Riley Norman committed to MSU tonight with a track scholarship according to Josh Helmholdt of Rivals. As a Rivals Top 250 Offensive Tackle he would have been a great fit for the football team. And holy wow does MSU need offensive tackles. His football highlights are just ridiculous. Picture a grown man slapping around kindergartners, that’s about half as savage as these highlights are. Actually, just watch them below.
The kid really wants to shotput in college and who could blame him? He tossed a 61’ 2.5” this season in the shot and a 167’ 7” in the disc. For comparison, Reese Hoffa PRed this season at 71’ 3” and the gold medal winner finished the disc at 224. The 12th place finisher in the shot at the Olympics put a 65’ 7” toss. Norman may well have not just a college career out of this, he might well have real international potential at shot and disc.
Will he play football at MSU?
According to Helmholdt, no. Football has more scholarships than any other sport, so if Norman accepted a track ride, he’s going to do track. Otherwise they’d put him on football scholarship and let him do track in the Spring.
As bright as Norman’s future in football is, it takes some stones to run down the thing you love. Especially when track has just a fraction of the commercial success that football has. Best of luck to him and hopefully we can all watch him get his Reese Hoffa on in 2016 or 2020.
That man is an Olympic athlete and a damned fine one too. I’m living my life wrong.