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The Story of Angus Winchester - timeconsumer - 05-26-2017
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![[Image: qSTH3z7.png]](http://i.imgur.com/qSTH3z7.png)
[/div][div align=\\\"center\\\"]A Dying Breed[/div]
[div align=\\\"center\\\"]By Anabel Christianson[/div]
Angus Winchester, sitting atop a green 1970 John Deere 730 tractor, slowly crawls down the dusty country road, hangs a careful right turn up the narrow driveway flanked by Eastern Hemlocks, and trundles through the open rusted gate of his grandfather’s 80 acre farm where I stand waiting in the hot May afternoon sun of Manchester, Tennessee. He flashes a grin and a goofy wave as he brings the antique tractor to a halt next to his blue 1982 Chevy Silverado, making my Honda Accord rental car look even more alien in this place seemingly forgotten by time. Winchester kills the engine, and deftly vaults his 6’6”, 315lb frame off the tractor landing with a thumping, yet graceful, thud.
His tattooed arms bulge from out underneath the rolled up sleeves of his flannel shirt. His unkempt beard and wild hair giving him the appearance of some lost viking warrior. Huge boots pour out from beneath a pair of old, faded, loose jeans. He walks towards me, each stride covering massive swaths of ground, gravel crunching underfoot, and extends an enormous, calloused paw.
“Welcome to Manchester.” Angus beams through a gap tooth smile, vigorously pumping my hand, lost inside his grip. “I’m sorry I’m late, the tractor broke down halfway home.”
A rough ride down a rocky road in a broken down old tractor is the perfect metaphor for Winchester’s 21-year journey towards the NSFL draft. Raised by his grandparents on a farm that has barely broken even for the past 20 years, moving from shuttered schools as the public school system of Manchester foundered under budgetary failure, and being rejected by every Division 1 school in the country, nothing ever seemed to go right.
But to understand the story of Angus Winchester, you first have to understand the Winchester family. Angus was born in the spring of 1996, the only child of Emma and Bart Winchester, themselves only 21 years old at the time. Emma was an Irish immigrant, having moved to the United States at 18 years-old. Bart, born and raised on the same Tennessee farm, worked as a roofer. They had met in Nashville only 2 years prior, and were married in less than a year. Sadly, Angus would have no memories of his parents. Thirteen months after his birth, in May of 1997, both Bart and Emma Winchester died in a car accident with a drunk driver.
This brings us to the story of Sgt. Earl Winchester and Sally Winchester, Angus’ grandparents. Only hours earlier, as Angus was struggling with a broken tractor up the road, I met his grandparents when I arrived on the farm. Earl cuts as imposing a figure as his grandson. Every bit of 6’ 4” with shoulders and hips like the steer in his pasture, the Vietnam Veteran is the genetic motherlode for a football dynasty. At 66 years old he lifts weights daily and boasts he can still squat 500lbs. His skin turned to a thick leather hide by the years toiling in the hot summer sun tries unsuccessfully to hide the definition underneath.
“When Bart and Emma died, it felt like the world stopped around me.” Earl recalls, “No parent should have to go through that, no man should have to bury his own son. But I had no room for grief, I now had a grandson to raise and still had a farm to run. You just got to keep on.” He lamented, “Sally took their death harder than me. But God bless that woman, she’s as tough as they come, and she put it all aside for that boy.”
Earl and Sally Winchester married in 1972, a year after Earl had returned from Vietnam. Earl had grown up a farmer in Kansas, and had enough scraped together to put a down payment on the farm that would become Angus’ home. They had 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls, of which Angus’ father Bart was the oldest boy. By the time he came to live with this grandparents all of their children had moved off the farm into lives of their own. But to grow up a Winchester was to grow up hard, everybody they raised was expected to work the farm from the time they could walk, and Angus was no exception.
