Manning Up
Chicagoland high schooler bets on himself, travels to Georgia and changes football future
(Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune)
Ryan Mann, a senior at Vernon Hills High School in Vernon Hills, IL has a daily routine.
By 9 a.m. Mann is in front of a computer receiving remote learning instruction. Done by 3:30 p.m., he heads out to Spear Training Center, located near the high school, for a strength workout. Sometimes he sneaks out of the house for a workout over lunch. A few days a week, Mann drives to Northbrook for more specialized speed workouts at TC Boost Sports Performance.
This regimen is both purposeful and monotonous. Mann, a 6-foot, 205-pound football player for the Vernon Hills Cougars, wants to continue playing football at the college level. In order to do so, he must routinely make his body bigger, faster and stronger. But there are only so many ways and means with which an athlete can train off the field.
Basketball players need to play basketball. Football players need to play football.
Here in the state of Illinois, 2020 has seen a trifecta of bad events. The coronavirus pandemic, an autocratic governor, combined with vacant leadership, has left ambitious athletes like Mann with no outlet for competition. There are no games and only hope of returning to the field early in 2021.
With his future on the line, Mann realized he needed to devise a strategy more enterprising than wishfulness. So he took a risk, made a wager with little downside but with the potential for huge reward.
He bet on himself.
The city of Milton, Georgia is less than an hour’s drive north of Atlanta.
For the folks who live in Milton, population 40,000, there are two main gathering spots—Avalon Mall, located a few miles south of town in Alpharetta, and Milton High School football games.
“Football is the thing in Milton and everyone kind of rallies around it and supports it,” said Blake Zettler, a senior safety for the Eagles.
Milton has an enrollment around 2,300 and in 2018, won the Class 7A state title (Georgia has seven postseason classes with the 7A the highest). After an 8-4 season in 2019, the Eagles returned a talented senior class in hopes of another championship run in 2020.
When the coronavirus pandemic swept the country in March, it wiped out spring sports all over the country. That also meant spring football in Georgia, which was not played. In June, a modified plan was put in place for summer workouts not dissimilar to Illinois or other states. By late July, the Georgia High School Association gave the green light for full practices to begin Aug. 1. Milton started its season a few weeks later than what’s typical, in mid-September.
The Eagles won each of their nine regular season games (one less than a usual 10-game regular season schedule) and headed into the postseason undefeated. Many of the goals the Eagles had before 2020 came true with more to accomplish.
A few weekends before Thanksgiving, Mann got on a plane with his father, Jim, and flew down to Atlanta. They drove 40 miles north into Milton. The reason for the trip was to visit the Zettler’s, old friends from Vernon Hills who had relocated to Georgia six years ago.
They also watched a football game. And Ryan Mann got an idea that changed the outlook of his future.
Ryan Mann and Blake Zettler grew up across the street from each other and played football in the Vernon Hills Jr. Cougars program.
“I was the quarterback and he was the running back,” Zettler said.
When Zettler moved away after fifth grade, he stayed in touch with Mann. The family’s took frequent vacations together, usually over the holidays.
Blake Zettler became a baseball player at Milton High School, a righty sidearmer. In November, Zettler signed with Western Carolina. When he’s not throwing strikes off a pitcher’s mound, he’s making tackles on the football field. Zettler is a starting safety for the Eagles football team.
Zettler invited Mann to visit him in Georgia and be a spectator for one of his football games.
In mid-November, Mann attended his first live football game in a almost a year.
“It was weird seeing high schools play and (Illinois) is not,” Mann said. “It’s definitely a whole different game in the south.”
During the visit, Zettler’s father, Brad, mentioned a showcase camp being held in early December at a school in nearby Johns Creek, GA. There would be college coaches in attendance and a many more watching via a livestream. Brad Zettler knew the organizer of the event and could get Mann enrolled.
Would he want to fly back down to Georgia in a few weeks and participate in the combine? If Milton won its first playoff game, it would be hosting another playoff game that Friday, December 4 and Mann could watch his friend, Blake Zettler, play again.
After consulting with father and mother Elyce, Mann decided to make a return trip.
He had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
A ascendancy of young athletes begins not under the bright lights of competition but in the obscurity of isolation.
One repetition at at time on the bench press. One bounce of the medicine ball after the other. When competition comes, its not automatic the protective environment of training will translate to on field performance when conditions are less controlled. It’s a gamble if the unproven will grab the stage.
On the night of August 25, 2019, a star was born in Ryan Mann.
Making his first varsity start, Mann ran for three first half touchdowns. For the game, Mann finished with 15 carries and 130 yards as the Cougars routed Grayslake Central 43-0.
