er /ednesday • December 3, 1997
TEXAS A&M
S The Battalion
PORTS
NEBRASKA
Regaining His Focus
Junior Shun Horn has over come injuries to regain his position atASiM
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RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion
-Junior cornerback Shun Horn has regained his starting job.
By Chris Ferrell
Sports editor
S urely this was not how Shun
Horn envisioned his junior
season would go, but looking
at it now, he wouldn’t change it.
After starting all 10 games he
played in at cornerback as a
sophomore (he was injured
against Oklahoma State) Horn set
high expectations for the season.
After all Horn had been a solid per
former in a young secondary and
was now an upperclassman, ready
to take his place as a leader for the
Wrecking Crew.
Horn was the link between the
current young, promising group of
corners and the Aaron Glenn/Ray
Mickens tandem which may have
been the best in school history. He
set lofty goals. He wanted to be All-
Big 12. He wanted to be the next in
the great cornerback in a long line
of great Aggie defensive backs.
But as the Aggies opened the
season against Sam Houston, he
was not in the starting lineup. An
ankle injury in two a days coupled
with the strong play of sophomore
Sedrick Curry left Horn on the out
side of the lineup looking in.
But Horn refused to sit back and
accept his role on the second unit.
After overcoming the ankle injury
Horn began to return to his ‘96
form. He refocused on football and
began to step up his level of play on
the practice field, when without
warning, injury struck again, this
time in the form of a pulled ham
string which would force him to
miss games against Iowa State,
Kansas State and Texas Tech. It was
another roadblock in a season
which he had hoped would yield
much bigger rewards.
Once again Horn was forced to
come back from an injury and
again he responded. He lived in
the trainer’s office, sometimes get
ting the hamstring stretched out as
many as fifteen times a day. He
was there at 6:30 in the morning,
in between classes and whenever
he had free time. He had to refocus
again, and again he rose to the
challenge, doing the extra things in
practice to make the coaches take
notice. Prior to the Aggies’ game
against Baylor, defensive back
coach Larry Slade noticed.
“I was more focused into prac
tice,” Horn said. “If you make the big
play in practice, it shows up be
cause the films don’t lie
“One day he (coach Slade) said,
‘you go with first team.’ He doesn’t
make a big deal about it. You know,
the guy in front of you knows what’s
going on. It’s not like there was any
hostility. When he (Curry) got the
position I told him, ‘I’ll help you out
anyway that I can, I’ve been here for
a while.’ When I got my position
back, he came up and congratulat
ed me, its not like it was a big deal.”
The week of practice, coupled
with his performance in the Okla
homa State game a week earlier
had propelled Horn back into the
starting lineup.
The game against the Cowboys,
an overtime thriller which sent the
Aggies into position to win the Big
12 South and set up their show
down with second-ranked Nebras
ka this weekend was a microcosm
of Horn’s season.
In his first game back, A&M start
ed off slow, much like the junior cor
nerback had early in the season.
“If you make the big play
in practice, it shows up be-
cause the films don’t lie.”
SHUN HORN
A&M CORNERBACK
Then as the game wore on the Ag
gies became stronger and stronger,
coming up big when the stakes were
at their highest.
Last Friday, the stakes were high,
and Horn came up with his biggest
performance of the season in a na
tionally televised game against
A&M’s biggest rival and defending
Big 12 champion, Texas.
“As a defensive back I said T don’t
care if I go without a big play the en
tire season, this is the game where I
want to come out. It was one of
those games where I couldn’t wait to
get out on the field.
“If I could pick out one game to
have a big play that would be it be
cause not only will you remember it
but the rest of the world will, too.”
And Horn turned in perhaps
the two biggest plays of the game
to go along with his career-high
13 tackles.
The first came early in the sec
ond half when Ricky Williams, the
Longhorn’s All-American running
back turned the corner and head
ed in Horn’s direction. Horn
wrapped him up and drug him
down, injuring Williams’ ankle on
the play. It was a play which both
slowed Williams for the rest of the
afternoon and gave the defense
new life, helping the Aggies take
control of the game.
The other play was more of a
statement. On the next to last play
of the game Texas quarterback
James Brown threw a pass to full
back Ricky Brown in the flats and
Horn delivered on of the hardest
hits of the season, breaking up the
pass attempt. It was a play Horn
admitted he has watched about
100 times since Friday.
Indeed it was Horn’s actions
which spoke louder than his word,
something Slade said is very char
acteristic of him.
Please see Horn on Page 9.
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