Beginning at the age of 5, Angus began to learn the how to work the land. His grandfather remembers him as an “active boy, always looking for something new to do.” The time spent doing manual labor started to show as he reached middle school age. At 12 years-old he was already 6 feet tall and a lean 160 pounds. His grandmother struggled to cook enough food for him. They began buying young steers from another local farmer down the road and filling a deep freezer with hundreds of pounds of ground beef, roasts, and steaks. She bought and froze milk 10 gallons at a time, as he was drinking at least one per day. She cooked corn bread, collard greens, and grits by the pound. Sally explained “I had to tell Earl to get a dozen more hens because we weren’t producing enough eggs to keep the boy fed.”
It was around this time his grandfather introduced Angus to his second love, weightlifting. Their gym, a spacious steel shed behind the family home, is filled with rusting iron plates in obscene quantities, steel racks coated in a light patina from the salty sweat and barbells with the knurling worn smooth from the generations of Winchesters viselike hands. It was here that Earl Winchester built the boy who would become the immovable object that dominated the Big10 conference in 2016.
“The way I see it, by the time he got to high school, Angus already had 2 years of time spent lifting weights. The other kids just couldn’t keep up.” Earl explained, “At first we really focused on the fundamentals; squat, deadlift, press, bench press, and power clean. . . do your [sets of] fives, increase the weight every workout, get plenty of food and rest.” He describes the philosophy he follows from the books of Bill Starr and Mark Rippetoe.
Earl also started his grandson on more unconventional training. “I remember the first time I told him to go flip a tractor tire, he looked at me like I had two heads!” Earl chortled with the customary family laugh. “He went up to try it and the damn thing almost fell back and crushed him.” But it wasn’t long before Angus got the upper hand, and within a year he was flipping tires across the farm and pushing loaded prowler sleds up the slope to the house. “If anything it just served to wear him out, keep him out of my hair and out of trouble.” Earl confessed.
Even with his strength, size, and speed, Angus’ football future was far from certain in Manchester. The city of only 10,000 was still left reeling from the 2008 recession that had decimated the local economy. Local farms, businesses, homes, and even the schools were still shutting their doors.
His freshman year Angus attended Manchester High School, a small 2A school not far down the road. Angus quickly made the football team where he played as a defensive tackle. Even as a freshman his sheer strength and power was obvious to the opposing teams. While rotating snaps in and out during the season he amassed 4 sacks his first year in the game. There was no doubt he was genetically gifted.
His sophomore year at Manchester High was cut short in September, when the school district closed 5 county schools in an attempt to manage the budgetary crisis. Angus was transferred to Coffee County Central High School, an hour bus ride away from his home. With the football season already underway, Angus didn’t play football that year.
In his junior year, now standing at 6’ 4” tall and weighing in at 250lbs Angus tried out for the Red Raiders football team at Coffee County Central High School. He was still raw, having only played one year as a freshman, and the hard-nosed coach was skeptical to take on a project. He made the team that year as a defensive tackle, but spent little time on the playing field. Angus was frustrated, and it began to show. His grades were suffering in school, he was suspended for fighting, and his agitation on the practice field earned him disdain from his teammates. Angus does not tell the story about his junior year very often.
His grandmother tells me, “I think that was the year when he also began to realize that his life wasn’t the same as the other kids, someone asked him why he was always wearing the same clothes to school everyday, it’s because that was all he had was the one pair of pants and the one flannel shirt. He was growing so fast we couldn’t afford to buy him no more.” She explains that Angus only had a pair of workboots and worked out in those during his PE classes, he didn’t have his own athletic shoes. He lifted weights barefoot.
“Those were probably the hardest times for our family, financially.” Earl remarked as picked at a loose thread on his pants. “The farm was really hit hard, crop prices were really low and it was all we could do to stay afloat. We did our best to get by, and raise the boy the best we could.”
It wasn’t until his senior year when a new head coach, James McMaster, was hired that Angus’ potential was realized. He had continued to put on strength and weight, by now he was approaching 270lbs and could squat 700lbs for 5 reps.
