Major Wright - Major Pain
Thursday, October 16, 2008 | Football
By: Kate Manly, UF Communications
A leader is a person who is there for his teammates when times are tough. A leader will take his teammates under his wing and help them improve. A leader is a mentor, support system and a guide. A leader is chosen to be followed. But, can a leader be a 20-year-old sophomore?
According to head coach Urban Meyer, the answer is yes.
“Just because you're a senior, that's not entitlement. If you're a sophomore, you walk the walk, talk the talk, and do everything the right way, you're a leader. It has nothing to do with your experience or how many years you've been in school. It's what you're willing to do and pay the price.”
One sophomore that has clearly walked the walk and talked the talk for the Florida football program is safety Major Wright. In his one and a half seasons at Florida, Wright has started 12 games for the Orange and Blue. He has already collected two interceptions in 2008 and returned one pick 32 yards for a touchdown in the Gators' 56-10 victory over Hawaii. Wright is one of the leaders not only among the Gators' secondary and the defense, but the entire Gators' team. If you ask Meyer, Wright closely resembles another leader for Florida, quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow.
“He's got a little bit of the Tebow effect on defense,” Meyer said. “He's an extremely high-character guy that football means the world to. He's always where he's supposed to be academically. If you get yourself a whole bunch of Major Wrights, you're playing excellent defense.”
As with most areas in the game, the expectations are set high for the Florida defense to perform, and in the summer of 2007, those expectations were through the roof. The Gators had just won their second national championship in school history and were victorious, in large part, due to a high-octane, hard-nosed defense full of potential National Football League Draft picks. So when linebacker Brandon Siler, defensive ends Jarvis Moss and Ray McDonald and secondary standouts Ryan Smith and Reggie Nelson did in fact depart for the NFL, an enormous hole was left in the Gators' defense.
Wright arrived on the University of Florida campus in June of 2007 and knew that if he worked hard and did all of the right things, it was possible that he could take advantage of the vacancies on the Gator D and compete for playing time. He took advantage of the summer workouts held by the strength and conditioning staff and when fall practice rolled around, it wasn't long before everyone knew of Wright and his “shot heard 'round the world.”
His best-known hit occurred against one of his own teammates, running back Chris Rainey, and for all who were in attendance on that August afternoon it was obvious that the colossal tackle was just a sign of things to come. He went on to appear in every game in 2007 with seven starts. Wright garnered first-team All-American honors from several media outlets and was selected to the Freshman All-SEC team by the league's coaches. His 47 solo tackles in 2007 were the second-highest total of any freshman in the SEC.
Because Wright has experienced great success in the Gators' secondary, many are quick to compare him to Nelson, a 2007 NFL first-round draft pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars. But both Wright and Meyer agree that putting anyone in the same company as Nelson is a tall task. However, that is not to say that Wright doesn't aspire to be a Gator Great like Nelson. In fact, he admits that he often takes a few pages out of the All-American's playbook.
“I watch film of him every day,” says the Miramar, Fla., native. “I go out there and try to do everything like him.”
One area in which Wright has resembled Nelson is his passion for assisting younger players both on and off the field. The recruiting class of 2008 featured many highly-touted secondary players, including Janoris Jenkins and Will Hill, who have both seen playing time already this season. Wright knows that even as an underclassman, he is a leader on his team. So much so that he was selected by his teammates as a representative of the 2008 Leadership Committee, a group charged with acting as spokesmen for the team and handling situations related to team policy issues, academic affairs, off-campus circumstances and other issues. If you ask his younger teammates, there is no better place that Wright is a mentor than on the gridiron.
“He helps me with my confidence,” freshman safety and special teams' player Hill said. “He's always making sure that I know what I'm supposed to do in my head before the play even starts.”
Although he is always the first to lend a helping hand to his teammates, Wright is having a successful season of his own. With one year already under his belt, he has become comfortable with his surroundings and the Gators' system.
“It took me so long to learn what I was doing and get comfortable back there because I was so young,” said Wright, a social and behavioral sciences major. “But I'm very comfortable now. When you know and understand what you're doing, it's a whole lot easier.”
One area of his game that Wright has always been comfortable with - and widely known for - is his hard-hitting, bone-jarring tackles. They are enough to make his opponents shake in their cleats, and even some of his own teammates. Fellow sophomore and starting cornerback Joe Haden can clearly recall an incident during practice in which Wright was attempting to tackle a running back and Haden became a casualty, even having his helmet torn off.
“I just laid there for a second, thinking, 'If he hits everyone like his, I don't know they keep getting up.”
For the Florida Gators' football program, Wright is a major leader, a major teammate and a major stand up guy. But for the Gators' opponents, he is a major pain.
