Knights Shoot for Three Straight
Keith Murphy
Thursday April 18, 2002
Macon Knights head coach Kevin Porter argues that even though this is a tough spot for the Rhinos their coaching staff can turn the situation into an emotional advantage. “They’ve had two weeks to look at what they did wrong and they have another tape on us. I think they’ve got a good group of coaches over there. When you’re a coach and you go out and get beat up a little bit you really want to come back and prove you belong. They’ll play hard and it’ll be a good game.”
Macon has started the season with two impressive wins. Porter credits that quick start to team moves over the season to increase team speed. “Last year we were competitive, but we weren’t really fast. When we played fast teams like Tulsa and Quad Cities we lost on quickness. We went out to get quicker players. That quickness aspect has made us a better team and has made us able to compete with the best.”
Porter cited Gabe Amey, Jaquez Rumph, and Denario Smalls as players whose quickness is making the Knights a stronger club. Amey, who leads the team in interceptions, came to the Knights from Menlo College in California. “Last year we were looking for receivers,” Porter explained, “Gabe had played with a coach at Menlo that Chris Siegfried (former Macon Offensive Coordinator) had contact with. San Jose worked him out and gave us the green light. I didn’t want to bring him all the way out here if he wasn’t going to be a prospect. He was on the practice squad for over a month then played in the last four or five games. He showed flashes of talent. During the offseason he worked hard on being a better linebacker and that has made him our go to guy.”
Porter says that Jaquez Rumph, who has scored five touchdowns for the Knights this season, has “completely stepped his game up. Last year he was learning what we wanted. We traded with Rochester to get him back. I don’t want good guys from this area going up to the northeast to play.”
The beneficiary of all this new quickness is Knights starting QB Mike Gluski. In his first full season as starter Porter says that Gluski, who has already passed for 445 yards and 10 TDs, “has accepted the (starter’s) role well. This was his first opportunity to come in and be the triggerman and even in some rough spots last week (against Tallahassee) he’s played well.”
After Friday’s game against Carolina, the Knights are back in Macon next weekend to face the Tennessee Valley Vipers. Porter wanted to remind the Macon fans that the players need the support of everyone in the community. “These are a bunch of guys who go out and work really hard. They don’t make a lot of money – they play for the love of the game – it’s a grind. They work 9 to 5 jobs and then practice from 6 to 8. These guys work very hard and compete in every game to the very end.”
Dr. Murphy has nearly 20 years of media experience ranging from radio to the Internet. He has served as webmaster for two AF2 teams and the football team at Fort Valley State University. He is a professor at FVSU and directs www.bunniwerks.org, a non-profit rabbit rescue organization. He has been commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel. Murphy is also serving as a first party editor of af2 stories for ArenaFfan. For more information about Dr. Murphy see: www.keithmurphy.info
