Texas LB leaping on the radar

Tom Wort had a monster junior season for the New Braunfels High, and despite his one season of varsity play in Texas college coaches from across the country are hot after his services.

There are a lot of things that go into a football team winning a district championship, having an undefeated regular season, and reaching the state semifinals.

One of the biggest reasons that the New Braunfels (TX) Unicorns enjoyed a 13-1 season was the play of their defense, in particular the performance given by linebacker Tom Wort.

Wort racked up numerous postseason honors including first team 25-4A honors, the San Antonio Express-News Defensive Player of the Year award, and all-Central Texas recognition from TexasPrepInsider.com after piling up 210 tackles with an amazing 104 solo stops. Wort’s impressive state line for his junior season also included 11 tackles for loss, four sacks, four forced fumbles, three interceptions, and two blocked kicks.

“In short, he’s special,” said New Braunfels head coach Chuck Caniford. “He possesses great speed and explosiveness to the football and plays with great desire and passion.”

Wort definitely passes the eyeball test to at a rock solid 6-foot-1 and 210-pounds but he also possesses outstanding sideline-to-sideline range and sub 4.5 speed.

His story however is not that of any typical high school football player that stars in the Texas prep ranks. While some Lone Star gridiron greats are groomed from an early age, Wort reportedly did not even start playing football until after his family moved to the United State from England when Wort was in junior high school. The Englishman by birth wound up in New Braunfels in the winter of 2007 and if his recruiting thus far is any indication, he will be in America for a while.

Wort, who played football on the east coast before moving to Texas, has already received offers from a who’s who list of college football’s elite as LSU, Maryland, Miami (FL), , Oklahoma, and Texas A&M have already offered the rangy tackler, according to Caniford.

A first team all-State selection as junior, Wort also excels in the classroom and is a tremendous presence in the locker room for the Unicorns. “He did very well on SAT and he is a very good student,” Caniford said. “He is a very good leader and an excellent young man.”