Jarnell Stokes plays basketball at the University of Tennessee. He is a sophomore who was All-SEC as a freshman last year, and who, at the age of 18, is 6’8, 270.
Last week Jarnell tweeted a picture of his “little” brother Isaiah who is right behind Jarnell at 6’7” and 225 pounds. The problem is just that Isaiah is still in the eighth grade which makes him about 14 years old. Jarnell also sent in an action photo of Isaiah playing football with boys the look no more than half his size at best and yet he is allowed on the same field with regular sized 8th graders.
Isaiah Stokes lives in Memphis, Tennessee and he plays football there, but should he? What about the kids that he is playing against? How can they be expected to compete with someone that size when they are still weighing in at 150 pounds?
Now let’s consider 12-year-old Elijah Earnheart from Mesquite, Texas. He was banned from playing in his local pee wee football league because officials said he was too big. Elijah is 6’1″ and weighs a whopping 300 pounds!
Obviously, the kid is disappointed. It’s probably hard enough being a 6’1″, 300-pound kid without being officially declared a freak by the local pee wee football league. They probably just didn’t make a rule against it because they didn’t think it would happen—but rules barring huge kids from pee wee football is kind of reasonable, isn’t it? This kid, in particular, is the size of a college player. So it’s safe to assume that he could probably mangle somebody without really meaning to.
Earnheart does have other options but, just like the kid that he still is, he says
“I just want to play here because my teammates are my friends. I know them. I don’t want to go play for somebody else I don’t know.”
In just two years he’ll be in high school, and I guarantee you that no high school football coach is going to turn away a 6’1″, 300-pound kid because he doesn’t have football experience. So this is hardly the end for Elijah’s football career. With his size and desire to play he will be on the field again soon.
They do seem to be growing them bigger these days. Faster too. Every week we read about some new college recruit just coming out of high school weighing in the neighborhood of 300 pounds, standing well over 6 feet tall and running a 4.6 50!
