Varsity Magazine - April 22, 2020

CONTENTS

APRIL 22, 2020 ▪ VOLUME 10, ISSUE 20

STACY SCHIESL

12 ADAPT. LEARN. ACHIEVE. Feeling lost and alone as he sat in jail, Seth Gross wasn’t sure he’d ever wrestle again. A few years later, he earned an NCAA Championship. While COVID-19 may have stolen his chance at another title, he’s still attacking his goals.

FEATURES

NFL DRAFT 6 LUCAS AT LARGE

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LUCAS AT LARGE

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WHAT TO WATCH

What makes Jonathan Taylor unique? Coach John Settle’s assessment to NFL teams goes beyond the history-making stats

11 VIRAL VIDEO 12 MY WORDS FEATURE:

SETH GROSS 22 MY WORDS FEATURE:

MOLLY HAGGERTY

22 MY WORDS

30 MY WORDS FEATURE:

JONATHAN AND

JORDAN DAVIS TOM LYNN

37 MY WORDS:

FULL LIST OF FEATURES

Molly Haggerty’s journey back from injury to the NCAA title game. Jonathan and Jordan Davis’ journey to Madison this next school year. Read some of our favorite MyWords stories …

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LUCAS AT LARGE

BY MIKE LUCAS ▪ UWBADGERS.COM SENIOR WRITER

What makes Jonathan Taylor unique?

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uppose you’re a pro scout, offensive coordinator, head coach, personnel director, general manager, or owner. What would you like to know about Jonathan Taylor that you don’t already know? What do you NEED to know prior to Thursday and the start of the National Football League draft?

The numbers are the numbers.

They speak for themselves. No other tailback in FBS history — not Herschel Walker, not Ron Dayne, not LaMichael James — has ever rushed for more yardage through their junior season than Taylor, a back-to-back Doak Walker Award winner.

But what are Taylor’s selling points beyond the raw numbers (926 carries, 6,174 yards, 6.7 yards per rush, 50 touchdowns)?

Anybody can Google his college statistics or bio and see that he ran for over 200 yards 12 times, two shy of Dayne, the all-time leader in that category. What really stands out about his game, though?

“One is his ability to understand the blocking schemes,” said John Settle, the UW running backs coach. “He’s going to understand who is supposed to do what if it’s an inside zone and who’s working together if it’s an outside zone. That allows him to set up blocks with the patience that he has.

“That’s the one thing that jumps off the screen when you watch him. Even though everybody knows how fast he is (4.39 in the

40), he has the ability to play slow and allow the blockers to glue up, so to speak, to set up a chance for him to hit a crease and take off and break one or two.”

No matter who should draft Taylor — and most projections have him going late in the first round or early in the second — Settle is confident that he will quickly pick up the nuances of the offense, any NFL offense, another selling point in respect to his readiness to play right away as a rookie.

“HE PREPARED TO CARRY THE LOAD DURING THE SEASON — TO DO IT WEEK-IN AND WEEK-OUT. TO PUT UP THE NUMBERS THAT THE DID FOR US AND NOT MISS ANY TIME …

TO ME, THAT IS THE MOST IMPRESSIVE THING ABOUT HIM.” “One thing that teams are beginning to understand the more that they talk to him and the more they study him from a football standpoint,” Settle said, “he’s a very smart guy and the learning part comes easy for him. I don’t care what scheme they put him in, he won’t have a problem running it.

“That appeals to a lot of people. One thing we’ve talked about — and he has heard it from me for three years — is that football is football. Once you understand the scheme, all you have to do is figure out what they’re calling it, the terminolo-

gy. Once you figure that out, it’s just playing ball.”

Settle has heard from NFL teams throughout the pre-draft process. Some people, he feels, are just doing their due diligence on Taylor, whether they have a real conviction to taking a running back in the first round or not. Others have expressed a more genuine interest in what they may be getting.

Settle has been quizzed on a number of things. “The one thing that was coming up,” he said, “was ‘How hard of a worker is he? Is he willing to work?’ The ball security issue, of course, is a concern. They’ll ask, ‘Is he willing to work on that? Is he willing to do what it takes to correct that?’

“My answer has always been the same. He does a heck of a job in practice (on ball security).

He gets into a game and sometimes it gets away from him. As far as his work ethic, his willingness to work, you cannot question that. And he will work on it (fumbling) and I’m confident he will get that done.”

In 41 games, Taylor lost 15 fumbles (Tony Dorsett and Franco Harris each had 90 fumbles during their NFL careers. Walter Payton had 86. Adrian Peterson fumbled 19 times over his first three seasons.).

“He had that glitch once … but it’s something that I know that he has worked on to improve,” Settle reiterated. “Like I’ve told him, like I tell all our young men, it’s a matter of pride and being

able to give that ball to the official after every play unless it’s after a touchdown and you want to spike it.”

