In football, the center position is one of the most important roles. The ball always starts with the center, and the success of the entire offense hinges on whether or not he can consistently snap the ball to the quarterback. For senior football player Audry Horn, nothing is more natural.<\/p>\n
Weighing in at a hefty 325 pounds and standing six foot three inches tall, Horn outweighs all but one member of the vaunted Dallas Cowboys offensive line. That kind of size made Horn feel right at home at the center position, but while his body is his greatest tool in football, it also presented him with a major struggle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started getting symptoms sophomore year,\u201d Horn said of his Crohn\u2019s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease with symptoms ranging from abdominal pain to weight loss and even cancer. \u201cLuckily, I don\u2019t have it [Crohn\u2019s disease] as bad as some others. I\u2019m able to control it with diet, but if I get it sick I have medicine that will stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a little bit worried it would affect my football career when I first got it,\u201d said Horn, \u201cbut my dad has it and he was able to play professional baseball with it, so I knew I could manage it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After starting on the varsity football team as a sophomore, Horn began drawing attention from college programs during his junior season. \u201cI registered with the NCAA and began putting my game film up on Twitter where coaches could watch it. A couple liked what they saw and started expressing interest,\u201d said Horn.<\/p>\n
Horn\u2019s decision was easy to make. \u201cAfter I got offered a preferred walk-on deal by Arkansas, I knew that was what I was going to do. So that\u2019s where I\u2019m committed now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHorn is a natural leader,\u201d said senior quarterback Taylor Price. \u201cHe definitely has a big challenge ahead of him playing at the [University of Arkansas] with the big boys, but I know he will work hard and make his mark on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a running back you want to have somebody that can protect you and give you a chance to run, and Horn always had my back,\u201d said senior running back Orlando Henley. \u201cYou can say [a lot about his]\u00a0being a good player, but he\u2019s a great guy off the field too.\u201d<\/p>\n
In football, the center position is one of the most important roles. The ball always starts with the center, and the success of the entire offense hinges on whether or not he can consistently snap the ball to the quarterback. For senior football player Audry Horn, nothing is more natural. Weighing in at a hefty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":7613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[132,97],"tags":[225],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/15068500_10154859778207176_4179228135443889591_o.jpg?fit=2048%2C1365&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-1YM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7612"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7706,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7612\/revisions\/7706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}