Competition Key For Porter Family
Grant and Geordon Porter knew their father was a pretty big deal in track back in his day, but that was back in his day.
The brothers didn’t quite grasp their father’s accomplishments on the track until they were able to equate it with their day.
As a high-schooler, George Porter set the America high-school record in the 300 hurdles and held the mark for more than 20 years. But even before the record was broken, his sons gained an understanding of how fast their father really was.
Almost a decade ago, George got a phone call from a track coach at Texas A&M who had recruited him.
“He said, ‘There’s a kid who’s coming real close to breaking your high school American record,’ which still stood at the time,” George recalls.
That kid never did break the record.
“He came about one-hundredth of a second from breaking it, I set it at 35.32 and he ran 35.33,” Porter explains.
But the kid ran his 35.33 as a junior in high school and didn’t run track as a high-school senior, instead, choosing to enroll early to begin his football career at Baylor.
His name was Robert Griffin III.
“Had Robert Griffin stayed that year, he would have shattered my record and he’d still have the record,” George laughs.
Running the 400 intermediate hurdles and the 4x400 relay, George was a star at USC; a two-time Pac-10 champion and a three-time All-American, who finished third as a junior and was ranked first as a senior before needing surgery on his foot. He was ranked Top 10 in the United States and Top 20 in the world while placing third in the 300 hurdles at the 1990 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Still, it was Griffin who helped earn him street cred around his own house.
But even with a wife who attended Cal-Berkeley on a track scholarship with her own national record from an elite high school program, George never pushed his sons toward the track.
“I did some workouts with them and worked on their mechanics,” he says. “But I wanted them to do something different and become their own men.
“I never forced that on them. I just tried to give them the tools to work on their speed and be good athletes.”
While at USC, George became friends with future NFL wide receiver Curtis Conway and Quincy Watts, who won a pair of gold medals at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.
“We ran together at SC,” George says. “I’d say, ‘Hey, look at Geordon go. Look at Grant go.’ They’d say, ‘Oh, yeah. They can run.’ I knew early they had speed naturally.
“You could kind of tell at five or six years old that they had a little speed.”
Still, George wanted “bigger and brighter things” for his boys and it didn’t take long before he realized those could be accomplished on the gridiron.
“They kind of took to football,” he says, adding that he played football in high school before he got too tall to play running back while his father played college football at Langston College.
“If you’re going to have that kind of talent, man, take it all of the way and get paid for it if you can. Track and field didn’t pay the level of money that football did. I thought there were just more opportunities to go forward and have more options in football.”
Grant ended up signing with Washington State over several other scholarship offers as a California prospect in the Class of 2016. Geordon, a 2018 receiver, is nearing the end his recruiting process and will choose between Notre Dame, Arizona State and Utah on Wednesday.
Whatever the boys played, they were going to compete at it, that was for sure.
“I’m very competitive, our family is very competitive,” says George. “I would tell them, ‘I lined up against Germany, Africa, Russia and I wasn’t scared lining up against anybody.’ That’s the way football is as well. You’ve got to line up and compete.
“No matter where you go, where you’re from, who you play for, you’ve got to make your own way. You’ve got line up and compete and you’ve got to be willing to call people out. That’s kind of the mentality. ‘Hey, you want to talk some trash, line up right here.’ The best is never scared to line up against the best. The best lives to compete against the best.”
That’s how Porter has raised his sons – and his daughter, Kennedi, who is already promising track athlete as a ninth-grader.
“They’ve been brought up to know that anything that’s great, you’ve got to go compete against the best,” he says. “They’re all over the United States, so don’t be afraid, get there and go.”
7-on-7 football is big in California and the Porter boys had a chance to play with one of the country’s top programs from their hometown of Rancho Cucamonga, Ground Zero, led by Armond Hawkins and Anthony Brown.
“Ground Zero has put them in a position to compete at a very high level, not only for their high school, but the 7-on-7 circuit, with Armond,” Porter says. “Grant won a national championship against Bishop Gorman. They competed against (Georgia quarterback) Jacob Eason. My sons would see all of the kids and they battled with these kids all over the nation.”
Geordon even played against 2018 Notre Dame wide receiver commit Micah Jones and his BOOM squad out of Chicago this past offseason.
“It’s a small world,” George says. “They were always able to play for one of the very top 7-on-7 programs and start and be very successful competing against nothing but the best. It’s in their blood to compete. It’s in their blood to line up. It’s all up to you. If you want to be successful, it’s on you. That’s been instilled in them.”