Settle brought up another selling point: durability.

“One thing that really impressed me — and we’re talking about watching him over the last three years — is the fact that he didn’t miss any games or practices,” Settle said. “That speaks volumes to him physically as a young man, as an athlete taking care of his body during the offseason.

“He prepared to carry the load during the season — to do it week-in and week-out. I don’t care who you are — and you can look at a lot of tailbacks over the last few years in the Big Ten and Power Five — there are going to be guys who are nicked up and they’re going to miss a game here and there.

“But the fact that he was able to put up the numbers that the did for us and not miss any time …

(Taylor had 299, 307 and 320 carries in his three seasons at Wisconsin.)

“To me, that is the most impressive thing about him.”

Yet another selling point is Taylor’s personality. Or his coachability.

“Like I was telling one of the (NFL) coaches last week, I kept waiting for him to change,” Settle said. “It was hard to believe that a young man could come out of high school and be as courteous and good he was off the field.

But in the three years we had him, he never changed.

“It speaks volumes to his upbringing, the people who raised him and worked with him in Salem, New Jersey. I don’t care who drafts him, they’re going to get a well-grounded young man.

It’s my belief, he has more desire than just getting drafted and making it in the NFL. He wants to be an impact player.”

What are the odds that Taylor can make that jump from college

to the pros? In this case, Settle is a good source of information as a former running back himself.

In 1988, while playing in Atlanta, he went to the Pro Bowl after becoming the first free agent in NFL history to rush for over 1,000 yards.

“The first time he lines up against an NFL defense and they close on him, he’s going to realize the holes open and close rather quickly,” said Settle, who played four years in the league and coached six seasons with three different teams. “You can’t be guessing. You’ve got to know what you’re doing.

“He’ll have to adjust to the size of the linebackers that he’s going to have to block and the speed and athleticism that they bring when they are rushing. I know it’s a challenge he’s looking forward to. He has shown that he can block. Now he has to prove that he can do it on a consistent basis.

Click to read more »

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WHAT TO WATCH

NFL DRAFT

THURSDAY, APRIL 23 ▪ 4PM ▪ ESPN Catch all of the action of the 2020 NFL Draft this Thursday through Saturday. Both ESPN and the NFL Network will simulcast live coverage starting at 4 p.m. (CT) on Thursday. ABC will also feature additional coverage throughout the event.

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DARREN LEE

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STACY SCHIESL

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t was a moment I’ll never forget because my fondest dream had just come true.

I was standing on the top step of the awards podium at the NCAA wrestling championships in 2018. I had just won the national title at 133 pounds, accomplishing a goal I’d set for myself as a little kid growing up in Apple Valley, Minnesota. It’s hard to explain the feeling I had in that instance, but, trust me, it was cool.

As I looked out over the huge crowd and heard the cheers, I couldn’t help but become emotional. So many faces, so many scenes, rushed through my head. I thought about my friends and teammates at South Dakota State and how they’d made my life easier. I thought about my coach, Chris Bono, and how he’d become one of the most important figures in my life. I thought about my parents, Troy and Rhonda, and all the wisdom and encouragement they invested in me.

I also thought about a terrible mistake I’d made.

It happened exactly three years earlier, on St. Patrick’s Day, 2015. It was a moment of weakness and selfishness that I regret because

it hurt a lot of people, but one that I will own forever because it changed me in a lot of important ways.

It prompted me to revisit my faith and my relationship with God. It taught me about the power of perseverance and humility. It led me to that amazing view I had on top of the podium. It also brought me to the wrestling room at Wisconsin, where I learned to appreciate the now because you never know when a global health crisis will force you to rethink your priorities.

Someone asked me recently if me telling my story like this was some sort of personal penance because the details seem hard to talk about. I was arrested, handcuffed, finger-printed and had a mug shot taken. I spent a weekend in a crowded holding cell hours from home. I was kicked off one of the premier college wrestling teams in the country. I was shunned by other schools. For a while, I’ll admit that I was hesitant to talk about it all.

But you’ve got to own up to your mistakes. If you don’t talk about it, get it off your chest, it’s going to be an anchor at your feet. I messed up. I made a mistake. Now it’s about, “How can

I make up for that and do the right thing? How You might be tempted to quit somewhere can I have an impact on these kids that are along the line. I was in that place. I was close watching me and always asking me for advice?” to throwing in the towel and saying I’m done I think I can inspire people with my story. I with wrestling. Luckily I didn’t. I have a good can show them that this happened to me; that support system that got me back up on my I did this. It was a lot worse than what a lot of feet and kept me going. these kids are going I’ve loved wrestling through. If they saw and everything about that I could overcome it since I was a really IT’S GOING TO BE TOUGH. THE these problems and little kid. Right away I JOURNEY IS NOT GOING TO BE FUN still find my faith, still made a habit of writWHEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS have success, it can ing down my goals.