Afterwards, Vernon Hills coach Bill Bellecomo said this about Mann to the Daily Herald newspaper:
Ryan Mann is just a football player, an old school kid who runs downhill, runs hard.
Vernon Hills won four of its first five games, with Mann starting on both sides of the ball (he played linebacker on defense). Mann accumulated dozens of good plays for his junior year film. The best was yet to come.
But early in the Cougars’ fifth game, a victory against Niles North, Mann broke the femur bone in his right leg. There would be no more football for Mann in 2019 as he missed the Cougars remaining four games (they lost three of four and finished 5-4 and out of the playoffs).
There is never an optimal time for an athlete with college aspirations to get injured. But Mann, still only a junior, once healthy, planned to participate in spring and summer showcases and college camps. His four game film from 2019 was generating interest from colleges. He would have time to accumulate more.
But the coronavirus pandemic wiped everything out. Fully recovered by the spring of 2020, instead of film from one day college skills camps, Mann (and every other 2021 grad) was forced to post homemade backyard videos.
Later in the spring, offers to an all-star game and from Roosevelt University came in. Another offer from Denison University came in late June. There were testimonials from well-known recruiting analysts Edgy Tim and Jacob Lemming, touting Mann’s athleticism.
Video surfaced of Mann catching balls in a hot day in July from former Super Bowl MVP and current Bears quarterback Nick Foles:
By the end of the summer, Mann’s dedication to training had his body transformed into a 210-pound specimen. His senior season would certainly provide a platform for live competition and a wider net of college interest.
Mann said this to the Chicago Tribune:
Right now, I have no Division I offers, so it’s at a huge breaking point in recruiting for me depending on if we have a season. I’m hoping to play Division I, then pick up a coaching job in college. I like being around the game as much as possible
We know now how the story of football in 2020 played out in Illinois. There would be no season, no opportunities for Mann to prove he could play at the highest level. There were a few more fall showcases and offers, but no games.
As a result, Mann’s recruiting effectively flatlined.
“I’ve had some Division 3 offers and was talking to some Division 1 schools and they said ‘we want to see you in the spring,’” Mann said. “They also said, ‘we don’t know if we’ll have any sports when the spring comes around.’”
“It’s tough evaluating for 2021 (with no games),” Colgate University assistant coach Brent Bassham said. Bassham is also the school’s Midwest Recruiting Coordinator. “We look at everything in the recruiting process and I tell kids to keep working, don’t give up. There is a place for everyone.”
When Zettler invited Mann to come to Georgia, it was greeted with almost immediate acceptance. The daily routine, the hours of online learning (District 128, which encompasses Vernon Hills and Libertyville High Schools, is all remote this fall) was becoming mentally draining. He needed to shake things up.
“I could get out of the house and be around new people and go to some football games,” Mann said.
The decision to play football in Georgia was not a clean one. In fact, it was quite messy.
On July 31, the day before padded practices were authorized to begin, the state’s most powerful public health official, Kathleen Toomey, told the state legislature she had doubts about the health and safety of playing football during a pandemic. Shortly after her comments, the Georgia High School Association called off preseason scrimmages. One county, Rockdale, cancelled all fall sports for its three schools. When the Big Ten and Pac 12 conferences postponed the fall football season in mid-August, speculation spiked that more Georgia schools would do the same. Fulton County, where Milton High School sits, delayed the start of the season.
But of the 425-football playing schools in Georgia, only a handful had cancelled seasons by the end of August. And when neighboring states in Alabama and Tennessee went forward with their seasons, it confirmed Georgia would do the same.
Said the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper:
In short, high school sports is moving ahead because the overwhelming majority of member schools and school boards want it.
Although given the green light to play, Blake Zettler knew it wouldn’t be a normal football season for him or his Milton teammates. Mitigation protocols are extensive, yet reasonable.
“We understood we’d have to wear masks whenever we are inside, lifting or running or watching film,” Zettler said. “When we are outside doing drills, we are socially distanced and coaches are monitoring things the entire time.”
Players were told that cameras at athletic practices and inside schools were being observed by county officials.
“They can check at any time if we are violating guidelines. It’s a pretty straight thing, common sense stuff the county put in place and we follow,” Zettler said.
Sometime in the early fall, Milton High School approved in-person learning. Students could sit in a physical classroom, five days a week. Fulton County Schools, in charge of Milton, has a screening process for students but no required testing protocols. An opt in/opt out philosophy is popular amongst education officials.
