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Friday, August 1, 2008
Crowd Pleasers - Tim Phillips
Greater Louisville, KY
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Trinity High School Running BAck
There were times last season, his junior year, when Tim Phillips was forcing things. Instead of settling for the simple play that may only produce a yard or two, the Trinity running back would try to make the big play.
"Tim had a rough time early in the season because sometimes a yard gained is okay, but don't put me in second and 13 because you're trying to make chicken salad out of chicken poop," Trinity coach Bob Beatty says.
It didn't take long for Phillips to realize that. Last season the 5-foot-5, 160-pounder with 4.4-second speed (in the 40-yard dash) rushed for 1,863 yards and scored 32 touchdowns (29 rushing) for the Shamrocks. "He can go from first gear to high gear in three or four steps," Beatty says
"I just like going out and making people miss and just having fun," Phillips says.
The latter is the most important thing to the ever-smiling Phillips, a Central Michigan recruit who has a 4.0 grade-point average.
"There's a time to have fun, and a time to be serious," he says. "When I get down to business I'm at my best when I just have fun and be myself."
Phillips may have saved his best game of last season for the Class 6A state championship when he accounted for 311 all-purpose yards—rushing for 167 yards and two TDs, catching four passes for 36 yards and returning four kickoffs for 108 yards—in Trinity's 34-28 overtime win over St. Xavier. And in doing so he proved that football's not always about the size of the play, or the player making it.
"I love my size," Phillips says. "Some people say if you were 6-2, 200-something you'd be an All-American, but everything happens for a reason. I know what I am and I love who I am. Size doesn't matter, it's the size of the heart that does."
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