El Campo – Each morning at 8:30 AM; Le’Trent Greely wakes up by the loud-thundering, door-knockings of his mother Gizell Martin.  Then quickly jumps out of bed, getting dressed or face the chance of missing his ride to practice.  Martin proved it on a couple of occasions.

Ms. Martin leaves little time for procrastinators.  Her motto, “Get ready or get left,” says Martin.  She drops Greely off daily at El Campo High School.
Greely’s schedule fulfills his day.  Practice involves several drills including, agility, running the bleachers, ropes, track, and sprinting with a parachute trailing him.

Later, players group off by position to work on skill set.  Then the team comes together to fulfill defensive and offensive duties, before ending its morning workouts weight training.

The coaching staff stresses weight training.  It also adds a decisive edge to Greely’s game, who’s a two-way player.  He shared time at offensive tackle with last year’s senior Tobias Thornton and rotated on defense among several defensive tackles.

“Spending time in the weight room is part of our success,” Greely declared.
This season Greely will be a fulltime starter at offensive and defensive tackle.

Although in a town dominated by football, surprisingly, Greely’s first love is Basketball.  The sport that helped him lower his 40-yard dash time to 4.7.
He spends time at both shooting guard and forward.  His open court awareness gives him options whether to use his silky- smooth shooting touch from beyond the arc, attacking the rim or simply finding the open player for the close range basket.

Despite averaging 15 points a game, Greely’s effort wasn’t enough to save El Campo’s season, where it finished in the bottom half of district play.  However, with a youth of experience returning, the Ricebirds could be eying the playoffs come February.

With all five starters back on a team that lost one senior, the future looks bright.  6’0” point guard Demarcus will have plenty to work with while looking toward a pair of first-team all-district players in Greely and two-guard Adrien Alameda.  Other notable starters are center Larry Haynes and shooting guard Torre Robinson.

“We have something we didn’t have last season, and that’s team chemistry,” Greely said.  “We know each other and play well together.  It’s all the reason I’m happy about this season.”

Basketball doesn’t end at the conclusion of March; Greely has found AAU basketball as a way of staying connected to the game he loves.
Each week the Wharton Wolves, formally known as Zero Gravity, enter weekend tournaments which begin on Friday and runs through Sunday.

That’s plenty of time for Greely to improve his game and stay in running shape for the upcoming-football season.

The 6’2,” 235 pounder excels at another sport as well.  While throwing the shot put in his first year of varsity competition, he won the district title, advance to the 3A Region III Finals, where he finished sixth with a throw of 45’6.”  The two top finishers in last year’s region were seniors.

“Last year at region, I was very nervous, which led to a bad day,” Greely explained.

And yes the bloodlines are connected to Tomball’s former star tailback Bubba Greely, who helped lead the Cougars to the 1985 4A Finals, which also featured standout quarterback Lance Pavlas.

The younger Greely doesn’t know much about his 5th generation Cousin Bubba.  But with two years of high school left, he intends to carry the Greely tradition.

When free time arrives, Greely can be found at a relative’s house, enjoying Play Station-3, hanging with his buddies, surfing the internet and texting on his android smart phone.

Finally, Greely closes out the day, when Martin arrives to pick him up; usually between 6:00 and 9:00 P.M.  Once at home, Greely enjoys a huge bowl of Fruit Loops before surrendering to rest.

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