Perry’s Long has size and smarts

mbrown@sunmulti.com

 

The biggest AND the smartest. Not a bad combination at all.

Perry High’s football team had just that as the anchor of

its offensive line for three years in the form of 6-4, 290-pound Matthew Long. While

anyone with that size – not to mention the ability Long showed at the center

position, would be looking a straight bee-line towards the National Football

League – Long has sights set on a rewarding career in the engineering field.

For the 2012 football season, Long was named as one of two

Scholar Athletes of the Year for Region 2-AAAA. He’s at a position that doesn’t

have a popular statistics list to follow for individual players, but on the

list of top seniors at Perry High for the Class of 2013 Long is ranked near the

top with a 3.89 grade point average.

Head coach Stacey Harden said Long always received team

academic honors, so now he is glad to see his center’s work and accomplishments

recognized on a “bigger stage.” Harden handed Long the center spot when he

arrived as coach three years ago and Long was only a sophomore.

“It’s going to be hard to replace him next year,” said

Harden. “Our offensive line coaches did a great job with him. We’ve had a good

relationship. He’s easy to talk to, and he always understood what we were

teaching him.”

“It is an honor and very rewarding for all the hard work I

put in for four years of high school,” said Long. “As much as I enjoyed

athletics and the competition, first and foremost it is the work that keeps you

on the field and eligible.”

Long is in the advanced placement curriculum at Perry High,

and he listed calculus and literature as his favorite classes.

“I feel like I was prepared and up for the challenge,” said

Long about taking on the task of center on a Panther offensive line and in a

system under Harden that focused most of its attack on running the football. “I

was real appreciative of the opportunity and worked hard to keep that spot.”

Long even made a connection from his work in the classroom

to that on the gridiron.

“The center has a lot of responsibilities,” he said. “To

correct blocking schemes and identify defenses to pick up the pass rush.”

In his three years as a starter, Long said he became more

aware of things and picked up on the role as a leader in his group.

“I was able to provide leadership to the underclassmen,

those who are getting the same opportunity I did,” he said.

“I’m going to miss (Friday night football games) a lot. It’s

been a huge part of my life. But it’s a part of life that you have to move on.”

Long also made a tough decision about moving on for his

senior year. He is not a member of the Panther wrestling team, where for the

past two years he’s stood out in the heavyweight category.

“I decided that it’s not in my best interests to wrestle,”

said Long. “I am applying for academic scholarships, and I have important

decisions to make. It would have been a conflict in my schedule. I hated to do

it, but it’s for the best.”

Long’s participation in wrestling was at the encouragement

of his football coaches.

“Football is the reason I wrestled,” he said. “(The coaches)

told me if I wanted to be good in football, I needed to wrestle. It helped me

with my feet and agility.”

When a student-athlete in high school has not only the

ability but also the academic marks owned by Long, he or she can “name it” when

it comes to making a choice about where to go to college. Football is secondary

for Long when it comes to making this choice because he wants to become a

bio-medical engineer.

“I’ve been contacted by many schools at the Division III

level,” he said. Long added that Mercer University representatives have talked

to him about becoming a part of the new football program that begins play next

fall.

Other schools on Long’s list are Johns Hopkins in Baltimore

and Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.

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