HAPPENS, BUT YOU CAN OVERCOME IT, inspire them to know It was my dad’s idea.

YOU CAN REDEEM YOURSELF, YOU CAN that whatever they’re One of my first big BE BETTER AND YOU CAN CONTINUE battling, they can get goals was I wanted TO STRIVE FOR YOUR GOALS. past it. to be a Triple Crown It’s going to be winner — be a state tough. The journey is not going to be fun when champion in freestyle, Greco Roman and folksomething like this happens, but you can overstyle — which I accomplished. I’d write down come it, you can redeem yourself, you can be how many push-ups I wanted to do in practice. better and you can continue to strive for your I’d write down the tournaments I wanted to goals. win. I have a lot of goals because you should always have something to strive for.

It’s something I use a ton today. I put those lists everywhere. I want people to see them. I want people to know what my goals are. If you do that, I think you believe in them more and you can be accountable for them. It makes everything come to life. I want everyone to know what I’m trying to do, what I’m trying to achieve and how I’m going to get there.

I get a lot of questions about my wrestling style. Most guys like to attack and score. I like turning their offense into my offense. My whole life I’ve been told not to do it that way. I don’t know if I just wanted to prove my coaches wrong or if I was just that bad at getting my legs out of danger, but it’s never changed since youth wrestling.

I like to do things a lot different. I’m always trying to make up new moves and go with the flow. If the plan doesn’t work,

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I find a new plan. It looks funky to a lot of peojusting to whatever comes your way. You have ple, but it works for me. I think my best thing to bring your best effort to every moment, but is taking what went wrong and fixing it very if you make a mistake, you can’t let it define quickly, making instant adjustments. who you are.

For me, wrestling is all about adapting to There was a time when I had no clue where the moment. If you’re I was or what I was a champion one year supposed to do with and don’t make adjustmy life and it all startYOU HAVE TO KEEP ADJUSTING ments the next, you’re ed with a poor choice.

TO WHATEVER COMES YOUR WAY. going to get your butt After winning three YOU HAVE TO BRING YOUR BEST kicked. People are goMinnesota state tiEFFORT TO EVERY MOMENT, BUT IF ing to figure out what tles at Apple Valley YOU MAKE A MISTAKE, YOU CAN’T you’re doing. They’re High School, I was reLET IT DEFINE WHO YOU ARE. going to study it and cruited to wrestle at get better and improve Iowa. With 23 national and they’re going to beat you. But if you’re able championships, it’s one of the most dominant to adapt and learn, that’s how you stay on top. programs in any NCAA sport.

I think that’s how life is. You have to keep adLooking back, a lot of dark forces were at work. The biggest thing for me is I didn’t feel like I had a lot in common with the other freshmen on the team. I didn’t feel connected. It was the first time I was away from my home and family. I didn’t feel like I had someone to talk to. I felt lost and alone. I felt that all I had at the time was wrestling and even that was unfulfilling because I was redshirting and injured. My alone time was pretty sad and depressing. My grades were starting to go down a little bit. A lot of things were adding up at once.

Most of all, I felt lost in my faith. I grew up going to church and being involved. It was a big part of my life, but I wouldn’t say I owned my faith yet. My parents were big into their faith and I was around it, but I really hadn’t figured it out for myself and I hadn’t decided on my own what I really believed in.

I knew the Bible verses. I showed up to church. But it was only after I got into trouble that I really started praying more and strengthening my relationship with God.

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STACY SCHIESL

After months of turning down invitations to go out with my teammates, I decided to join them and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Cedar Rapids, which is not far from the campus in Iowa City. I’m not a drinker, so, obviously, when you don’t drink too much and you decide to drink, it can go south pretty quickly. Me and two of my teammates ended up making some bad decisions that night. We were going into peoples’ cars and taking things. We were taking things — stupid little things like coins in the console and phone chargers — for the thrill of it. We were just being idiots. I didn’t really think about the people I was impacting. That’s the stuff, still to this day, I think about and still feel bad about.

I recently got a taste of my own medicine.

Less than a month ago someone broke into my car on campus here and took a bunch of random stuff. It didn’t feel good, but that’s what I did to a lot of people that night.

The cops came and rounded us up, but before they took us to jail we sat in the back of a police cruiser for probably five hours while they collected evidence and stuff. Sitting there

in handcuffs, one thought kept popping up in my head.

“You’re an idiot. What were you thinking?”

Going to jail was, hands down, the scariest moment of my life. I’d never been anywhere near that type of situation. I remember it vividly to this day.

We were all in one big holding cell, me and 30 to 35 other guys. They toss you a little blanket and put you in there. I grabbed my blanket and I went and hid in the corner pretty much.

