Successful college athletes have to adapt to a lot of changes — and few players are better equipped to handle that than Republic football player Jack Hayes. Hayes has signed a letter of intent to play at Missouri S & T in Rolla. He says he’d planned on attending school there with or without a spot on the football team.
“You can’t get better than S&T,” he says. “I picked S&T before I even talked to their recruiter. I was already accepted and planned on going there, when they talked to me, I was going there anyway. I love the school.”
Hayes’ high school coach, Wes Beachler, says Hayes’ success in the classroom and on the field makes him a good fit for S&T. And he believes Hayes’ versatility on the field will help him succeed in college, too.
“Oftentimes, when you go to play college football, you don’t play the position you played in high school. You have to have the ability to play a different position, because they’re going to take football players from high school and put them where they need them in the program that fits,” Beachler says. “Jack’s been down that road a few times. I’ve been in my office with him, talking about having to play more fullback instead of linebacker talking about playing some line instead of linebacker to help the team. He never batted an eye. He said, ‘Whatever I need to do to help the team, that’s what I’ll do.’
Hayes also believes his experience in Republic will pay off at Rolla.
“I have a ton of skills under my belt now. If I’m not the best at one thing, I know a lot of tips and tricks to be dangerous,” he says. “The position that I’m going to be playing (a pure blitz linebacker) is not one we even have here.”
Hayes was a two-time all-Central Ozark Conference selection and also an all-area player. He says his time in the COC prepared him to play against college-caliber players, because so many of his opponents have taken a step up to play in college.
“We played a lot of people that are going to college. We played against…a lot of college players at Webb and Nixa … so we feel how it is having higher level competition in college.”