OL Mike Walczak commits to Louisiana
<center><a href="https://forumeus.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=22388#post22388"><b> Complete list of 2005 verbal commitments </b></a></center><hr><blockquote><p align=justify><i>Cajuns earn pledge from 320-pound lineman</i>
LOUISIANA La. - Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun football team has gone into the junior college ranks for the second time in the 2005 recruiting season, getting a verbal commitment from offensive lineman Mike Walczak of Pima Junior College in Tucson, Ariz.
The 6-foot-4, 320-pound Walczak visited the UL campus last weekend and gave Ragin' Cajun head coach Rickey Bustle a verbal pledge on Monday. Walczak will complete the spring semester at Pima before coming to Louisiana.
"The Southern hospitality was great," said Walczak of his visit. "Everybody from the community that I talked to and the players spoke very highly of the program. The environment was great, it was lots of fun and I'm looking forward to being out there."
Walczak turned 22 on Sunday when he returned to Tucson, and said his experience was one of the factors that impressed the UL coaches.
"I was captain for all 11 games this past year," he said. "They (UL) needed to fill a spot, they needed a juco guy to come in and make an impact right away in the offensive line. And I was ready to go anywhere that I'd have a chance to play."
Walczak was a key cog in Pima's 9-3 record and a final No. 5 national ranking among junior college squads. The Pima squad of coach Jeff Scurran was invited to play in the Pilgrim's Pride Bowl in Texas and beat No. 3-ranked Kilgore JC 10-7 in the bowl game.
<center><p><a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050119/SPORTS/501190349/1006">The rest of the story</a>
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com <!--
Pima was 7-3 in Walczak's first year in 2003, which was only the third year that the school fielded a football team.
Walczak graduated from Sabino High in Tucson in 2001 and was an All-Southern Arizona selection, but sat out one year before enrolling at Pima in 2002. He then underwent knee surgery and didn't get to play until the 2003 season. He started all 11 games in the offensive front in his freshman season before being named a team captain last fall.
Walczak earned first-team juco All-Region and All-Conference as a sophomore.
He was recruited by Washington, Connecticut and Marshall, but credited Cajun assistant coach Mike Gibson for keeping tabs on him throughout the season.
"He came to the school a couple of times during our season and talked to me a lot on the phone," Walczak said. "I knew they were interested in me right from the start."
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