I didn’t really know what to do because they only let you call a local number — you can’t make any long-distance calls — so I couldn’t get a hold of anybody. I sat there waiting for the better part of two days.

That gave me a lot of time for reflecting. I was scared — scared to tell my parents, scared to tell Coach Brands (Iowa head coach Tom Brands), scared of what was going to happen to me. I really did think my life was over at that point.

There were a lot of scary people in that holding cell. Guys who were in trouble for things probably worse than what we did. I kept think-

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ing, “How did I end up here? I tried to do things right, so how did I end up in this jail cell?” Guys were sitting next to me laughing, saying this was their fifth time behind bars. It didn’t seem real to me. It was very, very scary.

Looking back, I can laugh at this: They bring you a tray of food — a sandwich, weird-looking fruit and milk — but I wasn’t hungry at all. I was freaking out and couldn’t think about eating.

Immediately this big, big dude is sitting next to me and he’s like, “You going to eat that?” I just shook my head. He snatched up my tray and my milk and everything.

I was out of jail a good three or four hours before I could bring myself to call home. That was by far the hardest phone call of my life. I didn’t have the words to say. I called them crying. I couldn’t get a word out. My mom wound up driving down to get me. Not a lot of words were spoken on the way home. Just me and my thoughts mostly. My mom didn’t ask too many questions, but my dad has never been afraid of telling it like it is.

“That’s not how we raised you,” he said soon after I walked in the door. Of course, he was right.

All in all, it was a pretty humbling time for me. That summer I got a job selling cell phones at Target. I wasn’t wrestling. I reached out to some schools, but with the investigation still going on they all steered clear. I thought I might go to community college, but then my aunt Kelly sat me down for a talk. In short, she asked if I still loved wrestling. I told her I did.

She encouraged me to give it another shot.

During a family vacation, I emailed coaches throughout the Midwest and alerted them to my situation. Coach Bono got back to me really quick and said he wanted to see me right away. The first thing he said when I sat down in his office was, “Tell me what happened.” I told him everything. I told him the truth. That was hard for me to throw it all on the table because I hadn’t yet owned up to it all fully.

Coach Bono said he’d gotten clearance from his athletic director and was prepared to put it all on the line to get me there. He took me in knowing the charges against me had yet to be resolved. They were after I enrolled, but that was a big-time gamble by Coach Bono. “One little mistake and you’re gone,” he said. I told him he wouldn’t have a single problem with

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me. Driving home, I thought to myself, “This is when I beat some nationally-ranked guys in where I want to be.” The next day I called and the second half of the season and made it to said I was in. the NCAA tournament.

My four years at South Dakota State were A year after finishing second in 2017, I beamazing. My new teammates were incredible came the first South Dakota State athlete in to me. No judgments. They accepted me for history to win an NCAA individual title. I’ll nevme. That was big. But it was humbling for sure. er forget the post-match bear hug from Coach I showed up at almost 170 pounds. I was out Bono. I’ll never forget the feeling of redempof shape because I tion. I’d thought there hadn’t wrestled in was no way that I’d seven months. It was ever be in this spot.

FOR A MOMENT, I WAS LIKE, “MAN, ugly to start. It was I thought it was over.

THIS SUCKS.” BUT THEN I WAS OVERbad to say the least.

But I clawed my way TAKEN BY GRATITUDE, JUST AN I ran dead last with back and was able APPRECIATION FOR WHAT I WAS ABLE the heavyweights on to achieve my goal. I TO DO AS AN NCAA ATHLETE AND THE conditioning runs. I was just so grateful.

THINGS I WAS ABLE TO ACHIEVE. was barely making it All I could think about through workouts. It were the people that was a really long process to get back to where helped me get there and how God helped me I was. through it all.

There was a moment when I questioned if I I believe things happen for a reason and God was up for the challenge. I got pinned in one has a plan for all of us. That explains how I of my first matches by a junior-college kid in ended up with the Badgers. I injured my back a tournament, but encouragement from my and needed surgery, which sidelined me for aldad kept me going. I knew I’d turned a corner most all of the 2019 season. In the meantime,

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Coach Bono had taken the job at Wisconsin.

I applied for an injury waiver to gain a sixth season of eligibility from the NCAA and decided to use it as a graduate transfer. I chose to come to Madison in part because I have an opportunity to get a Master’s degree from one of the top business schools in the world.

I came to Wisconsin intent on winning a second national title at 133 pounds, the deepest, toughest weight class in the country. But that’s not going to happen because the NCAA has canceled everything due to the coronavirus pandemic. My college career is done.

My big goal now is to compete in the Summer Olympics. I took an important step in that direction when I qualified for the trials last fall, beating three NCAA champions in the process, but now I’m in a holding pattern because the Games in Tokyo, Japan, have been postponed until 2021 due to the coronavirus. It’s disappointing for sure, but it’s out of my control.

