Leap from Lake pays dividends for LV prep standout Reynolds

Steve Guiremand

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.

Lake Havasu City, Ariz., has long been known as a favorite destination for college students during spring break. It also boasts the London Bridge as a tourist attraction.

One day it also might become known as the hometown of a linebacker named Ryan Reynolds.

The 6-foot-2, 225-pound Reynolds was born and raised in Lake Havasu, where his parents own a boat rental business. But Reynolds and his family decided to move to Las Vegas last year to follow Lake Havasu head coach David White to his new job at Bishop Gorman High School.

"I knew it would be the best thing for me to do," Reynolds said. "I'd lived in Lake Havasu my whole life. But this was a chance to play against some better competition."

So far the move seems to have paid off for the Reynolds family.

Ryan Reynolds, a first-team all-state pick by the Sun last fall, may be the most heavily recruited prep football player to ever come out of Las Vegas.

Reynolds, rated one of the top three linebacker prospects in the West by Tom Lemming of ESPN.com, has already received scholarship offers from almost 30 major Division I college football programs and is a cinch to be one of 40 players from the western United States to be invited to partcipate in the U.S. Army High School All-Star Football Game in San Antonio on Jan. 15.

Reynolds has already lined up a recruiting trip to Oklahoma on Sept. 24-25. He also plans on visiting Florida, with defending co-national champion LSU, Miami, Notre Dame, UCLA and Washington other schools also garnering serious consideration.

"I think I want what everyone wants when it comes to picking a college," the soft-spoken Reynolds said. "That is to be a part of a big-time college program and to also get a good education."

Good academics, something that has limited the options for a number of Las Vegas area high school stars in recent years, isn't a problem for Reynolds who has a sparkling 3.4 GPA and a solid 23 on the ACT.

But it's his numbers on the football field that have colleges drooling. Reynolds had 96 tackles and six sacks as a junior for the Gaels and also rushed for 395 yards and five touchdowns as a fullback. He bench presses 380 pounds and routinely runs the 40-yard dash in the 4.6-second range. He also finished third in the state of Arizona in the 215-pound class in wrestling as a sophomore.

"He's just so competitive," said White, a former UNLV tight end. "He'll work his butt off out there for you and the other players pick up on that."

Reynolds began to garner national attention last summer after excelling at an Oklahoma summer camp.

"Coach (Bob) Stoops and those guys just loved him," White said. "It was his first camp and he wasn't intimidated."

Reynolds said, "(Oklahoma coaches) seemed to really like what I could do and it sort of went from there. Once I got a (scholarship) offer from Oklahoma, a lot of other schools started to take a serious look at me and began to offer me as well."

Lemming included Reynolds on his national Top 100 prospects list for 2005 and listed him as one of 12 linebackers in the nation to watch. The only other two from the West were Luther Brown (6-2, 220) of Lakewood, Calif., and Rey Maualuga (6-2, 230) of Eureka, Calif., considered by some scouts to be the top player in northern California this year.