Chris Hays: OCP’s Wagner is making a name for himself.
wasn’t quite sure how to react during the weekend when his father told him he received a football scholarship offer from Texas A&M.
“I was like, ‘Stop playing with me.’ And he was like, ‘I’m not playing,’ ” said Wagner, who goes by B.J. and is a rising sophomore safety/wide receiver starting to make a name for himself at Orlando Christian Prep.
His father is former Orlando Predators star
Barry Wagner Sr., who is considered to be the best player in the history of the Arena Football League. He is an Arena Football League Hall of Famer and the AFL’s all-time allpurpose yardage leader. He won three AFL championships, one with the Preds and two with the San Jose SaberCats.
Wagner played one game in the NFL, catching one pass as a member of the Chicago Bears in 1992 from Jim Harbaugh. Through his travels, Wagner has gained many football friends, so he knows people, like Harbaugh, who has even said when the time comes, B.J. Wagner will have a scholarship offer waiting from Michigan.
But one of Wagner’s former coaches at Alabama A&M, defensive coordinator John Chavis, beat Harbaugh to the punch. Chavis, who is now associate head coach and defensive coordinator at Texas A&M, informed Wagner his son had a scholarship offer from the Aggies.
“The coach who offered him, he coached me in college. We were talking and I told him that Harbaugh said he wanted my son when he comes out and [Chavis] said, ‘What position does he play?’ ” Wagner said. “I told him, ‘He plays safety and receiver. He’s pretty good, Coach. He’s pretty nice.’ And he said, ‘I want him.’ ”
While he’s still early in his high school football career, B.J. Wagner has the size, athleticism and talent to earn a lot more offers.
He is somewhat fortunate comparisons to his father won’t come as frequently from his peers. The rest of the players his age weren’t old enough to understand who Barry Wagner was when he was taking the Arena League by storm and that’s just fine with his dad.
“My thing with B.J is, and people always say, ‘He’s going to be like his dad,’ and I say, ‘No, I want him to be better than me,’ ” Wagner said. “I want him to go to college, I want him to graduate and I want him to be his own person. I want him to get his own identity.
“. . . I want him to choose his own path, whether it’s basketball or football or just going to school. I want him to understand how important education is in this world and that it can take you a long way. I don’t care if he plays any sports. If he got an academic scholarship, I’d be more happy with that than anything else.”
His son has met those expectations. B.J. Wagner played point guard on the OCP Class 2A state championship basketball team this past season. He’s doing just fine in the classroom, as well, with a GPA that hovers right around 3.0.
OCP football coach Guerschom Demosthenes is certainly glad to have him.
“As a freshman he had a really, really good season for us and you can see his ceiling. He has a real high ceiling and he’s going to progress to be a really, really good football player for us,” Demosthenes said. “[The scholarship offer] is good for him because he’s worked extremely hard to get to this point and it’s also good for the program.”
The program is something Demosthenes is trying to build. He had things rolling along smoothly until several talented players ended up transferring to other schools just at the start of last season. But the young talent at OCP now is being cultivated into what Demosthenes hopes will be a special group. Cornerback Arnell Walker and running back
Jalen Carr are a pair of rising juniors who have both run sub-4.5-second 40-yard dash times at camps this summer. Fellow junior Xavier Weaver has also been impressive. Throw in quarterback
Connor Edel and tight end Shamar Hill, a pair of transfers, and things are looking up once again.
Most eyes are on B.J. Wagner, the kid with the fresh SEC scholarship offer and the big-time dad, but B.J. says there’s no pressure.
He doesn’t really think about the scholarship offers, accolades or any of that other stuff.
“I just want to help my team win championships. Everybody here, we’re all great players and we all want the same thing, to win a championship,” B.J. Wagner said.
But just in case B.J Wagner does want to play pro football, his father is always there to remind him it will take a lot of work to achieve his goals.
“He always talks about how he’s gonna be better than me,” Barry Wagner Sr. said. “I say, ‘Look, I’m the greatest. You can’t be better than me. You can tie with me, but you can’t be better than me.’ ”
Wagner laughs a little, but you know he means it. He’ll tell you so.
“That’s just being real,” he said. “You’re called The Greatest? You can never go higher than that.”
But B.J. will certainly have fun trying.