We got the official word about the NCAA’s decision from Coach Bono and it kind of blindsided a lot of guys. I think there were 50 different emotions going around the room. Some

guys angry. Some guys very sad. It was surreal.

We were all thinking, “Is this really happening?”

Then the next day we were told we couldn’t come back to the facility and that we had to go home. It’s all so weird. We have no idea when we’re going to be back being a team again.

I feel most badly for the seniors. I felt for the guys who never got to wrestle at the national championships. I felt for guys like Johnny Sebastian, our 184-pounder who came back for a sixth season aiming to get on the NCAA podium. I felt for guys like Spencer Lee of Iowa, who had a shot at becoming a four-time NCAA champion.

For a moment, I was like, “Man, this sucks.”

But then I was overtaken by gratitude, just an appreciation for what I was able to do as an NCAA athlete and the things I was able to achieve.

I found myself flashing back to my whole journey and everything I’d been through. The relationships I’d built and the goals that I’d been able to achieve. At the end of the day, I’m happy with my NCAA career. It’s definitely not ending how I imagined, but I’m good with it.

STACY SCHIESL

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This story was first published on Dec. 6, 2019.

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grew up seeing myself as a strong person. I especially took pride in being mentally tough.

I believed that I could get through anything if I was in the right state of mind. That’s just how I was raised.

I’m the youngest of four and all my siblings were Division I scholarship athletes in college, so I learned early on that if I wanted to keep up I needed thick skin and a hunger to be better than my opponent, even if that opponent was someone I looked up to and loved.

We were all very competitive and, looking back, I think that brought out the best in each other. I think that upbringing is a big reason why my brother Ryan, the oldest, wound up playing men’s basketball at UW-Milwaukee; why my sister Meghan was a standout volleyball player at Nebraska; and why my sister Maddie played volleyball at Michigan State where she was the team captain as a senior.

I fell in love with volleyball when I was little. It eventually led me to my way to my second home and my second family at Wisconsin. I credit my sisters with showing at an early age that there was a volleyball path for me if I

wanted to make the journey. I went to watch their club and high school matches and saw how they learned the game and excelled. I paid attention to how hard they worked each and every day. I believe one of my strengths and competitive advantages is my volleyball IQ. I’m pretty sure I developed that IQ by observing and mimicking Meghan and Maddie. They were — and still are — huge role models for me.

Growing up, I thought it was great being the youngest. I often talk to my sisters about it, how they would always be beating me up, which I loved because I didn’t want to be known as the little kid. Their treatment of me would eventually toughen me up and it made me try even harder to beat them at any sport we played. I remember games of basketball in the driveway until one of us would eventually run into the house crying, saying the others had cheated. Two minutes later all of us would be back outside playing again. This was almost a daily occurrence at the Haggerty house. The neighbors had to think we were crazy.

I’ve always been closest to Maddie because she’s two years older than I am and I considered her to be my measuring stick. This might sound strange, but it’s true. I would lie and cheat to try and beat Maddie. If we were

playing a board game and she looked away, I’d three options. He said I could have another move a piece to my advantage. Maddie wantprocedure — with no guarantees of success — ed to win. I needed to win to prove a point.

I could retire from volleyball for good or I could I came to Madison from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, rehab it again and hope for the best. a very confident person because of my family, I have to admit that quitting was in the back but I soon learned the hard way how quickly of my mind because I’d come to doubt mythat confidence can be self so much. I thought, stripped away in an in“Maybe it’s time to hang stant and in the worst of up the jersey and knee I CAME TO MADISON A VERY ways. An injury will do pads and walk away.” It CONFIDENT PERSON, BUT I SOON that to you. was so frustrating beLEARNED THE HARD WAY HOW We were playing Penn QUICKLY THAT CONFIDENCE CAN BE cause, deep down, that’s State at the Field House not what I wanted at all.

STRIPPED AWAY IN AN INSTANT in late October of 2016, The idea of going back AND IN THE WORST OF WAYS. my freshman season, to square one in my reAN INJURY WILL DO THAT TO YOU. when I fell awkwardly hab intimidated me and and felt my left leg go I didn’t like that feelnumb. I thought I hurt my knee, but an MRI ing. I’d lost a lot of strength after my surgery. showed a badly herniated disk in my back. I During one of my first attempts at core exerwas shocked when the doctors showed me cises I realized I didn’t have any strength in my the damage because I never had back probglutes due to nerve issues. I literally couldn’t lems or any previous back pain. They told me squeeze my butt cheeks together. It took me it could have happened in high school — that two months to be able to do that. It was humit was a cumulative thing — but outside of a bling and frustrating. I’m not a patient person sprained ankle, I don’t ever recall being hurt.

