I think this is the article you are talking about.
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=3918&u_sid=2341434
Published Sunday | March 4, 2007
NU Football: Desert is bountiful for Husker recruiting harvest
BY MITCH SHERMAN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
PHOENIX - The doorway to the coaching office opens at Ironwood High School. There's not much to catch the eye..
A key piece of the Huskers' recruiting class came from the Phoenix area. From left, Marcel Jones, Will Yancy, Jaivorio Burkes, Prince Amukamara and Eric Hagg are longtime friends who decided to leave the desert.Papers are strewn about. A folded $5 bill lays on the floor, unclaimed, alongside random sporting equipment. On one dusty chair hangs a jacket that goes unused in the Valley of the Sun, where 70-degree weather in early March only hints at the blinding heat to follow.
But look on the walls behind the desk of Todd Hanson. He's the boys' basketball coach, born in South Dakota and raised in Papillion. Lived in Nebraska for 15 years as a kid. Part of him never left.
You see the posters. Tom Osborne. Brook Berringer. Tommie Frazier. They're all here, on display some 1,300 miles from Lincoln.
The kids used to laugh at Hanson. They told him he needed to "go back home," according to Ironwood senior Will Yancy, or to "get a date."
Last month, the laughter stopped long enough for Yancy and teammate Eric Hagg, alongside three other prep stars from this sprawling area, to sign on with the Nebraska football team.
Hanson smiles when asked about his impact on the Huskers' Arizona windfall.
He simply planted the seed.
The scenario that unfolded over the past year to bring Yancy and Hagg, Jaivorio Burkes, Prince Amukamara and Marcel Jones to Nebraska grew on its own but was nurtured by the recruiting efforts of NU assistant coach Bill Busch.
It's a fortunate set of circumstances for the Huskers, who may reap benefits, many still unforeseen, for years.
"There's a lot of talk around the school about Arizona State or Arizona," Hanson said. "When that happens, I just hold up five fingers. Five rings, baby. That shuts them up.
"Really, it's a lot of friendly banter and stuff, but I choose to tell them about Nebraska because it's a model for our own school. Not so much the football part. I just use Nebraska as an example for how to do things the right way - the way I've always seen them do it there."
Hanson accompanied Hagg on his official recruiting visit to Lincoln in late November. Hagg committed on the spot after watching the Huskers beat Colorado. He was the first of the Phoenix Five to do so.
Also on that trip, Hagg's friendship tightened with Burkes, an offensive tackle from Phoenix Moon Valley High School, and Amukamara, a top athlete from Glendale Apollo, who rushed for 2,106 yards and was named by the Arizona Republic as big-school state player of the year.
"I was the first one to go for it," Hagg said. "I thought that if the others come and follow me, that would be great. And I didn't really have to work on them. They all wanted to come."
Basketball bond
The five future Huskers have never played on the same team at the same time. But at one time or another, they've all played on the same basketball court.
All five played basketball again this winter. Burkes said he hopes to try Division I hoops at NU, though his football coach at Moon Valley, Roger Britson, shakes his head at the idea.
Burkes, as a sixth-grader, played basketball with Jones and Yancy. Yancy and Hagg met in track and field as junior high school students. Amukamara met Hagg two years ago at a local gym.
On signing day, all five signed letters of intent in the morning and then drove to Ironwood for a press conference. Hanson supplied a couple NU flags for the event and other assorted Husker items.
The massive Jones, all 6-foot-7 and 300 pounds, looked comfortable on stage as a bookend for the group - a position he might someday occupy on the NU offensive line. Hagg, at the opposite end, wore one of the Nebraska T-shirts that dominate his daily wardrobe.
"It was never the intent for all of us to go to the same school," Burkes said last week. "But we all got up there, and we were all comfortable with our surroundings. I was like, 'Wow, we might be able to play with each other for the next five years and have a lot of fun.'
"It makes it a lot easier, takes a lot of pressure away from us to know that the other guys are going to be there."
Clearly, the friendship made a difference.
"Had he not been the only one of the five looking at Oklahoma," Moon Valley coach Britson said, "Jaivorio might have gone there."
