Babb hits bigtime
Wilson Babb had a strong junior season on the flank for the Columbia football team in 2009.
During this blazing hot summer, though, Babb has really caught fire.
The Eagles senior wide receiver was one of around 160 local grid stars who attended the NFL High School Player Development Camp presented by the National Guard June 14-18 at Belleville West.
“The St. Louis Rams and the National Guard put on this High School Player Development Camp every year,” Columbia coach Scott Horner said. “There were a lot of us area coaches there – myself, Dan Rose from Waterloo, guys from O’Fallon and Belleville East. The kids go down there for five straight days and the coaches are given a practice plan with different drills to do to teach them fundamentals to work on their skills.
“I found out about the camp through Coach Horner,” Babb said. “We were in the football weight room one morning and he talked about it. It wasn’t mandatory or anything like that, but a couple of the football guys got together and we decided that it would be a good opportunity to make ourselves better for the upcoming season.”
The entire football curriculum the NFL sets down is variable, but the one thing that is standard in all of the camps across the country is a character development and leadership portion, held the first night in classrooms. The four other nights were 7-on-7 football action. On the final day, the Rams football staff and Matt Biermann, the president of Elite Football Academy in St. Louis, picked a dandy dozen.
“At the end of the camp they picked who they think are the 12 best campers who are there in the skill positions,” Horner said. “They got to go to an all-expenses-paid trip to Tampa and compete with the groups from the other NFL teams who do this in a 7-on-7 competition. Wilson was picked as one of the 12.”
“I actually didn’t know about the opportunity to go to Tampa Bay until the third or fourth day of the camp,” Babb said. “I didn’t really think I was even on the radar and they called me and left a voicemail to tell me I made it and I was pretty shocked actually.”
Babb and the rest of the Rams reps finished in the top eight out of 22 teams July 9-11, going 1-4 in exhibition games on the first day and 4-2 in the tournament the next.
“We didn’t play very well that first day, but we came back the next day,” Babb said. “It was awesome. I’m not knocking the Columbia athletic program or any of the schools around here, but we don’t have 6-3 kids who are running 4.4 40s. There was a kid on my team who is being recruited to play cornerback at Michigan, there is another kid being recruited by Illinois to play running back. It was top-level talent.
“Then you go down to Tampa Bay and there were some kids there who will play in the National Football League. It was cool for me to be able to go out on the field and perform well against players like that. It definitely boosts my confidence and makes me feel pretty good about myself.”
He did more than just perform well. The players on the team voted Babb the MVP. Babb is blue-collar down to his socks, so the award knocked him back a step, though he never left his feet.
“Embarrassed and shocked are two words that describe it pretty well,” Babb said. “I am extremely happy that I won it and I feel that I played well enough to win it, but I feel there was a kid there who deserved it more than I did in terms of overall importance to our team. I actually voted for him and I felt bad for him that he didn’t get it.
“At the same time, I can’t say that I was mad that I won it. You feel good about yourself.”
“Wilson is the kind of kid that every coach would love to have,” Horner said. “You would love to have a lot of kids like him. He just works his tail off. He isn’t going to get out there and wow you with any 40 time or anything like that, but he has a knack for being an athlete.
“He works his butt off and he is extremely competitive. I expected that from him and wasn’t at all surprised when I saw his success this summer. I am hoping that he can stay healthy and continue to have that success in the fall.”
Babb is on the right track, without question.
“I think all he has to do is continue what he has been doing,” Horner said. “He is a kid who iss going to lead the group and the rest of the group is going to see his effort. For him it is all about effort and being competitive. He is an extremely competitive kid and if he just continues to do that he is going to emerge as a pretty good football player.”
Much of the impetus for this emerging star’s rise came during a dark period of inactivity.
“I feel like my hard work has really led to my success and the thing that has really motivated me to work hard was during my freshman year,” Babb said. “I played almost no minutes at the junior varsity basketball level and it almost kind of made me mad. After that I started busting my tail in practice, in basketball and football. I started working on my fundamentals a little more.
“I feel for me to reach my potential in football this year I have to keep focusing on the little things. Those little things are the things that win games and I think if I continue to work on them, continue to work on my hands and catching the ball, I think I can have a fairly successful season.”