Hearing them say I needed surgery was crazy and it took me a while to believe it.

I wound up finishing out the season and had surgery in January of 2017. That’s when things started to get rough. My recovery was brutal because I was not allowed to do much of anything physical. I couldn’t walk more than a mile and couldn’t lift anything more than five pounds. Ugh. I’m the type of person that likes to work out because it’s my stress reliever.

Having that taken away was awful.

It got worse.

I was four months into my rehab, just starting to feel good about my progress, when I reinjured my back. How? No one’s sure, but they said disk re-herniation could occur from something as simple as a sneeze. Anyway, I was devastated. I went back to the doctor who performed the original surgery and he gave me

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at all, so I constantly had to fight the demon of ple around me happy. I was bringing the mood doubt in my head and tell myself, “It will hapdown and making everyone miserable. Looking pen. Be patient.” back, I can’t believe that’s who I was at that After my re-herniation, I came to lean a lot time in my life. on my parents, Jerry and Stacey. They knew Maddie had a similar experience. When she me better than I thought I knew myself. They tore the labrum in her shoulder in high school know how much I love volleyball. They knew if and was out for an extended period, her atI quit I’d be making a big mistake and I’d regret titude completely changed for the worst. She it. Looking back, I’m so thankful for my parents wasn’t the same person and I was very upset because they didn’t let about that. She really me take the easy way struggled. I didn’t unout. derstand it because I (MY PARENTS) KNOW HOW MUCH I decided to try rehadn’t walked in her I LOVE VOLLEYBALL. THEY KNEW IF habbing the back again, shoes yet. It was only I QUIT I’D BE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE which meant redshirtafter I had my injuAND I’D REGRET IT. LOOKING BACK, ing and not playing for ry that it hit me. I felt I’M SO THANKFUL FOR MY PARENTS the Badgers in 2017. the same disconnect BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T LET ME I cringe inside when that Maddie must have TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT. I think about that time. felt. She kept fighting, Since I didn’t have volthough, which gave me leyball and didn’t know what else to have in a greater appreciation for her character and my life, I went through a period where I didn’t her place as my role model. care about school anymore and my relationAt one point after my surgery, I began keepships weren’t that great with my coaches or my ing a journal. I’m so glad I did. It became an teammates. I was selfish. It was all about me. outlet for all the things I was feeling — the I think they knew I was in bad place because doubt, the fear, the isolation, the frustration that wasn’t me. I didn’t even recognize myself. and the pain. I wrote something almost every I just wasn’t happy and I wasn’t making peoday. A lot of the entries are very personal; stuff

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TOM LYNN

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I’ve never shared with anyone. All that writing and reflecting gave me some much-needed perspective on my life. At that time, I acted and thought I was the only athlete who’d ever gone through something like this. I thought I was the only one who’d ever lost confidence.

I thought I was the only one who’d thought they’d lost their identity. I sat down with two sports psychologists at different times and they helped me work through my issues. I also had some heart-to-heart talks with my parents and my coach, Kelly Sheffield.

Occasionally when I’m having a bad day even now I’ll look back, read some of what I’d written and realize how far I’ve come. I stopped keeping the journal after my sophomore year.

Why? Good question. I’m not sure, but I think

I wanted to leave that part behind me because it represents a time when I was struggling. I know I’m in a better place now.

Going into my redshirt year I decided to be the best teammate I could be. I figured that if I’m not going to help the team on the court, I wanted to help it off the court. Because of this injury, I think I’ve become a much better teammate. From my freshman year to right now I’ve learned so much about myself. I don’t know if that would have happened without the injury.

Being on the court now is amazing. Last year it was great to be back playing, but I didn’t feel like my old self. I felt like I was just another outside hitter on the court.

That’s not the case anymore.

Coming into this season I was able to bring that confidence I had as a player before my injury. I believe I have brought even more confidence than I had my freshman year. I feel on top of the world. I’m in a good place mentally, emotionally and physically.

People tell me I have a swagger on the court.

I don’t know how to respond to that. My siblings were always a great example to me of how to be humble about accomplishments on and off the court. What I do know is that I have confidence in my ability, which started at an early age and has developed over time.

I know I have an ego, but I hope in a good way. I know I will do anything it takes for me to help my team achieve its goals. If I do bring a swagger to the court and that swagger helps pump up my teammates, then I will continue to bring that. I don’t see swagger as arrogance.

