By Joe Scalzo
scalzo@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
YSU junior tackle Lamar Mady walked into his offensive line meetings on Monday afternoon and was immediately hit with a “ruby red slippers” joke by his position coach, Carmen Bricillo.
Then, when Mady mentioned something about his junior college, Bricillo said, “We’re a long way from Kansas now.”
Mady is 6-foot-4 and weighs 315 pounds, which only seems to make him a big target. Because Mady, you see, is from Kansas. And when you’re the only person from Kansas inside a college football locker room, you better be prepared to hear A LOT of “Wizard of Oz” jokes.
“Oh, I get it all the time,” said Mady, who enrolled at YSU in January after playing two seasons at Butler County Community College. “As long as I’ve been here, I hear at least one every other day, if not every day.
“I just laugh about it. It’s funny.”
Mady played tackle as a college freshman and is filling in at tackle for the Penguins while D.J. Main rehabs a broken foot. But there’s no place like your home position, which, for Mady, is guard. Once Main returns, Mady expects to slide over one spot.
“I like being inside,” he said. “I like the physical contact part of it.
“Right now, we’re a little [thin] on the O-line so I’m just trying to help out as best I can.”
Mady admits the transition to YSU has been bumpy at times. He’s had to adjust to a new position at a new school in a new place. That means a jump in terminology — the plays are longer and the offense more complicated — and in speed. Add in schoolwork and crummy weather and it’s easy to see why he’s had good and bad moments so far.
“At the beginning, it was all very overwhelming,” he said. “I didn’t know how to take it at first and I had to sit myself down and figure it out.
“I was just like, ‘All right, I’m here now. I need to learn how to get everything done.’ The transition has been pretty good so far and it should get better as time goes on.”
Although Kansas is known as a farming state, Mady is no stranger to cities. He grew up in Omaha, Neb., before moving to Kansas’ state capital, Topeka, in sixth grade.
“Kansas is a little more flat and a little dustier [than Ohio],” he said. “But I grew up in more of an urban base, so everything that’s here I’ve seen in Kansas.
“People think Kansas is a wasteland sometimes.”
YSU’s coaches have been impressed with how quickly Mady has adjusted, both on and off the field. For that, you can credit 6 a.m. workouts and trips to Chipotle.
“I’m real tight with the O-linemen; I don’t have any issues with them,” Mady said. “By the time the season comes, we’ll be real good.”
