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Show S ' . $ I TT".... . , ; . '-.': : : ,,riMft.iBiaM.,i3 PRO PROSPECT Larry Miller a linebacker for the BYU football team the past four years has an excellent chance of becoming the first professional football player to have graduated from Bountiful High. By DAVE WIGHAM PROVO -- A lot of Davis County football players continue con-tinue their playing days after graduation from prep school in the college ranks but very seldom have any of them made it past the college level. NEXT YEAR might be a first when Larry Miller graduates from Brigham Young University and his services will be up for grabs by the professional teams. Larry has been a standout linebacker for the Cougars for the past four years and indications in-dications are that the profes--sional people have had their-; their-; eyes on him for that period of time. ! LARRY STARTED his foot- ball career at Bountiful High ! but he earned more of a reputation on the basketball i floor than he did on the foot- ball field. In fact as a : sophomore Larry was trying to decide whether or not to ; play football. j He went to his friend Coach : Phil Olsen and asked for his feelings and thoughts. Phil to ! this day still remembers the day when he told Larry, ; "your future is in basketball or baseball." For some ; reason though Larry stayed j involved in the Braves' foot- ball program for the next ." three years. I HIS VARSITY coach, Paul ; Waite, had nothing but praise ; for Miller. Coach Waite him-! him-! self had gone through the ; high school, college and then I professional scene in football and still noted that Larry "was consistently the hardest I hitter he had seen." I It was during his playing days at Bountiful that Larry ; earned his nickname of ! Razor, simply because he I used to cut people in half with his tackling. I STILL LARRY wasn't the biggest player on the Brave club, in fact in his senior year at Bountiful he was listed as 6'S" and 180 pounds, and that was soaking wet and in full football uniform. Currently Larry is listed as 6'5" and 230 pounds. He credits the weightlifting program at Brigham Young for his weight increase, not to mention his tremendous strength increase. "I never lifted in high school, although now 1 wish I did, but at college I started and really got into it and now even when my playing days are over I still plan on lifting weights to ., stay in shape."- " HE PLAYED a little varsity ' as a freshman for the Cougars but then became a regular starter in his sophomore year. It was during that year that he became involved in a battle bat-tle with another sophomore linebacker, the middle backer for the Cougars, Rod Wood. "As sophomores we had a rivalry going, but now we don't there is no real jealousy between us." Larry is the weakslde linebacker for BYU and that's where he wants to be, "the middle backer is always getting get-ting double teamed and has to watch for the run, the strong side backer gets tied up with the tight end but where I'm at no one really ties me up and I can utilize my speed more and cover the backs running pass patterns." IT'S THAT speed aspect that has the professional people talking, although he's as big as he is, Larry still runs the 40 yard dash in 4.7 seconds, which anyone will tell you is a great time for a linebacker that big. "The pros have talked to me a little, mostly to the coaches, and I think I have a great shot at making a team. Dallas has shown a lot of interest but then so have a lot of other clubs. I've been told I'll be drafted high next year but by which club I don't know." LARRY WENT on to note that if he did have a choice, say the free agent look, he would go to either Denver or San Diego, two clubs and cities ci-ties he really likes. Razor is still an all-around athlete in that he stays involved in-volved with basketball quite a bit on campus. He also just finished a movie in which he plays the bad guy at a local high school, he stars in, of all things, wrestling. COACH LAVELL Edwards believes he has the best set of linebackers in the WAC with Miller having the best year of all of them. Indeed the professionals are chomping at the bits to get a linebacker that is 6'5", 230 pounds and is fast. Plus he has the reputa-tion reputa-tion of being a hard hitter. So next year Larry Miller could very well become the first player from Bountiful High to make it into the pro ranks in football. |