Woodrow Wilson HC Preston Brown analyzes Texas A&M commit Fadil Diggs

Key notes from Preston Brown interview

• Woodrow Wilson is my alma mater. I won the first one as a player in 2001 and this one as a coach. I’ve been truly blessed and fortunate to be in the position I’m in now.
   
• Fadil Diggs‍ is one of those once in a lifetime player. He’s 240 pounds and almost 6’6’ in his senior year.  In his senior year alone, he’s had 1000 yards this season, and he’s on pace to get 20 sacks. That has never been done in the state of New Jersey. He set that goal for himself last year. He’s got that fiery passion on the field and loves to get after it. When he came in his freshman year, he was 6’3’ and 190. He was a middle school wide receiver. I told him you could be one of the best ever, but you’ve got to go rush the passer. He said alight. 
   
• His little brother was murdered in his sophomore year. It took a heavy toll on his mind even though he was still playing really well. I told him you have to give the game something and you have to give it all you got. He said that he'd do whatever it takes. He wants to be one of the best in the country and play at one of the top institutions. He really dominated from that point forward. He’s such a tremendous athlete. He’s done a lot of great things in the community. We started a mentor program, and he’s one of the mentors in our mentor program. He’s been a part of that for four years and mentored some young kids. Our football teams have done a lot of different things in the community.
   
• He’s seen a whole lot and done a lot. He decided on A&M. One of the best defensive ends to come out of there in recent years was Myles Garrett. Entering into a program that’s had some great ones, he was saying, "when I get to A&M, I want to be a better player than Myles Garrett."
   
• There’s a couple of different things for why he decided to go so far from home. I took him to A&M during the same weekend last year. We were there for the LSU game. My high school teammate-Elijah Robinson- coaches the defensive line there. So I’m sure that played a role and had something to do with it. Setting the standard and being outside of what normal-Normally, a lot of the guys on the east coast go to Rutgers, Temple, Syracuse, Michigan, and Ohio State. He wanted to be in a warm climate. He went out there and had a great time. I am learning about the many traditions that A&M has. The people who graduate from there get a job, the school has the most Fortune 500 CEOs, and it’s a great environment, like top 10. Those things are the small things that you talk about. They are outside of what you can imagine football-wise. Choosing a school with 40+ options becomes very difficult until you start narrowing it down to what he wants.
   
• Texas A&M is getting one of the best players in the country. He wanted to go somewhere where he could play early and then go play for three years and graduate and go to the NFL. You see the recent success that A&M has had with pass rushers and guys who have been able to go to the NFL. I’ll have a chance to play early and compete against some of the best talents in the country week in and week out.
   
• The first thing we talk about all the time. I went to college at Tulane, so I know what it’s like to go to college far away. We talk about the transition from high school to college. There’s going to be a second guess feature to this. No matter where you go and who you are, everybody second guesses themselves when they get there. So you have to visualize yourself there in that environment. Your family is not there with you every step of the way. The survival piece- if you can get through that first semester or the first season- Football isn’t always going to go great. Can you connect with somebody on that team and on the staff that will help you continue on in the process? That enables you to stay there for the reason you decided to go there.
   
• From the football side, you’re working on maintaining your strength and flexibility and change direction against some of the best offensive lines in the country. It’s the mental toughness and the mental capacity too. If you can make it Camden, New Jersey, you can go anywhere and survive. That’s no slight on any other area in the country, but this kid has experienced a lot. Last year, we lost three of his former teammates who were murdered in a 7-month span. Those kinds of things weigh on you. He feels like the weight of the city is on him. It’s my job to make sure his mental capacity is intact so he can survive when he gets to A&M. A lot of young people say if I had had that mental fortitude, I could have made it. I lost two or three teammates in high school. Sixteen years later, I’m sending someone off to the world who has experienced the same thing I’ve experienced. Nothing’s really changed in terms of that reality in 16 years, and that’s not fair.
   
• Fadil is the most accomplished player in school history. He has completed the mission and has been a leader and a captain. He’s the No. 1 rated player in New Jersey. The city of Camden has never had the top-ranked player in the state.