Up Close With Senior Linebacker Warren Lott
Oct 08, 2001 | Football
Oct. 8, 2001
- by Luke Scoby, Kansas State Sports Information Student Assistant
Georgia Military head coach Robert Nunn would have plenty of reason to believe that Warren Lott, now a senior linebacker for Kansas State, is an easy sell.
After Lott's sophomore year at this junior college in Milledgeville, Ga., he was sitting in Nunn's office discussing the options available to him with his two remaining years of NCAA eligibility. Enticing scholarships to Florida and Georgia were readily available to the second-team junior college All-American.
Sitting on Coach Nunn's desk was a particular magazine with three burly linebackers in purple uniforms on one of the glossy pages. These linebackers just happened to be former K-State players Jeff Kelly, Travis Ochs and Mark Simoneau. The caption of the photo read, "Kansas State: The best linebackers in the nation."
That was all it took for Lott to determine he wanted to be a Kansas State Wildcat.
"I remember this precisely," Lott said. "Coach Nunn was sitting at his desk and he asked me what I wanted to do. I pointed to the picture and said, 'Here. I want to go here. Where the best linebackers in the nation go.'"
The very next day Lott was on a jet to Manhattan, Kan., a place he had never even heard of, let alone visited.
"I didn't know what to think of this place," Lott said. "When I got here, all I could think of was how it was in the middle of nowhere."
Lott said he has been asked numerous times how he ended up at K-State. Why didn't he go to college football powerhouse Florida? Why didn't he stay in his home state to complete his education?
Lott said he replies the same every time.
"I did it for the experience," Lott said. "I went on a visit to Florida and really didn't like it. It was too fast paced for me. And I really didn't have any family in Georgia, so I was up for the new experience thing."
Lott never knew his real father and was raised by his aunt and uncle in a very strict home, a situation that led to Lott being kicked out by his senior year in high school.
"Warren Lott and K-State is all I have," Lott said. "I treat this place like my family. This place has done so much for me. It has given me a sense of direction. I was one of those kids with a lot of talent, but I was lost. Coach Snyder was the one to say, 'It's up to you to do this. I can put all this in front of you to help you.'
"Everybody here at K-State wants to help you. They want to point you in the right direction. I have all these resources available to me, and all I have to do is apply myself.
"Coach Snyder will sit down and have a man-to-man talk with me. I see that as my dad talking to me. I never had a dad, so I see him like my dad."
Lott, who signed with Clemson out of Georgia Military College, but didn't get in because of a grade in one class, has used these resources to work toward two degrees at K-State, social work and criminology.
Lott was able to pursue a dual degree after he suffered a season-ending knee injury and was granted a medical hardship waiver in 1999. Lott said after his injury he went through stages of depression and a feeling that he wasn't good enough. The injury occurred on his first day of practice on the 50-yard line and that is why he wears the number 50.
"I had never had an injury before in my life," Lott said. "I was at a point in my life where I could just keep going down, or I could rise above it. I had always heard that if I get a knee injury, my football career would be over. I believed that I would only get out of my knee what I put in. I worked out hard on my knee, and I reaped the benefits."
The next year, Lott started four games for the Wildcats and finished the season seventh on the team with 49 tackles, including 14 tackles and two quarterback hurries against Colorado. But Lott wasn't completely satisfied with his junior-year performance.
"Here it is my senior year, and I am thinking I don't want the same thing to happen as last year," Lott said. "Before every season, I ask myself, 'What can I do to make this season so much better than the last?' "
Lott doesn't know what the season holds for him, but he does know that he does not want to take his talent and the opportunities provided to him for granted. He said he has been given more than a fair chance at K-State and making the decision to come here after seeing a picture in a magazine more than three years ago has changed his life.
"I am not the same Warren as when I got here," Lott said. "I haven't experienced anything bad about this place. I will never, ever forget K-State. It has touched me in so many ways."
