LAMPHERE'S HORVATH FINALLY GETTING DUE ATTENTION IN RECRUITING GAME

The local high school football scene lost a good chunk of prep quarterbacking talent with the graduation of a slew ace signal callers from Oakland County last month.  Gurus of the gridiron need not fret though, since there still remains a steady amount of fire-throwing field generals hailing from the area ready to light-up scoreboards like pinball machines this upcoming season. Sitting sturdily in the upper-echelon of that list is Madison Heights Lamphere's Ryan Horvath, set to enter this fall as a third-year starter and one of the top high school quarterbacks in the state.

Last season, he threw for 1575 yards and 20 touchdowns against only eight interceptions, in leading the Rams into the playoffs. This season, it should be more of the same since Lamphere returns not only Horvath, but his top receiving target, Mitch Kozlowski and the team's top defensive player in linebacker Jackson Lewis.

Horvath is one of those true thoroughbreds of a teenage athlete, already having earned eight varsity letters and multiple all-conference honors in three sports. Besides taking snaps under center for the Rams football team, he is the starting shooting guard on the school's basketball team and the starting second basemen on the baseball squad. During the winter on the hardwood, Horvath is a top-flight long distance gunner with a picture-perfect stroke. Come springtime, he hits over .350 in his baseball cleats.

In a strange way, Horvath, nicknamed "Wizard" for his defensive prowess on both the baseball diamond and basketball court, has been hurt in the football recruiting game by his desire to compete in other sports. During the summer, Horvath plays travel baseball with the widely-acclaimed South Oakland A's, which cuts into his time attending camps and combines for football.

College scouts these days prefer prep athletes that put all of their time behind one sport of their choosing in order to get a better gage of their future priorities (i.e coaches don't want to spend three years recruiting a kid for basketball to all of a sudden find out their senior year that they decide they want to play football at the next level instead).

But the cream, as they say, will always find a way to rise to the top and that's just what has happened with Burney's main triple-threat homey, "Wiz" Horvath. While visiting Lamphere coach, Jason Charron last winter, Michigan State coach, Mark D'antonio, was shown some film of Horvath torching opposing secondaries last season and it more than peaked his interest. On the spot, he invited Horvath up to MSU in the summer for all of their elite prospect events. Soon word was getting around about this somewhat hidden super-slinger and schools like Purdue, Indiana, Northwestern, Bowling Green and Toledo have all started to show interest. Since he is such a good student in the classroom – holding close to a 4.0 gpa – a bunch of IVY league schools have begun to sniff around as well.

I personally can't wait for THA WIZARD's senior year in 2010-2011. That said, I don't really know what I'm more looking forward to: Horvath's lightning bolt TD throws in the fall, his nothing-but-nylon 3-point bombs in the winter or the frequent rope-a-dope hitting clinics he puts on in the spring?