Said Atlanta Public Schools Athletic Director Jasper Jewell to the AJC newspaper:
It’s totally up to the parent or student-athlete to participate. So if a parent is comfortable enough to have their child participate in athletics, we want to give them every opportunity to be successful.
Zettler said he and most of varsity teammates opted out of physical attendance. For the length of the football season, they are at home, taking classes online.
“We don’t want to have to worry about contact tracing at school,” Zettler said, which would result in a mandated 14-day quarantine.
Since practices started in late August, the Eagles have had no cases of positive tests. According to Zettler, a few players self-quarantined on their own after possible exposure to the virus. Resulting tests were negative.
The team has created its own micro-bubble, with players staying home during school hours, going to practice, then going back home.
“We know we can’t do what a normal high school student would do. We just hang out at our teammate’s houses,” Zettler said.
There is a leadership group amongst Eagles seniors where accountability and adhering to rational guidelines is paramount.
“If the starting quarterback is seen at a party, I’m telling our coach and he’s quarantined for two weeks. We have zero tolerance for that,” Zettler said. “If you can’t stay in and be smart with what you do then you don’t deserve to be on the practice field with us practicing and playing.
“If the county can trust us to play and not spread (the virus) then we have to trust each other to not make bad decisions to ruin that.”
So far, the Milton bubble has worked. The team is 11-0 with an Elite Eight postseason home game Friday Dec. 11. The 2-thousand plus seat stadium, typically jam packed for football games, is at less than half capacity due to public health protocols.
But classmates are amongst those in the stands, their encouraging shouts and cheers still heard by football players through their cloth masks. The marching band, which fires up the Eagles fight song after every touchdown, still plays. Only instead of the gathering at a designated section in the grandstands, band members are on the track, behind one of the end zones.
“The people who come to our games outside of Milton who usually come, don’t,” Zettler said. “It’s not the same this year as coming out of the locker room and hearing 2,500 people going crazy but it feels somewhat normal now.”
One friend outside of Milton did witness the Eagles Dec. 4 playoff game in person. Then two days later, Ryan Mann stepped on a football field and put on a performance he and others won’t soon forget.
This time, Mann flew down to Atlanta with his mother, Elyce. They watched Zettler and the Milton Eagles beat Archer High 17-9 on the evening of Dec. 4.
In the morning on Dec. 6, Mann drove to Johns Creek, located about 15 miles southeast of Milton. On the campus of Mt. Pisgah Christian School was where the senior showcase, the one Brad Zettler told Mann about in November, was being held.
Mann admits to being a bit nervous when he arrived at the event site. The letters on his blue-colored sweatshirt went unrecognized by other camp attendees.
“I was wearing a Vernon Hills sweatshirt and they were like, ‘where’s that?’ I said I was from Chicago and they started calling me ‘Chicago,’” Mann said.
His nerves soon dissipated. It was a combine, after all, just like all the others he’d participated in over the years.
“After one or two reps you start to figure out the speed of the receiver and know what you are doing. Your hips are warmed up and you start feeling good,” Mann said.
Video from the event shows Mann doing more than just holding his own. He was a standout performer, running with receivers, showing good speed, balance and lateral movement.
At the end of the three-hour event, Mann ranked in the top four at the linebacker position.
Testimonials from coaches who watched Mann at the event came soon after.
Two days after the event, Mann received two more offers. One from a Florida Prep School, MTI Prep, and from Valparaiso University in Indiana.
Mann said all recruiting activity, stagnant before the Georgia combine, is now picking up in pace.
“I sent out the video and posting (on social media),” Mann said. “Coaches I initially talked to are now reaching out. It’s definitely raised my stock.”
On Dec. 11, Milton plays another home playoff game. It will be the 12th game the Eagles have played in 2020.
Mann won’t be there to watch Zettler, although he hopes to follow online.
Football first brought the two together as young boys in the Chicago suburbs. As they approach adulthood, the sport remains their bond.
One, Zettler, is living out his dreams in a state that values personal freedoms as the rule of law. The other, Mann, pursues his passions in a state that prefers bureaucracy and authoritarianism over liberty and free will, needing a healthy dose of resourcefulness and self-regard to win each day.
Zettler gave his friend the gift of loyalty. Mann reciprocated by seizing the moment.
“Ryan is my best friend. The kid works harder than anyone I know and he’s so humble,” Zettler said. “My coaches were saying that it’s crazy this kid came down here just to compete. It could have gone very good or very bad but I think it went very good.”
“You have to do whatever you can to take every opportunity and your time will come,” Mann said. “You have to keep moving forward and make it happen.”