“When I first laid eyes on him in the weight room my chin hit my chest, this boy was power cleaning what other kids were squatting.” McMaster told me over the phone. Angus was pulled from the defensive line and plugged in at left guard where he excelled in their team’s pass heavy offense. “Nobody was getting through him, nobody. He was raw, but he was a freak.”
That same year he began competing as a powerlifter where he set a state record in the 275 pound weight class with a total of 1925.
As remarkable as his last season with the Red Raiders was, Angus was not receiving any letters or phone calls from Division 1 schools. Nobody was interested in the big farm boy from the small town.
I knew this about Angus already as I flashed back into the moment on the farm with my hand still firmly encased within his grip. “It’s always something with that thing, runs like a Deere my ass.” He remarked as he let out a roaring laugh. Angus Winchester was unapologetically himself.
We walked across the ridged field, freshly tilled for this season’s corn crop, with cold beers in hand as we discussed the events of his senior year in 2013. “I really felt like I had found my place when coach put me on the offensive line” Angus tells me as he idly kicks a rock, “my first few years were really chaotic, and I was struggling to find my motivation on and off the field.” When asked if he felt like he was at a disadvantage or treated unfairly in prior years Angus rebuffed, “No. No. No, it’s all on me. My grandpa always told me not to waste my energy on things I can’t control and instead focus on what I can. But I wasn’t doing that.”
That last year he inundated schools with letters, phone calls, and film, but the only response was silence. Division I football was out of his reach. “I had an offer from a Division III school in Kentucky” he remembers, but I felt like I was better than DIII and I wanted more.” Left with a decision, Angus took the advice of his coach and declined to play in Division III football and instead enrolled at a Mississippi Junior College in their football program.
“Coach told me if you want to be the best lineman, you play for Wisconsin. So I figured I could play a year in JuCo and hopefully get them to notice me.” He went on as he sat down on an old wooden cable spool next to a barn, creaking in an uneasy way under the 315 pound load. When I inquired what his plan was if it didn’t work out his brow furrowed, “I don’t think I ever had another plan. All I wanted was to go play football for a Division I school, if I didn’t get that I guess I’d try to find a job in construction or something.” It was clear that settling was not something he thought about often.
Angus played football his freshman year at East Mississippi Community College where he was moved from guard to left tackle. Starting all 12 games that season he was the anchor on the offensive line protecting quarterback Chad Kelly’s blind side. His best performance came in the NJCAA National Championship game that year against Iowa Western Community College with zero sacks allowed and showcasing his incredible speed on several screen passes. And his performance did not go unnoticed, having been contacted by the offensive line coach at EMCC a scout from Wisconsin was at the game watching Angus.
When asked what it was like getting an offer to play for Wisconsin his eyes light up. “Man, it was like everything finally coming together. . .all my hard work was finally going to pay off and I earned a shot at the big time.”
At the start of the season Wisconsin released head coach Gary Anderson and brought in Coach Paul Chryst. That season saw Angus start all 13 games at left tackle as the team went 10-3. Coach Chryst remembered Angus this way “He’s a dying breed. His size, strength, speed, and work ethic are unparalleled in football these days. Any coach worth their salt would kill to get the chance to coach a kid like him.”
It was that year that Angus met Emily at school in Wisconsin, who he engaged earlier this year. Emily is every bit the athlete as her fiance, standing just under 6 feet tall and a lean but solid 185 pounds, they met at a powerlifting competition where she competes in 83kg weight class. I pressed him for details and watched the smile curl across his face as he looked down at his feet, “Yeah, she’s really something special.” He didn’t offer much more, but his body language told volumes.
He credits Emily for helping him get through a difficult academic year in 2015. Angus was struggling in school, where he majored in horticultural science. One of his advisors responded to my inquiry by e-mail, “He was good at the math and science portion of the curriculum, but his writing and test taking was where he had trouble.” It was that year when Emily, an Education major, told Angus that she thought he might suffer from dyslexia, and he should seek help. She was right, Angus who had struggled on and off throughout school his whole life, was dyslexic. He described the diagnosis feeling as though “a weight had been lifted off [his] back.”
