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Friday, July 7, 2006 10:50 PM CDT
Maples to join former CHS teammate at Aurora
BY BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
CHARLESTON -- For the second time in three years, Charleston is sending a center to Aurora University’s football team.
Daniel Maples, the second-team All-Apollo Conference lineman from last year’s Charleston IHSA playoff qualifier, was not necessarily looking to follow 2004 graduate Collin Smith.
Nor was football Maples’ No. 1 priority.
Then again, joining a teammate and continuing a football career were no small considerations either.
“My major is going to be criminal justice,” Maples said. “After that I decided I wanted to play football. I found out Aurora has great criminal justice and also has a football team.
“I spoke with Collin. He’s told me what I can expect as far as the workouts and what kind of shape I should be in. He told me if I got my major, the football was really fun.”
Smith became a starting center for Aurora the past year as a sophomore.
Maples is not necessarily looking to take a job away from his former teammate but eventually would like to be a key figure somewhere on Aurora’s offensive line.
“I’m not going to go into it with a position in mind,” the incoming freshman said.
“I’m going to learn the system and the plays.
“I know they have a JV team. Depending on how fast I can pick up the offense, I hopefully can play for them. If I can get in shape and get their offense down maybe I can be playing my sophomore year. Hopefully, my junior year I can be starting.”
Certainly, the chance to play college football appealed to Maples and NCAA Division III Aurora seemed to be the right fit.
“My brother had the opportunity to go, but he said he didn’t want to degrade himself to play Division III,” said Maples, the younger brother of 2000 Charleston graduate Mark Maples. “I think D3 is more my atmosphere. It will have the feeling of high school, but the toughness of college football.”
Charleston coach Brian Halsey is glad to see another of his players continuing his football career.
“Daniel worked very hard on the field and he worked even harder in the classroom,” Halsey said. “He put himself in the position to take his game to the next level. He’ll fill in fine there. Collin Smith was a leader when Daniel was an underclassman and I’m sure he’ll help him there as well.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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