GTech’s Francis Kallon: Brains and Brawns

Georgia Tech’s Francis Kallon

Saloneballer Francis Kallon recently got the attention of the New York times for amazingly garnering no less than 13 division 1 college football scholarship offers without ever having  played a game of American football.  Kallon who was born in London to Sierra Leonean parents, moved to Atlanta in  2010 to live with his father who had moved to the US  thirteen years earlier.

Kallon enrolled at Central Gwinnett high school in suburban Atlanta. Gwinnett High school ‘Black Knights’ compete in Georgia’s largest classification, AAAAA. Kallon first  joined the basketball team at Central Gwinnett. It didn’t take long for football Coach Wofford to hear bout the 6 foot 6, muscle bound 240 pounds  new kid at his school, the rest as they say is history.

Over the span of nine practices and a scrimmage in May, Kallon received 13 scholarship offers from the likes of Arkansas, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Syracuse and Illinois.Of course it didn’t hurt that Kallon had scored a 1530 out of a possible 1600 on his 1^st try at the college entrance SAT test. With grades like that Fancis Kallon could have gotten into any University in the US.

He eventually settled on nearby Georgia Tech. A decision heavily influenced by his father, Francis Sr. who wanted his son to go the a school with a good balance of academics and sports. Historically, Georgia Tech’s football players have the nation’s best average SAT score, 1028 of a possible 1600, and best average high school GPA, 3.39 of a possible 4.0.

As is to be expected, some of the media frenzy has been getting out of hand. One story in the UK Daily Mail said that Kallon was set to make 14 million pounds a year in the NFL. In reality, the average NFL defensive lineman(Kallon’s position) makes just $1.5 mil.

While we are happy to speculate about Francis Kallon’s future NFL career, he first has to make it thru what will be some grueling ACC seasons including the all important rivalry games against Dem Dawgs from University of Georgia.
Next up for Sir Francis is the Offense Defense All American bowl during the week of December 26^th -31^st where he will get his first real chance to compete and prove himself on the national stage.
 Come what may we salute you, Sir Francis, we dae wit you!