BC Receiver Back And Eager

Now, however, he’s torn two of the knee ligaments in two years, making the start of Bridgewater College’s spring football practice an even more welcome sight than it usually is.

"A lot sweeter," Warring, a rising senior, said. "My knee’s 100 percent, but I feel like I have a lot more to prove."

Even before the injuries, Warring came to Bridgewater with expectations. A highly touted recruit from Florida with a father who had a tryout with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, the speedy wide receiver – though only 5-foot-11 and 150 pounds as a freshman – arrived with obvious potential.

As he filled out his current, sturdier 6-foot-1, 180-pound frame, Warring began seeing more and more playing time as the Eagles’ deep threat. As a sophomore in 2004, he caught only 10 passes, but they went for 323 yards, including long touchdowns of 60 and 83. But in the fourth quarter of BC’s playoff loss to Washington & Jefferson that year, Warring tore the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Last year, Warring got off to an even more explosive start, making six receptions for 165 yards and a touchdown in just five quarters of action. On that sixth reception -- in the season’s second game, against Shenandoah -- he was caught from behind on a 50-yard catch and tripped at the 3-yard line. This time, he blew out his right PCL when the defender landed on his knee.

What was poised to be a breakout season for the Miami native swiftly turned into a second stint of rehabilitation, and this time it cost him playing time. The initial prognosis was encouraging: he might miss only a few games. But the knee healed slowly, and it was too painful to run, forcing Warring to hang up his cleats on the season.

"Especially in the beginning, I felt bad," he said. "I just wanted to quit. Talking to my dad all the time helped me keep going. I’m not going to lie, I was sitting there sometimes watching my teammates play, my knee was hurting and I just wanted to quit now, you know. It was just so hard. But I just fought through it."

The influence of his father has been of the utmost importance to Warring. James Warring, a former Division I-AA All-American at Eastern Illinois and a world kickboxing champion, has been an athletic inspiration to his son.

"I guess everyone has a role model, a hero," Blake Warring, 21, said. "I look up to him more than anybody else I know in the world, you know what I’m saying?"

Blake Warring said he calls his father every day after practice.

"He and I talk about everything else, too," Blake said, "but he wants to know how I did on the football field."

Bridgewater features a run-oriented offense and employs a rotation of several wide-outs, meaning in the last few years no one player has earned go-to receiver status. But when the Eagles do throw the ball, they often go over the top, which suits Warring’s strengths.

"I do think one thing that separates us from a lot of the passing teams in college football nowadays is that we take the Oakland Raiders approach," coach Michael Clark said. "We’re a vertical team. If you’re a vertical team, you don’t have to get every one, but if you go 3-of-6, that’s 21 points that’s tough to make up."

It’s fitting, perhaps, that Bridgewater mimics the passing system of the team that cut Warring’s father, making it the very team he’s always aspired to play for.

BC wide receiver coach Joey Soltis doesn’t think Warring is his fastest receiver – that distinction, he said, goes slightly to Brandon Copeland – but said he makes up for it with technique.

"What makes Blake football-fast is that he gets off the ball really, really well," Soltis, promoted to offensive coordinator this offseason, said. "He’s one of those guys that doesn’t get jammed up. He’s got quick feet. He’s real aggressive with his hands, and getting off the line of scrimmage makes you faster."

Soltis’ primary concern is Warring’s over-reliance on his talent. Rather than settle for making routine plays, Warring too often looks to earn style points on his receptions.

"The one thing that I’d like to see consistently throughout the season is that Blake has great ability and makes extraordinary catches, but sometimes he likes to Willie Mays it," Soltis said. "He’ll make an easy catch a hard catch. He’ll one-hand stab a catch he can get two hands on just because he can."

Warring said he has full confidence in his knees and that he actually feels a little faster than he did before last season. Now what’s echoing through Warring’s mind aren’t the memories of his injuries but the words of advice from his father.

"He just says to go hard every day and never take a day off," Warring said. "He just tells me not to be soft. Every day is limited. When I hurt my knee, I realized that.

"... Football only lasts so long. Today could be my last day. Tomorrow could be my last day. He tells me to work hard every day to improve myself, and that’s what I try to do."