Eagles senior learned from the best
When Columbia senior receiver Wilson Babb took home the team MVP award from the St. Louis Rams squad at the NFL High School Player Development National Tournament in Tampa Bay July 11, he was standing tall.
He was, in a sense, standing on the shoulders of giants.
Babb was a wee freshman in 2007, looking on as the Columbia football team used a blocked extra-point attempt in the second overtime to score a dramatic 40-39 victory over Greenville in the IHSA Class 3A state semifinals.
The Eagles would go on to lose the title tilt to Plano, but the next year Columbia once again advanced deep into the postseason field, all the way back to the semifinals.
It was a seminal experience for the young Babb, who now plays a huge role for the Eagles in both football and basketball.
“You look at the success those teams had, making it to the championship game and then the semifinals my sophomore year, and you see people that you know and talk to at school having success like they did, you want it for yourself and you want it for when you are a senior,” Babb said. “It motivated me to get in the weight room. I will be the first to admit that my freshman and sophomore year I did not have a great work ethic in the weight room and it motivated me when I saw those guys having success, because their work in the weight room played a big part in it.
“Those two years had success in basketball too, which is the other sport I am involved with. Those two classes motivated my class a lot when it comes to athletics because we saw how successful they were and we wanted that for ourselves.”
Babb and the boys of 2011 are determined to leave the same lasting mark as their predecessors, lighting the fire under the sneaks of the next generation of Eagles.
“My brother Adam is going to be a sophomore this upcoming year and his class has a ton of potential in all sports, but especially in football,” Babb said. “They went undefeated as freshmen and they can be something special.
“As seniors I feel like it is our responsibility to pass on our work ethic and pass on the motivation to succeed to those underclassmen.”
