Recruiting after a 3-9 debut season, Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell got here again from dinner on a Friday night time in January 2017.
He seen the lights within the indoor soccer facility had been on. As he bought nearer, he heard music blaring. He walked by means of the doorways, and located working again David Montgomery, who was coming off his freshman season, understanding alone.
“I talked to our coaches the next morning and said, ‘You know, we got a chance — This is our best player and he’s willing to do this on Friday nights,’” Campbell mentioned. “The next Friday, there’s three people with him.”
ISU went 8-5 the subsequent two seasons. Even now, after Montgomery determined to depart college a 12 months early — the Bears traded as much as draft him within the third spherical final week — Cyclones gamers work out on their very own on Friday nights.
The Bears, for as soon as, don’t want a tradition change. They simply want Montgomery, who practiced for the primary time throughout Friday’s rookie minicamp, to be a dynamic again
Campbell senses he’ll convey that perspective with him nonetheless.
“What that young man did for this program and for the future of Iowa State football was unbelievable,” he mentioned. “The character and the work ethic that he went about day-to-day literally changed the course of that entire football program.”
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Montgomery was a freshman at Mt. Healthy High School when the group scrimmaged one other Cincinnati college. His coach, Arvie Crouch, challenged his working again to be bodily — he used to tease him that he didn’t have “bop-bop” — and use his freakishly robust core to undergo tacklers.
Then Montgomery took a handoff and ran towards a future Div. I linebacker.
“David crumbled him,” Crouch mentioned. “It looked like a ceramic doll. At that point I told the coaches on the earphones, ‘That kid’s going to be really good.’”
He was. In 4 years — as a working again and, later, a dual-threat quarterback — he ran for six,666 yards and 91 touchdowns.
He didn’t grow to be a severe prospect, although, till earlier than senior season. That’s when Campbell, then Toledo’s head coach, noticed him on the Rockets’ space camp in Cincinnati. His skillset — his fingers, imaginative and prescient, the best way he reduce in drills — screamed out on the teaching employees.
“One of the best players I’ve ever seen go through our camps,” Campbell mentioned.
Campbell talked to Montgomery and his mother for 45 minutes afterward. Toledo didn’t have a scholarship to supply, however he vowed to seek out room.
When Campbell took the ISU job after the 2015 season, he had a brand new cache of scholarships.
“He was one of the first people we called when we touched down here in Ames,” he mentioned.
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Crouch’s telephone rang at Mt. Healthy on Monday.
Two days after being drafted, Montgomery mentioned he was on his solution to his previous highschool.
“He got some teachers emotional — him saying thank-you for what you did for me,” Crouch mentioned. “It was incredible … I’d like to see how many players taken on Day 1, Day 2, or Day 3, would do that.”
His academics and associates helped shepherd Montgomery by means of making an attempt instances.
The summer time earlier than Montgomery’s senior 12 months, his older brother Maceo Feltha was arrested and charged with homicide. He was convicted and is in jail for 15 years-to-life. Montgomery grew up in poverty, the place his household typically had water, energy and gasoline turned off. They used the oven to remain heat, and warmth bottled water for baths. He finally moved in with a pal, however stayed near his household.
“It definitely affected him,” Crouch mentioned. “He’s one of those kids that wants to take care of his mother.”
That motivates him.
“I think a lot of that comes from home and feeling like an opportunity to make a difference for his brothers and his mother and his family. … ” Campbell mentioned. “As I got to know his mother and knew their trials and tribulations and what David went through, I knew we had a young man that was coming with a purpose.”
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