan’s film. “He has terrific tracking and ball skills to quickly locate and make a play on the ball. His aggressive nature is one of his best strengths, but also one of his weaknesses because of his bad habits making contact downfield.”

If professional football doesn’t work for Logan, he has a backup option. He graduated from NIU in December, in three and a half years, with a degree in sociology. He plans to go into coaching and be a counselor — something he wishes he had had.

Logan knows the odds of having a pro career aren’t great. He has come this far by beating the odds. He’s content with having to beat them again.

“I’m used to being the underdog and used to having to prove myself,” he said.

Supervising editor is Sean Morrison.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2016 12:46 PM by NIU32.)
04-29-2016 12:41 PM
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HuskieFamily Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Great Paris Logan Article
Very nice!!
04-29-2016 12:51 PM
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sarasotahuskie Offline
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Post: #3
RE: Great Paris Logan Article
Great story, thanks for posting. And, good luck to Paris.
04-29-2016 02:43 PM
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klake87 Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Great Paris Logan Article
He has definitely overcome a lot in his life. Great article.
04-29-2016 02:45 PM
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Skinut Offline
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RE: Great Paris Logan Article
Thanks for posting. Great read.
04-29-2016 02:48 PM
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niuco90 Offline
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RE: Great Paris Logan Article
(04-29-2016 02:48 PM)Skinut Wrote:  Thanks for posting. Great read.

+1. It is good to hear stories like this rather than gas mask bongs and the like.
04-29-2016 04:15 PM
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Huskiemom11 Away
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Post: #7
Great Paris Logan Article
He is an amazing young man with a huge heart! I'm proud to call him my other 'son'
04-29-2016 09:06 PM
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17Huskies Offline
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RE: Great Paris Logan Article
These are the stories that make the NIU program.
04-29-2016 10:26 PM
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NIU32 Offline
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Post: #9
Great Paris Logan Article
(04-29-2016 09:06 PM)Huskiemom11 Wrote:  He is an amazing young man with a huge heart! I'm proud to call him my other 'son'


It was nice to see you getting a plug in this article too, Juwan's mom. We've never met, but for Paris's people to see how you and Juwan were and having to run down to switch roommates is impressive! Juwan is a great kid as well, so you've obviously done an awesome job w him! Here's to hoping both get their names called at the draft today!
04-30-2016 07:05 AM
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Huskiemom11 Away
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Post: #10
Great Paris Logan Article
Thank you very much! No matter what happens they have made me very proud on and off the field.
04-30-2016 04:55 PM
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sarasotahuskie Offline
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RE: Great Paris Logan Article
This is why we think the Huskies are special and different. Spread the word, kids with a difficult past can have a good future here.
04-30-2016 08:26 PM
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The Frisky Biscuit Offline
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RE: Great Paris Logan Article
Awesome stuff. I haven't stopped drooling after that INT against Northwestern.
(This post was last modified: 05-01-2016 12:53 PM by The Frisky Biscuit.)
05-01-2016 12:52 PM
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