A year and a half ago, just before North Shore was set to face Duncanville for the UIL State Championship, T.J. McAloon broke the story on Twitter that the Mustangs star running back Zach Evans was dismissed from the team.
See the orginal story here:
Breaking News: North Shore 5-Star Running Back Zach Evans Sent Home From Team
We made a quick post on our website about it, and the post was viewed over 250,000 times within a day, as well as the post about it on Facebook and Twitter getting combined over 1 million views. People were intrigued by the story. The reason why? Evans was dismissed for refusing to give up his cell phone during a team meeting when asked to by his coach. The older generation clicked on and shared the story because to them it was another kid who was addicted to a cell phone, and an example of a kid not respecting coaches. High school players were sharing it and commenting on it in disbelief that a coach would ask a player to give up a cell phone, and that Evans would be kicked-off the team for it.
The Ongoing Saga
The dismissal from the team was just one of several events over a 1-2 month period that had Evans in the headlines. Adam McAbee summarized those events from December 2019-January 2020:
- Dec. 14: Evans misses the first half of a playoff game because he had to take his ACT test that morning.
- Dec. 19: He signs a National Letter of Intent with a college program but delayed announcing his commitment to Jan. 2 during the Under Armour All-American Game. The letter was signed and sent to his college.
- Dec. 21: News breaks that Evans was sent home from the state title game for violating the team’s cell phone policy and getting into arguments over this issue with coaches. The incident occurred just hours before the state title rematch with Duncanville. This was the second time this season Evans was suspended after missing two games for a violation of team rules.
- Dec. 28: During the week of the All-American Game, Evans told reporters he indeed signed with a team and will be enrolling early. His finalists were said to include Georgia, Alabama and LSU.
- Jan. 2: The morning of the All-American Game, Evans declares he will not announce his commitment decision. Rather, he took the opportunity with Deion Sanders by his side to publicly apologize to his future coach.
- Jan. 7: Evans was released from his Letter of Intent and SEC financial aid agreement to Georgia. A full release was granted to Evans, and according to multiple sources, he will now choose between LSU or Texas A&M.
Read the full article here:
Evans then went into social media silence. We can’t imagine how difficult the time must have been for him. The narrative seemed set in stone and he was already being written off by many. After a few months, Evans broke his silence and announced he had enrolled at TCU.
Zach Evans at TCU
Evans remained out of the headlines for the next year. Then, at TCU, he finally took to the field on September 7th against Texas Tech. Evans ran 10 times for 36 yards. He would play in 4 more games, totaling 415 yards and 4 touchdowns. He had an impressive 7.7 yards per carry. As last season came to an end, it was clear that Evans should be in for a big year this coming 2021 season at TCU. What we did not know was that Evans was already dominating in the classroom.
It was reported last week that Evans has a 3.75 GPA. He has been praised for his academic excellence and his positive impact at TCU and the local community there. TCU Head Coach, Garry Patterson, told Bruce Feldman that,
“It’s crazy with his talent and skill level, and it helps when you have a guy like that who is also one of your hardest workers, too.”
Zach Evans was one of the most dominate running backs in recent Texas high school football history. After a rough few months in late 2019, Evans has become an outstanding college STUDENT athlete. He may have been on the receiving end of some bad publicity, from us included, and some cell phone jokes, but he is now a role model for all the current Texas high school and youth football players.
On behalf of everyone at TexasHSFootball.com, we want to say that we are proud of Zach Evans and we look forward to cheering him on this coming season at TCU!