At 6-5 and 315 pounds, Burkes ranks as the most highly touted of the group. One day last spring, Britson said, Pete Carroll from USC, Georgia's Mark Richt, plus assistants from Michigan and Tennessee all visited Moon Valley on the same day.
To understand Burkes' potential, just shake his hand. The space between the tip of his pinky finger to the outstretched end of his thumb measures nearly 12 inches. Burkes' arms are 40 inches long. His wingspan is 7-foot-7.
"One of the Husker coaches told me they've never met a kid like him," Hanson said. "He's very unique."
Without hesitation, Britson said he expects Burkes to become a two-time All-American and first-round NFL draft pick.
"I see Jaivorio in the NFL," said Yancy, whose brother, Quincy, starred as a defensive end at Arizona State and spent time with the Detroit Lions. "Actually, I can't not see it."
Among the others, potential is the key word. As with most recruits, they look solid on film. Future roommates Hagg and Amukamara are set to play defense, though coaches around Phoenix say Nebraska would be wise to get the ball in Amukamara's hands.
Yancy, at 6-5 and 235 pounds, will play defensive end. Jones, with only one year of varsity football experience, may be the most intriguing of the quintet because of his sheer size.
"I've seen big kids," Ironwood football coach Larry Allen said, "but this kid is a man. I look at him and say, 'Holy moly.' Marcel makes Jaivorio look small."
Phoenix rising
In the future, Husker coaches may get even more familiar with the Phoenix area.
The city is a burgeoning haven for football talent. Phoenix has always had its share of players - from Mike Brown, who played at Nebraska from 1996 through 1999, to Terrell Suggs and Todd Heap.
But the landscape here is ever-changing.
From 1990 to 2005, the Phoenix population increased by 45 percent. The city itself ranks as the nation's sixth largest. The metropolitan area is nearing 4 million.
High schools pop up like gas stations.
Allen, a successful coach in Denver before taking over at Ironwood, believes the level of play in the two cities is not comparable.
"The talent is so much better in Phoenix. Everybody's got a wideout. Everybody's got a quarterback. Everybody's got a tailback. And it keeps coming."
For example, Allen said, a new player recently enrolled at his school after moving from California.
He's a junior linebacker, 6-3 and 230 pounds. Nebraska's Busch already knows about him.
This year alone, USC swept into town and stole defensive end Everson Griffen, arguably one of the nation's top five prospects, from the local recruiters.
"Nebraska has definitely tapped into a good market," said Glendale Apollo coach Zack Threadgill. "The fact that they've got these five kids, it's laid the groundwork for when Bill Busch comes back."
Threadgill, an Apollo graduate who started at quarterback for Nevada in 2002, is a rarity here.
Most of the coaches are imports. Britson is from Iowa, Hanson from Nebraska, Allen from Colorado. As a result, the high school kids hear about more than just Arizona State and the Pac-10.
And there are other problems brewing for hometown Arizona State, some of which contributed to the Huskers' success in Phoenix this year.
ASU, after it fired coach Dirk Koetter in late November, hired Dennis Erickson just two weeks later. Erickson immediately stated as one of his goals to hit the junior colleges hard, a message that didn't sit well with some local high school coaches.
In addition, Arizona State offers a lifestyle that competes with, and perhaps douses, a football fanaticism that exists elsewhere.
"When they bring kids in for a visit, football is not the most important thing," Britson said. "Kids see that. If they go to Nebraska or Oklahoma or Michigan, it's all football on that campus. At ASU, you've got the Suns (of the NBA), the Diamondbacks (of Major League Baseball), the girls. There are just so many things.
"And if a guy from here really wants to focus on being a better player, he's going somewhere else."
Said Burkes: "I want to go to Nebraska and grow up, because I know I'm not going to be at home for the rest of my life."
So, it was something of a perfect storm that led to the Huskers lifting five players from the desert.
As for the key to the whole thing, it probably wasn't Hanson. He's partially responsible, but it was Busch who put in the legwork. And the 41-year-old assistant, you can bet, will return soon.
"That was the key ingredient, basically, to the whole process," Allen said. "I've been on both sides of this business, as a high school coach and a college assistant. And let's just put it this way: We saw 80 to 100 Division I schools in the past year. What set apart Nebraska was that the guy who recruited for them did such an amazing job."
