Lawrence bound for the bayou
Riley Lawrence, whose parents are from this province, will remain in-state and enter the Tigers’ den
For the second time in less than a couple months, a football player with Newfoundland and Labrador roots is making noise on the gridiron.
Back in April, Jake Burt signed a free-agent contract with the New England Patriots following the NFL Draft.
Burt, who played NCAA football at Boston College, is the son of St. John’s native Scott Burt, who was a national team water polo player, and played baseball in the capital city.
His son was born in Calgary, and raised in Lynnfield, Mass.
Now comes along Riley Lawrence, an 18-year-old offensive lineman from Baton Rouge, La., who is set to join the defending NCAA football champion Louisiana State University Tigers this season.
His parents are Richard and Madonna Lawrence, who are from Isles aux Morts, in the southwest corner of the province, and Pollard’s Point, on the Baie Verte Peninsula, respectively.
Madonna Lawrence moved to Louisiana in early 1993 after finishing up nursing school at Memorial University.
Shortly afterwards, Richard Lawrence relocated to the state after completing a mechanical engineering program at MUN.
They’ve been in the southern U.S. ever since.
Riley Lawrence started playing football in Grade 3 or 4 — “hockey’s big in Canada … football’s a religion down here,” Richard Lawrence said — before going onto star at
Dutchtown, the Baton Rouge high school from which he was recruited by LSU.
He was a second-team alldistrict all-star last season, and first-team all-star centre this year.
Lawrence is 6-2 and 300 pounds, and has received national strength and conditioning awards.
“He comes from a long line of big uncles and grandfathers,” Richard Lawrence said of his son. “A bunch of lumberjacks and fishermen.”
Riley Lawrence received numerous scholarship offers after winding up his high school career, including from Lamar University, a small Division I school in Beaumont, Tex., and larger DII schools Southern Arkansas and Milsaps College in Jackson, Miss.
“I didn’t get a lot of attention from SEC (Southeast Conference) schools early on,” he said.
But it was an eye-opening experience when a call came from the University of
Alabama, inviting him to a game-day visit of the campus.
“That was miraculous,” he said. “It’s nothing like you’ve ever seen before. It really surprised me, because I was thinking they were probably not extremely interested in me.”
Then came another gameday visit, to the LSU campus and its 105,000-seat Tiger Stadium.
Interest from the Crimson Tide dried up, and a scheduled visit to Southern Arkansas was suddenly cancelled because a scholarship offer was being pulled.
In the New Year, an LSU recruiter reached out to Lawrence again. But the Tigers didn’t have an athletic scholarship for Lawrence (the NCAA limits the number of scholarships a university can offer). LSU did, however, have a preferred walk on proposal, which is basically a spot on the roster, minus the scholarship.
“Universities can sign 25 scholarship guys,” Lawrence said, “and then they can have so many preferred walkons that they offer. You’re a member of the team. You just don’t get a scholarship.”
So regardless of how the process plays out, Lawrence is set to join the Tigers this season.