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f o o t b a l l R E C R U I T I N G f e a t ure : d a n n y e t l i n g Willing To Work Etling���s drive wows coaches BY STACY CLARDIE SClardie@GoldandBlack.com S teve Englehart wasn���t sure Danny Etling would become a decent quarterback, let alone a Big Ten-caliber one. But the former Rose-Hulman coach opted to work one-on-one with seventh-grader Etling, who had attended some Rose-Hulman camps, anyway at dad Joe���s urging. Englehart zeroed in on footwork as the emphasis for the workouts with the ���very, very raw��� and ���clumsy��� Etling. ���He was really not very good,��� Englehart said. ���I always harped on him, ���Let���s not worry about your arm strength and let���s not worry about throwing the ball much right now. That stuff will come.��� ��� Englehart didn���t know then the type of kid he was working with. He figured it out quickly. ���The first day I went there, he taught me some things and then he���s like, ���We���ll meet again, we���ll see how you do.��� I remember I practiced every single night those things,��� Etling said. ���I was like, ���If I���m going to play quarterback, I���m going to be really good at playing quarterback.��� ��� Now, Etling is enrolled at Purdue, scholarship in hand, and ready to compete to be the team���s starting quarterback as a freshman. Englehart and mentor Cam Cameron aren���t surprised. They���ve seen what happens when Etling locks in: He gets results. ���One thing I can say about Danny is he���s always been very driven,��� said Englehart, who continued to work with Etling until his freshman year at Terre Haute South. ���I don���t think there is anybody in the country that has been more focused on being a quarterback and playing the quarterback position than Danny Etling. Even at that age, he was extremely focused. That���s what he wanted to do. He wanted to play Division I football and play quarterback. Everything he���s done from that seventh grade year until now has been all about playing the quarterback position at the Division I level. ���So most of the work we did, I simply just helped him and gave him the tools, the things he needed to Terre Haute Tribune-Star Danny Etling has good physical tools, but it���s the intangibles he brings to the position that have people raving about him. Fellow Terre Haute South grad and current LSU offensive coordinator Cam Cameron called Etling���s work ethic ���legendary.��� work on, and he did stuff on his own. I bet you could count on one hand how many days he has not thrown a football or hasn���t worked on some aspect of football aspect since that day. He���s come a long way and it���s really fun to sit back and reflect how far he���s come and how hard he���s worked at doing that.��� Maybe once he hooked up with Englehart, football was Etling���s desire. But it wasn���t always. Etling was a basketball guy, through and through, fully invested in the sport in his heart and he showed signs of being pretty good at it. He never stopped loving it, and he even says now it ���pained him��� not to play his senior year at South. But it was working with Englehart and a fateful seventh-grade championship game that changed his mind about the sport he���d eventually play in college. Though Etling attended St. Patrick School, he played football for Woodrow Wilson. That team was pit- 24 ��� Gold & Black IllustrateD ��� volume 23, issue 4 ted against Sarah Scott, a team that���d smoked Woodrow Wilson by 40 earlier in the year. The rematch was close. Trailing with one minute to play, Woodrow Wilson drove the field and scored a touchdown to tie. Coach Joe Etling asked Danny what he wanted to do. ���Just give me the ball and let���s go for two,��� Etling told his dad, a smile creeping across his face while relaying the story. ���I threw a fade pass to Jack (Meggs), and he caught it, dove in the end zone. ���That���s when I realized, ���This is the sport for me.��� I���ve shot last-second shots in basketball, and they���re fun, but there���s nothing like throwing that touchdown pass at the end of the game to ice it. It���s exhilarating.��� Etling also quickly learned success is often only the result of ridiculous amounts of work. That started in earnest with Englehart, who focused on footwork, preaching balance and rhythm GBIprint.com GoldandBlack.com