His junior year in 2016 at Wisconsin became the crowning achievement of Angus’ football career. Now weighing over 310 pounds Angus’ had fully grown into the dominant athlete he was destined to be. His first step off the line was lightning fast, his kick slide flawless, and brute strength quelled even the fiercest of rushers. He started every game that season. His coaches continued to develop the talent that had sat dormant for so many seasons in high school, molding him into a season-changing force at the line.
But when you ask Angus what he feels was really special about that season, he describes something different, “Zero penalties. Not one false start.” He boasted as he crushed the now empty can of beer under his foot. “It doesn’t matter how strong, or fast, or technically sound you are. A false start can destroy the drive just as much as a sack.”
We walked back towards the house with the Tennessee sun starting to kiss the treeline behind us, Angus’ long, broad shadow marching a path across the field like a thundercloud overhead. “Where do you go from here?” I asked him of the upcoming draft. He had elected to leave Wisconsin early in order to take the opportunity to play in the inaugural season in the NSFL.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, “It’s anybody’s guess at this point. I’m thrilled at the chance to play for any NSFL team who would have me. California, Arizona, Baltimore, Yellowknife, Denver….I feel like I can make an impact anywhere.” He continued, “I guess being used to small town life I’d be more nervous about going to a big city, but I’ll make any sacrifice I need to play football.”
“And what’s your plan if it doesn’t work out?” I ask him bluntly as we reach my car.
Angus stops and looks at me, brow furrowed, “I guess I haven’t really thought about it. I don’t really have a backup plan.” It’s plainly obvious that Angus has not changed much in that regard since his high school days. “I think I’d like to finish school, no matter what happens, and someday own a farm of my own. With goats. Lots of goats.”
I offer my hand in farewell, anticipating the crushing hold I was treated to at our greeting. To my shock he embraced me in a suffocating bear hug, complete with two jarring windletting pats on the back. “Come back and see us again, now!” He exuded, his face still painted with a grin.
As I opened my door I shouted toward Angus as he was climbing back onto the John Deere, “What are you going to do with your first paycheck?”
The bull of a man pauses halfway through his climb and yells back at me over his shoulder with a smile, “I’ll probably buy a new tractor!”
A dying breed indeed.
Ready for Grading. Approx 3k words
The Story of Angus Winchester - timeconsumer - 05-26-2017
Angus Winchester will be holding a press conference early next week. So any memebers of the media are encouraged to hold their questions until that time.
The Story of Angus Winchester - daBenchwarmer - 05-26-2017
Great article!
The Story of Angus Winchester - Noble - 06-01-2017
I already read this but it would seem I forgot to comment, sorry about that! This is an absolute great first article, and I'm super impressed that you wrote so much about your player! Keep up the great work man, and you'll be sure to be a stud in no time.
The Story of Angus Winchester - timeconsumer - 06-01-2017
(06-01-2017, 11:28 AM)Noble Wrote:I already read this but it would seem I forgot to comment, sorry about that! This is an absolute great first article, and I'm super impressed that you wrote so much about your player! Keep up the great work man, and you'll be sure to be a stud in no time.:cheers:
The Story of Angus Winchester - Jiggly_333 - 06-01-2017
Solid story. Would be interesting to see if it develops throughout the season.
The Story of Angus Winchester - RainDelay - 06-01-2017
Amazing write up! Keep up the wonderful work!
The Story of Angus Winchester - timeconsumer - 06-01-2017
Thanks, really glad everyone enjoyed it. I was trying to hit that 3k bonus and I know how boring that can be to read something that long if there isn't much to it, so I tried to keep it interesting with imagery and stuff. Still could have used more polishing but after hour 6 I was getting tired of working on it. I think that's the longest thing I've written since senior year of college in 2009.