I see it as a way of showing my teammates that I always have their backs, that I’ll be a rock for

them when things are tough, that I’m a person Winning the Big Ten Conference championthey count on to give them additional strength ship is always on our to-do list, so it was great to when they need it. check that off. Now we’re focused on the next For the longest time I envisioned being back project, namely the NCAA tournament. Being to where I am now. One can always wish and a competitive athlete, everyone’s goal is to win dream for something like that, but for it to acchampionships and make your program better tually happen has been a pretty cool experithan it was before you got here. Obviously our ence. I thought I was No. 1 objective is to win back last year and clearly our first national title, but wasn’t, which was deflatI try not to think about MY INJURY TAUGHT ME THAT YOU ing. But I spent all offsea- NEED TO APPRECIATE THE JOURNEY. that a lot. I’m just doing son working with Kevin all the things I think I IF YOU FOCUS ON ONE ASPECT, Schultz, our strength and need to do to make the YOU’LL LIKELY MISS A LOT OF THE conditioning coach, and I team better.

BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. IT TAKES TIME credit him with flipping Everyone on our team AND A LOT OF HARD WORK TO GET a switch in me. It’s difwants to win a nationWHERE YOU WANT TO GO. ficult to put into words al championship, but I how great I feel physithink if we talk too much cally because of the hard work Kevin and the about it then we are focused too much on the entire strength and conditioning staff did on final outcome. My injury taught me that you my behalf. I’m also grateful for the patience my need to appreciate the journey. If you focus on teammates and coaches showed me during my one aspect, you’ll likely miss a lot of the beautirecovery journey. I wasn’t at my best for a long ful scenery. It takes time and a lot of hard work time, but their love and support made a huge to get where you want to go. I realized that you difference. should use that time to enjoy the ride.

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DARREN LEE

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TOM LYNN

This story was first published on Nov. 13, 2019.

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e’re not just brothers. We’re twins and we’re best friends.

We’re not just walking down the same path in this life. We’re living the same dream, doing what we both love.

We’re not just going to be playing on the same college team. We’re going to be teammates again, continuing a connection we’ve had in sports since we could walk.

We’re Johnny and Jordan Davis from La Crosse and we both just signed a National Letter of Intent to become members of the Wisconsin men’s basketball team starting in 2020.

It’s a day we’ll never forget.

Our decision to play for the Badgers came down to the fact that the two of us share the same mindset with Coach Greg Gard. He knows what he’s doing. He wants to win and that’s what we want to do. He told us that he

likes to recruit in-state guys because they’re familiar with the style and culture here. That’s definitely true in our case.

We’ve been around the Wisconsin program since we were in elementary school. We were in fourth grade when we came down with our dad, Mark, for a father-son camp in Madison.

We’ll never forget the three of us getting our picture taken with Bo Ryan.

We were in middle school when we made a bunch of 2½-hour car rides to the Kohl Center to see a family friend from La Crosse, Bronson Koenig, help the Badgers get to back-to-back NCAA Final Fours.

We can’t wait to join the other guys in our recruiting class — Lorne Bowman, Ben Carlson and Steven Crowl — in chasing championships and making Badgers fans proud.

We can’t wait to leave our marks here. We want to get our degrees. We want people to remember us as really good players. We want to play in the NBA someday.

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▪▪▪▪ gers came in the middle of a crisis for Coach ll the big decisions in our family take Gard and his assistants, Joe Krabbenhoft and place around the kitchen table and our Dean Oliver. They were just starting to deal mom, Sarah, is always the one who calls with the tragedy involving another assistant, the meeting. She’s alHoward Moore, and ways the one who his family in late May. wants to plan ahead.

We couldn’t help but That’s what happened notice how the awWE CAN’T WAIT TO LEAVE OUR MARKS when everyone — inful situation has been HERE. WE WANT TO GET OUR DEGREES. cluding our dad, Mark, WE WANT PEOPLE TO REMEMBER US AS handled. It shows how and our younger twins, caring and loving the REALLY GOOD PLAYERS. WE WANT TO brother Max and sister players and coaches PLAY IN THE NBA SOMEDAY. Samantha — got toare toward one anothgether in mid-June to er. It helped confirm to decide what the two of us were going to do. us that we were in good hands, that we were We thought about waiting until the end of making the right call.

July so we could have all our offers and opIt was very emotional for us to watch the tions on the table, but we just had a feel for Moore family being honored before the home Wisconsin because it’s so close to home and opener with Eastern Illinois, which was Johnwe already know the players and have a great relationship with the coaches.

It’s pretty much like our second family now.

We always talked about the two of us going to the same college because we’ve been teammates at every level and every sport. We decided that being apart would be too hard on us because we’re best friends and we couldn’t split up. So the recruiting process became a lot easier when Coach Gard offered a scholarship to Jordan in early June. Johnny had gotten one when we were sophomores and we kept hoping that Jordan — who was set back a bit when he injured his ankle playing football that year — would eventually get one, too. We both had offers from a variety of different Division I schools — great opportunities to play, grow and mature — but Wisconsin was the only one that offered both of us.

