[Sly Fox]

It appears Andrew doesn't have playing football out of his system:

COLUMBUS, GA, February 2 -- Seven months of off-season preparation start paying off February 5 as Columbus Lions Head Coach Jason Gibson opens training camp at 6:30 p.m. at A.J. McClung Memorial Stadium, next to the team's home turf at the Civic Center. Monday's workout, like most, is open to the public.

Of the 35 invited players, twenty played college football in Georgia or Alabama and fourteen have ties to local high schools. During the first week, only quarterbacks, wide receivers and defensive backs will be on hand, as Gibson feels he can accomplish more due to the attention to detail placed on each position.

Among new players who bear watching, according to Gibson, are DB Eddie Ravenell (North Carolina A&T), LB/DE Jauron Dailey (Florida A&M), QB Andrew McKay (Georgia and Liberty University) and RB Eugene Goodman (Liberty).

Expectations for the 2007 Lions have Gibson excited. "We have a lot of players right out of college so they should be in good shape. I think that we have good team speed. I've changed the playbook a little this year to fit our personnel and I can't wait to see how it all fits together," he said.

Visit www.columbuslions.net for complete, up-to-date team roster, news, features and photos. The World Indoor Football League's inaugural season opens with Augusta at Daytona Beach on February 11. The WIFL website is www.wifl.us and offers plenty of training camp news from all league franchises.

http://oursportscentral.com/services/re ... id=3422326

[Sly Fox]

Here's a little backgrounder for those of you who asked in the other thread asking about McKay. Obviously this story has a few factual errors but it gets the idea across:

QB McKay takes long, winding path to Lions
02/13/07 - World Indoor Football League (WIFL) Columbus Lions

COLUMBUS, GA, February 13 -- Strong-armed Andrew McKay has been a lot of places as the son of an Air Force colonel and a fine two-sport athlete. Somehow, his travels, academic difficulties and resulting maturity all seem about to converge into a breakout season quarterbacking the new World Indoor Football League Columbus Lions.

McKay was born in Fairbault, Minnesota but moved roughly every two years due to his father's career. He tallies sixteen different residences, and graduated high school in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he starred as a shooting guard in basketball through his junior year before concentrating on football. Among his hoops teammates was Wayne Simien, later a star on the University of Kansas' NCAA championship team.

"Family connections with Coach (Mark) Richt", as McKay put it, led to his coming to the University of Georgia as a walk-on rather than accept an Air Force Academy basketball scholarship. However, newly married to wife Tracey, also "an Air Force brat" whom he met in Turkey while both were visiting their dads, Andrew didn't pour himself into his studies. He practiced with the Bulldogs and hit the weight room. Ineligible academically, he weighed an offer from Valdosta State before deciding to attend Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia.

Known for instilling discipline and its boot-camp atmosphere, Hargrave brought out the best in McKay. "It was hot, no air conditioning, you had to take orders from people you don't like and become brothers with people you'd ordinarily never live with," he said. McKay worked out in the weight room, and played a tough schedule that included playing against second-string teams from the likes of Virginia Tech, Army, Navy, Kentucky and Georgia Military College. He called Hargrave "an experience you love to hate, a post-graduate situation that gives guys an extended look at getting to Division 1-A schools."

At a summer Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp, McKay met Liberty University head coach Frank Rocco, a former Penn State quarterback. Transferring from Georgia to Liberty didn't cost McKay a season. He played well as a junior, but lost his starting spot after Rocco left under new coach Ken Karcher, whom he called "a great offensive mind, but I wasn't one of his guys."

Though he had chances to play in arena football after graduating from Liberty, McKay opted for an internship under the strength coach at UGA. He was hired fulltime after the season and in 2005, helped coach the Bulldogs to their SEC championship before losing to West Virginia in the Sugar Bowl.

Interestingly, McKay auditioned for and was chosen to play the quarterback in the recently released movie "We Are Marshall". But, he said, "On the first day of filming, as I stepped under center, the director said 'we can't use you, quarterbacks weren't 6-foot-5, 230 pounds in 1971'. I couldn't play another position for them, so I'm not in the movie. It would have been nice to have on my resume."

McKay, who still is on the strength and conditioning staff at UGA, has had Arena Football league tryouts with the Arizona Rattlers, Georgia Force and Los Angeles Avengers. Coach Brian Winter in L.A. told him to "play hard for coach Gibson and tear it up in Columbus, and when we want you, we're gonna come get you", attesting to McKay's status as a legitimate AFL prospect.

Of the three-step drop necessitated by the indoor game, Andrew says "It's bang-bang-bang. You can't really gather yourself, then throw. You have to let it go almost before you're ready due to the smaller field."

Meanwhile, McKay still prepares strength programs for Georgia's quarterbacks, commuting from Athens in order to spend time with Tracey and 6-month-old son Moses. He's a bright young man who brings much to the table for the Lions, and it looks like his years on the move have led him to the right place to solidify his future in football.

http://oursportscentral.com/services/re ... id=3426268