The brothers certainly compete against each other, but they’re also very supportive of one another.
“They pick at each other as big brother and little brother,” their father says. “‘I’m going to be better than you. I’m going to get more offers than you. I’m going further than you.’ But there’s a lot of love there where they’re very proud of each other too.”
Having gone through the process with Grant just a couple years ago, the family was better prepared this time around with Geordon.
“You learn a lot,” Mr. Porter says. “You learn who didn’t talk to your son, what position coach did or didn’t. You learn the structure of college football recruiting in general. You just get an understanding of what college football coaches are looking for when it comes to their position and other positions. The situation as recruits start to commit, how many receivers are they going to take.
“I’ve had to study as well as my sons what the tendencies of the coach and the staff and the people and the players are. The longer you’re in it, the more you get an understanding of the way it works.”
But the brothers are also very different.
“I don’t think one is more talented than the other when I break it down,” their father says. “I just think they have different strengths. It’s one of those things where you’re looking to try to figure out where that best fit is to maximize their strengths. My oldest is a little more quiet, but he’s a quiet storm. He’s just not really the rah-rah type.”
Geordon is very much the rah-rah guy.
“He’s going to talk, he’s going to chatter, he’s going to show you,” his father says. “Geordon is going to wear his feelings on his sleeve.
“He’s passionate and you’ve got to love it. That’s football. Football is a very passionate sport. He’s extremely competitive, extremely passionate type of kid. It’s infectious to the people around him. Players tend to follow his lead and gravitate around a person with those types of traits.”
Geordon isn’t afraid to set the highest of goals either and he’ll have those goals in mind when he’s picking his college.
“Geordon wants to go to the NFL,” his father says emphatically. “A lot of people would automatically jump at Notre Dame as a fallback like, ‘If I don’t make the pros, I went to Notre Dame…’ No, Geordon Porter wants to go to the NFL. He wants to go to the NFL.”
Geordon and his father were at Cal recently to watch Grant and the Cougars play the Bears. One of the Cal defensive back’s frustrations were obvious from the stands and Geordon immediately understood why.
“Geordon said, ‘Well, Dad, you have to understand, that’s his way out,’” George recalls. “‘He’s got to get there. You can’t be mad at him for trying to work his way. He wants to get there.’ I was like, ‘Wow, it’s cool that you get that.’”
Geordon is fortunate to come from a background where the NFL isn’t his only way out, but it’s still the route he’s aiming to take.
“He wants to go to the school that’s going to get him to the NFL,” his father reiterates. “Those are the kinds of players you want around you. You want smart guys, but you want guys who want to get to The League.”
Notre Dame wide receiver coach Del Alexander has made it clear that’s just the attitude he wants his players to have. And just because his goal is the NFL doesn’t mean Geordon lacks any interest in academics.
“That’s why Notre Dame sits so high,” his father says. “He feels he could accomplish both there. He’s a very bright kid, very smart kid. We’ve had the conversation that, ‘As talented as you are physically, you’re just as talented mentally. Don’t let that go to waste.’
“People talk about his speed, but more than Geordon’s speed, he’s smart. What makes Geordon a great football player is that he can read stuff, he can see the field. He knows what’s going to happen, where everybody is going to be, he knows coverages. He studies it. He’s a student of it. Beyond being gifted, he can pull off stuff because he knows where everybody is going to be and what their opportunities are. That’s one thing the NFL is looking for.”
He’s just as competitive in the classroom as he is on the field, which is another reason some consider Notre Dame to be the favorite heading into this week’s announcement.
“I feel good as a parent about Notre Dame,” Mr. Porter says. “I know his brother does. I know Geordon does.
“From the many places we’ve been able to go – and Notre Dame was probably at the top. Walking into the stadium saying, ‘Man, they want my son. This is like a dream come true. Whoever would have dreamed that a place like Notre Dame and some of the other schools would be where my kids would be in demand?’”
Neither brother is near the end of their careers, but their father can’t find all of the words to describe the pride he has as he watches them continue their journeys.
“I’m proud beyond proud. It’s gone beyond what I’d ever dreamed of. I’m proud of them as young men, as good students, good athletes and the character they’ve been able to carry on, staying out of trouble and keeping the name clean. It’s a dream come true.
“I have to pinch myself sometimes.”