Our decision to play for the Bad-

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ny’s official recruiting visit. It was awesome to see Jerell, Howard’s son, introduced with the starters. We can only imagine how hard it’s been for him. It put smiles on our faces after the game to see our younger brother Max, who’s 11, playing ping-pong with 13-year-old Jerell in the locker room.

▪▪▪▪ e’re typical twins. We were born eight minutes apart and Johnny, the oldest, used that to his advantage early on by picking on his younger brother. The two of us were always fighting when we were kids, but as we’ve grown up, we’ve become inseparable. When you start to grow up a little, you realize you need a friend to lean

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on and that’s the case with us.

Our parents dressed us in matching outfits when we were toddlers — usually with a Power Ranger theme, but different colors to tell us apart — but it got really annoying and we rebelled in third or fourth grade after our classmates began to pick on us.

We don’t finish each other’s sentences or have a psychic connection like some twins do, but when Jordan, a wide receiver, broke his collarbone playing football earlier this season, Johnny, the starting quarterback, knew right away that he was injured and could immediately sense his frustration. At one point, football was Jordan’s No. 1 sport and he wanted to do that in college, but his last game ended in pain and frustration.

We’re both right-handed, we have the same group of friends and have four classes together this year. But not everything is the same.

We stopped trying to double-date because we act differently around girls and our favorite NBA players aren’t the same, either. Jordan has always loved LeBron James. Johnny started out a fan of Kobe Bryant, but now has a thing for Kevin Durant.

You just have to be around us a lot to see how we act to tell us apart. Our friends can keep us straight, but our teachers have a hard time when we’re in the same class.

Actually, one of our teachers in particular knows us all too well.

Our dad works at Central High School and is a frequent substitute teacher. We’ve had him plenty of times in a class, enough to feel his death stare if he thinks we’re slacking off.

We definitely have to focus more when he’s around.

We got our size — we’re both 6-foot-4 guards — our love and our instincts for basketball from our dad, who was a captain and

a member of the 1,000-point club at Old Dothe Bulls. We’d play to 200 because we didn’t minion in the early 1980s. A 6-6 guard, he was have anything else to do. Our mom says some chosen by the Bucks in the fourth round of the of our games got so intense that some of the NBA draft in 1985 and wound up playing 31 sheet rock in our house had to be replaced games in Milwaukee and two for the Phoenix three times.

Suns. Then he played After that we played two seasons with the on one of those old La Crosse Catbirds weighted hoops in the THAT FEELING (OF WINNING A CHAMPIof the Continental driveway — you know, ONSHIP) WILL NEVER GET OLD. IT’S ONE Basketball Associathe moveable kind with WE PLAN TO EXPERIENCE A LOT PLAYtion, leading them in sand in the base — beING IN MADISON. IT’S ONE WE PLAN TO scoring in 1987-88. fore we built a court SHARE AS TEAMMATES ONCE AGAIN. IT’S Thanks to Google, in the backyard. Our ONE WE PLAN TO CHERISH AS TWINS, we’ve been able to get backyard games were BROTHERS AND BEST FRIENDS. details of his career a family thing. Our dad and have been able to has four brothers livsee him play on a few old VCR tapes. He sure ing in La Crosse and, combined, they have two could shoot it. sons and three daughters who go to Logan He put a basketball in our hands when we High School and play basketball. were little and led us down the same path.

Our parents will tell you this is a dream come He’s empowered us. He’s taught us to be leadtrue for them, also. They didn’t force us to go ers. He’s showed us how to do the right things. to Wisconsin. They gave us advice when we He’s hard on us about grades, telling us that asked for it. They told us how they felt and we’re not going anywhere if we don’t study how great it would be to have us so close to and apply ourselves. He told us that college home. Dad loved the idea of us playing at a basketball isn’t like high school. Guys are a lot Power 5 school in the Big Ten Conference bemore physical and you have to work for everycause you’re playing the best competition in thing. the country and getting national exposure as Our mom, a pharmacist, has had the same well. supportive message. She played volleyball and But we made the decision on our own. It basketball in high school — her older brothwas great when the Badgers offered Johnny. er Cory was recruited to play football for the When they offered Jordan, too, it became a Badgers back in the early 1990s – so her athno-brainer. leticism and instincts are part of our DNA, too.

Looking back, our love for basketball really ▪▪▪▪ came to life when we won a state title as fifth ight now, the two of us have different graders and it continued to grow as we saw strengths on the court. Johnny is known all the effort and preparation that went into as a penetrator with a good all-around winning a state championship as freshmen at game. Jordan is known for his defense and Central. That feeling will never get old. It’s one outside shot. we plan to experience a lot playing in Madison.

We’ve always been really competitive. We It’s one we plan to share as teammates once started playing basketball on those little rec again. It’s one we plan to cherish as twins, room hoops. We’d use an iPad for a scorebrothers and best friends. board and we’d pretend we were the Celtics or On, Wisconsin!

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