The football coach who told Boston Scott he can't play

[UK_EaglesFan89]

The football coach who told Boston Scott he can't play

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All Boston Scott remembers is that a youth football coach took one look at him when he was 11 years old and told him: "Nope, you can’t play.”

Guess what. Scott can play. 

Anybody who watched the Eagles during the stretch run last year knows that.

He may not have been good enough for youth football, but he's good enough for the Eagles.

But at 5-foot-6, he’s always been doubted and questioned. That’s why he was a walk-on at Louisiana Tech, a sixth-round draft pick, cut twice before he finally got a chance in the NFL. 

And as the shortest kid trying out for football as a kid in Zachary, Louisiana, he experienced rejection at a young age.

"All my life, man,” Scott said on a recent Eagle Eye podcast with myself and Dave Zangaro. "All my life. In sixth grade I was turned away because of my stature. [The coach] said you wouldn’t make it.”

No 11-year-old kid should have to deal with that sort of rejection.

"I’ve heard that for a very long time and I don’t let it deter me,” he said. "The mindset that I take whenever I’m attacking things like that is I’m going to find out for myself. I’m not going to submit myself to your label, I’m not going to submit myself to your opinion. Because at the end of the day I’m going to determine [my future]. I’m going to go out here and find out for myself, period. And that’s kind of been what I’ve held true to my heart and that’s just the way that I’ve carried myself ever since then.”

Once Scott got on the football field and started playing, nobody doubted him again.

He became an all-state running back at Zachary High School, a 1,000-yard rusher at Louisiana Tech and over the last four games of last season, in his first significant NFL playing time, he netted 350 yards — 12th most in the league during that span.

Good thing he was strong enough and mentally tough enough as a sixth grader not to doubt himself when a youth football coach did.

"Yeah, man. It was tough,” he said. "But I would say during that time I was able to expand on the things that I was interested in. I got involved in music, I got involved in other extracurriculars and broadened my horizons. Where I am now, you never know how it might have been different. 

"I was introduced to my work ethic. Because I was like, man, once I got over it, at the end of the day, if I continue to work, I don’t know what might happen. So that’s when I started to really work and have that mindset that I’m going to find out for myself.”

Safe to say every Eagles fan is thankful he did.

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/eagle-eye-podcast-football-coach-told-boston-scott-he-cant-play

Scott is one of those special, and rare, individuals. Perhaps not the most talented, certainly not the most physically gifted and not even the ideal size for an NFL player. But he works hard and plays harder. He makes things happen because of his determination.