Glen Dorsey really is Forrest Gump (different than the video)

[EyePod]

Once Glenn Dorsey was able to run, no one could stop him





By Kyle Tucker
The Virginian-Pilot



BATON ROUGE, La.


There are practical jokes among college roommates, and then there are near-fatal errors in judgment like the one LSU's Tyson Jackson made last Halloween.


"I decided to play a prank on Glenn," the defensive back said. "I wanted to scare him."


That would be Glenn Dorsey, the Tigers' 6-foot-2, 303-pound All-American defensive tackle - a guy not many people can scare.


But Jackson - a pretty imposing figure himself as a 6-5, 291-pound defensive end - thought he could rattle the big guy. So Jackson left the front door to their apartment cracked open, as if someone had broken in. He flipped the electric breaker off and crouched in the laundry room, wearing a mask and waiting to pounce.


"When Glenn came in, you could tell he thought something was up," Jackson said. "I got excited."


Dorsey stormed through the apartment, shouting, "Who's in here?!" Jackson sprang from his hiding place, a towering, menacing, masked figure appearing in front of Dorsey. Surely, a squeal was coming.


"Nope," Jackson said. " Now, a normal person would yell and run. And he yelled... but this man grabbed me with both hands. He picked me up off the floor.


"He was about to throw me out the window. We live on the second floor, so I started hollering, 'Glenn, it's me! Glenn, stop! It's me!'"


Dorsey stopped short of launching his good friend. But the tables were officially turned, as they often are on the football field, and Jackson was the one who left the encounter terrified.


Ninth-ranked Virginia Tech, Jackson said, should take notice as it prepares for tonight's game at No. 2 LSU.


"That story goes to show," he said, "that the man's hands are always ready for battle."


But Dorsey wasn't always fit for a fight. He got his scrapper's mentality as a frustrated child. Long before football made him famous, before he became one of the most freakishly athletic 300-pound men in America, Sandra Dorsey wondered if her son would even walk normally.


As a toddler, he wore cumbersome metal leg braces to correct a condition - "we just called it extreme bowleggedness," Glenn Dorsey said - that left him watching other youngsters scoot gleefully past him.


"He couldn't keep his balance," Sandra said. "It was very hard at first, because he wanted to play. But he was a child who always listened to everything you told him. And I told him he'd be out there before long, so he never cried about it."


The braces did the trick in a little more than a year. Well before he even started elementary school, his legs had straightened not only enough for him to walk, but also...


"Run!" Sandra said. "Oh my, once he got his balance, he didn't want to stop going.... That's the reason we got him into sports."


Dorsey didn't take long to make up for his time on the sidelines. He grew so fast, so tall and so wide, that when he joined a rec-league football team, opposing parents made Dorsey weigh in before all the games.
"He actually did exercises, stopped eating sweets, only ate salads," said his mother. "He was like 8 years old. Whatever he had to do to be allowed to play. "


Dorsey's body, which once betrayed him, seemed to reward his patience a little more each year. By seventh grade, he topped 200 pounds and was having his way with the other kids.


For the first time - but certainly not the last - he was feared.
Last season for the Tigers, Dorsey wrought such worry that he was double-teamed by opposing offensive lines on nearly every play. Despite that, and the fact that he played most of the year with a stress fracture in his left leg, Dorsey had 62 tackles, 8.5 for losses, and three sacks.


"He's a fighter," LSU center Brett Helms said. "The guy just never quits. Imagine what he could do one-on-one. It's scary."


Scary good is how most pro scouts see it.


Dorsey was projected to have been a first-round draft pick had he left early for the NFL in April. Instead, figuring a healthy season could vault him into the top 10 picks next spring, Dorsey stayed.


Besides, he likes this college thing, will soon pick up his degree and wouldn't mind closing this career with a national championship. Not a bad plan for the bowlegged kid from Gonzales, La., a town of about 9,000 approximately 25 minutes from LSU's campus.


"I look back and I kind of laugh at it," Dorsey said. "It's very ironic. I like to think I'm doing more with less. I always like to take the underdog approach to everything. I think about it all the time, and I try to use that as motivation."


Look closely, Sandra Dorsey said, and you can still see a slight inward bow to his legs. It serves as a reminder of her son's journey, which is easy to forget when he's flattening grown men on Saturdays.


LSU coach Les Miles had never even heard the story about Dorsey's braces until this summer.


"You'd never imagine it," he said. "That body came together very well."
Said Sandra: "Sometimes I look at him and I really can't believe it's my child. But then, in a way, I always knew Glenn would be such a success. He never was afraid of hard work."


As it turns out, he's not afraid of much at all.


Kyle Tucker, (757) 446-2374, kyle.tucker@pilotonline.com




http://hamptonroads.com/node/324481



I love this guy... he's hysterical...I don't even miss JA anymore....

On a side note, are we going to play Minny in a practice session again?

[KcMizzou]

Originally Posted by EyePod

"I decided to play a prank on Glenn," the defensive back said. "I wanted to scare him."


That would be Glenn Dorsey, the Tigers' 6-foot-2, 303-pound All-American defensive tackle - a guy not many people can scare.


But Jackson - a pretty imposing figure himself as a 6-5, 291-pound defensive end - thought he could rattle the big guy. So Jackson left the front door to their apartment cracked open, as if someone had broken in. He flipped the electric breaker off and crouched in the laundry room, wearing a mask and waiting to pounce.


"When Glenn came in, you could tell he thought something was up," Jackson said. "I got excited."


Dorsey stormed through the apartment, shouting, "Who's in here?!" Jackson sprang from his hiding place, a towering, menacing, masked figure appearing in front of Dorsey. Surely, a squeal was coming.


"Nope," Jackson said. " Now, a normal person would yell and run. And he yelled... but this man grabbed me with both hands. He picked me up off the floor.


"He was about to throw me out the window. We live on the second floor, so I started hollering, 'Glenn, it's me! Glenn, stop! It's me!'"


Dorsey stopped short of launching his good friend. But the tables were officially turned, as they often are on the football field, and Jackson was the one who left the encounter terrified.

That's hilarious.

Great read. Thanks.

[KcMizzou]

I love this guy already.

[bowener]

I hope Alberts starts at LT and JA eats shit all damn day...
in reference to the Minny practices.

[mdstu]

I drove 5 hours and paid $10 last year just to watch them scuffle and quit.
I was so pissed.