UCF senior Shaquem Griffin
UCF senior will sleep at team practice facility during final preseason
plans to spend the preseason at the team’s practice facility as the Knights star outside linebacker is out to prove he’s not about to rest on the laurels from his junior season when he was named the American Athletic Conference defensive player of the year.
Shaquem Griffin figured since this is his last season as a UCF football player he’s going to make sure he takes in the full experience.
“I gonna start something new. … I’m staying the night in the Wayne Densch for the rest of the camp, so that’s kind of cool,” Griffin said of UCF’s Wayne Densch Sports Center, which houses the football coaches’ offices, weight training facilities and football locker rooms.
Griffin, the reigning American Athletic Conference defensive player of the year, spoke with reporters Thursday night following the Knights’ opening practice for the 2017 season and explained why he’s chosen to shack up in the 44,000-square foot football facility for the next month.
“I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to get the full experience of camp. This is my last one,’ ” Griffin said. “So I’m the only one going to be staying at the Wayne Densch and watching film and going in the weight
room … instead of going back and forth from home, I’m actually staying here for the entire camp.”
His teammate and roommate Trysten Hill, however, said he thinks he knows the real reason why Griffin has decided to seclude himself until the team’s Aug. 31 season opener at home against FIU.
“He really enjoys sleep ... loves his sleep. That’s one thing I’ve learned and he’s willing to do anything for it,” said Hill, a sophomore defensive lineman, one of only four returning starters on the UCF defense. “He told us, ‘Hey man, I’m sleeping at the Wayne Densch for a while.’ We were all baffled … but he ended up doing it.”
Griffin is hunkered down as if he’s prepared to ride out a storm.
“I went to buy me a blow-up mattress and a comforter,” Griffin said. “I went to Publix, got snacks, got water, Powerade, Pedialyte ... everything I need just to be prepared for everything … even got chips and sandwiches so I’m fine in there when I get hungry.”
His first night in seclusion went fine despite some early anxiety.
“At first I freaked out,” Griffin said. “You know, it’s kind of scary. I’m by myself inside this big building. But once I turned everything off, I went to sleep.
“I woke up, I was here, I could get some extra sleep. I’m walking around … talking to the janitor, it’s kind of cool. I’m wide awake by the time everybody gets here.”
It’s an interesting jumpstart to his redshirt senior season and an unequivocal testimony that the Knights star outside linebacker is not about to rest on his junior season laurels.
“My whole thing is not to feel like I’m alone and try to give back to the younger guys, take what I’ve learned … from my brother and guys ahead of me,” Griffin said. “That’s the whole thing, not to feel like everything is just put on my shoulders and on my back. I can be able to spread everything out.”
Griffin said it hadn’t really set in that it was the beginning of his final season or that he’s on the field for the first time since high school without his older brother Shaquill Griffin, who was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the third round of this year’s NFL Draft.
He has plenty of other brothers around him though.
“Having him being there, his presence is huge, not only for me, for my performance, but for the whole team’s performance,” Hill said. “He’ll be on the field and talk and all of us listen and pay attention, and that’s huge for us, especially for the younger guys.”
Hill did, however, say he had to pass on Griffin’s invitation to join him at the Densch Center.
“He tried to talk me into it, but I told him I have a nice bed at the house,” Hill said. “This is his last year being here so he’s gotta get all that experience, all the Wayne Densch in that he can.
“He said he’s going to continue doing it, so we’ll see how long he’ll stick with it.”