Walk down Austin, TX 6th street and at first glance you're likely to run into a punk rocker, a preppie college kid, a dotcom millionaire in khakis, an East Coast business man in an Armani suit, and of course Leslie our beloved drag queen mayoral candidate. (and that's just on ONE street corner..lol). But beware, Austin, TX is full of native son gunslingers.
These guys aren't toting six shooters though. However, they do have howitzers for arms and pinpoint aim. I'm talking about bad boys chucking the pigskin all over the place, like it's the Wild West. I'm not talking about a couple of hundred mile radius here now, how about roughly 10 miles within Texas' most diverse city. Here's a sanpling:
On Sunday (every Sunday), Austin Westlake's Drew Brees is about to bury an NFL defense with two gun barrels full of passing yards as he brings his dead eye aim to the New Orleans Saints as pro football's most deadly passer.
On Saturdays look out for several of the NCAA's big boys who also hail from the Capital City. The Nation's number one recruit, University of Texas freshman Garrett Gilbert of Austin Lake Travis quietly waits in the wings while Colt McCoy chases a Heisman Trophy and attempts to lead the Longhorns to a national Title. Expect Gilbert, (the son of an old friend of mine Gale Gilbert, ex QB at Cal Berkely and the Buffalo Bills) to really light it up for the Horns as a sophomore and then to follow his pops and have a stellar NFL career. Gilbert led the Lake Travis Cavs to back to back State 4A titles where they destroyed all comers.
Let's bounce back over to Austin Westlake again and check in on Class of 2007's Nick Foles, who resides just down the road from the REAL OK Corral in Tombstone, AZ. Foles is the NCAA's leading passer and has the Arizona Wildcats in the hunt for a PAC-10 title since taking over as the starter in Week 4. His latest outing yesterday led the Wildcats to a 27-13 win over UCLA.
The Kansas Jayhawks has mostly been a laughingstock in the world of NCAA football until the arrival of Austin Lake Travis' Todd Reesing. While he had a rough outing this past weekend against the Oklahoma Sooners, Reesing is on pace to fire it up to the tune of 3600 passing yards this season. If he does, he'll have 10,000 passing yards for his illustrious career.
The only outsider to crack the party of Westlake & Lake Travis QB's making their mark on the national stage is Pflugerville Connally's Steven "Sticks" Sheffield. Sheffield, one of the original Texas D-1 Ambassadors from 2000 took over the reins for Texas Tech University and in his first game as a starter he fired an NCAA record 7 touchdown passes. Sadly, Sheffield suffered a foot injury and will be sidelined for 2-3 weeks. Look for the redshirt junior to throw for 5000 yards next year in Mike Leach's pass happy system.
So, there you have it. Austin's a lot more than boots, bar-bq, politicians and transplanted Californians. There's still a posse of old fashioned gun slingers in "them thar parts" roaming the streets. Who's our next high school phenom that will make noise on the national scene, or in political terms where's our next Smoking Gun?
