Coach: 2019 DT Briggs "A Special Kid"
“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.”
Jowon Briggs is a young man with a variety of talents and it certainly doesn’t seem he’s about to waste any of them.
Faced with the option of filling a free period on his Walnut Hills High School schedule with a study hall earlier this school year, Briggs decided he wanted to do actually something.
“We have a nationally-renowned choir, our school has a phenomenal choir,” Walnut Hills head football coach Brian Lainhart explains. “He goes out and auditions for the choir, he’s the lead in the school play that won all of these awards in Cincinnati.”
He may not have had the chance to play Lorenzo The Bus Driver in "A Bronx Tale," where this story's original quote is taken, but Briggs did have a chance to play the role of Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the Walnut Hills production of "Ragtime" and like Coalhouse, Briggs is willing to fight for what he wants.
And one thing the 2019 Ohio defensive tackle wants right now is to be the best.
“He’s one of the highest character kids I’ve ever been around,” said Lainhart, who played safety at Kent State before spending time with the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens as a player.
“The thing that makes Jowon special is his character and the type of kid he is. It really stuck out this year. When kids start getting offers, especially at an early age, a lot of them have been the best player their whole life, so they’ve kind of been coddled to and catered to a bit, so practice is not exactly what they want to do. Jowon is the best practice player we have, which says a tremendous amount about him as a person and the way he’s driven to be great. Not just being a good football player, Jowon wants to be the best.”
“If you put out a list and said there were four better d-tackles in the Class of 2019, he’s going to go out and work his (butt) off to make sure everybody knows he’s number one. Not in an egotistical way, not in a way where the team doesn’t matter. He’s just a driven kid and a young man whether it’s individual drills in practice or it’s team or it’s D vs scout, that kid goes 100 miles per hour and I love it. That’s why he’s going to be successful.”
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Several colleges are confident about Briggs’ chances of being successful, which is why he already has scholarship offers from schools like Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Cincinnati and Kentucky among others, but don’t look for the Cincinnati native’s list of offers to grow exponentially.
Lainhart says Briggs will politely ask him to let schools know if he doesn’t have serious interest in order to avoid them wasting their time.
“Jowon has a list of offers and he’ll probably be one of the most highly-coveted defensive tackles in the Class of 2019 – if not the most coveted kids – and he’ll only have 15 offers,” his coach says.
“That’s what’s so special about him. He doesn’t want the attention drawn to him. He wants it for his teammates and Walnut Hills Football.”
Still, it doesn’t take long for Briggs to garner his share of attention with his ability on the field.
“He’s an extremely quick-twitched kid,” Lainhart explains. “It’s hard to develop being a quick-twitched athlete at 282 pounds. He moves and jumps and runs and stops and changes directions like he’s a linebacker. You just don’t see that very often, which is why d-tackles are so highly-coveted. The Good Lord just doesn’t make 6-3, 285-pound people who can move like that, which is why they also go high in the NFL Draft. There’s not many of them out there.
“He’s a physical kid and I don’t mean by his body. I mean, he is a physical football player. He uses his hands extremely, extremely well. He knows he’s got to get better with hand placement and things like that, but he’s just a natural grappling kid, which is great.”
But again, Briggs’ talents extend well beyond the gridiron.
“He plays the piano very well, can sing very well,” says Lainhart. “He’s a special young man. He ain’t just a football player, he’s a special young man. He comes from a great family with Mom and Dad, they are tremendous people. You can see that’s where Jowon gets his humble nature from and his work ethic.”
When he gets to college, Briggs plans on studying Computer Science, another avenue where he has shown tremendous promise.
“This kid was able to build his own computer from scratch at 12 years old,” Lainhart says. “Yeah, he is special. He’s a kid who is good at everything he does. He works hard at it.
“He’s got a lot of good things going for him. He’s got his head on straight. He knows what he wants in a school and he’s going to make sure the school he chooses checks all of the boxes and he’ll be good to go.”
Football will be a major factor in where Briggs decides to go to college, but it won’t be the only one.
“Obviously, academics is a big thing,” his coach says. “He’s an intelligent kid, very smart kid. He wants to have his major. He doesn’t want to go to a school that does not have his major, that would be a dealbreaker. Football is a big thing.
“You have to fall in love with your position coach and your strength coach because those are the two guys you’re going to spend all of your time with. All of these kids you see who transfer, they get enamored by who’s recruiting them. Then you get there and he’s the o-line coach and you’re a d-lineman, you’re never going to see him. Jowon is going to make sure he’s got a great relationship with the defensive line coach and the strength coach. Those two coaches are probably going to play the biggest role. Obviously, the head coach plays a big role, but he’s going to have to have a great relationship with the d-line coach.”
Briggs will hit the road in the coming weeks in an effort to start finding the right place for him. He visited Michigan and Michigan State recently and will be in South Bend for the Irish’s Sophomore Day on April 2nd.
“I think Notre Dame is like an Alabama or an Ohio State, where if they’re interested in you, you at least have to listen,” Lainhart explains. “I’m not saying you have to go there, but I think it’s a school you at least have to listen to what they have to say. I think that’s kind of what’s caught his eye, so he’s interested.”
Lainhart is convinced Briggs’ attitude and work ethic off the field will continue to separate him on the field when he gets to college.
“At the end of the day, when you get to a school like Notre Dame or Ohio State or Michigan, everybody’s got God-given ability at that level and his character is going to make him successful wherever he chooses to go,” the coach says.
“He’s a special kid. I love the kid.”