Have known about this one for awhile but finally got the all good to post- 6'3 PG from local New Trier Tino Malnati will be a preferred walk-on for 2016 recruiting class. He grew up playing AAU ball w/ RI and his dad Rick was Scott Lindsey's HS coach at Fenwick and also coached with Armon Gates at Loyola so he's already pretty familiar with the program and has grown up a pretty big NU fan and is excited to put on the purple.
Tino Malnati Class of 2016 Walk-on
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Walk-ons are a valuable part of a good team. Even if they never get meaningful minutes in games, these guys make a contribution. These kids make it possible to rest scholarship players and still have effective practices. A lot of teams dress 16 or 17 players, which means they have enough walk-ons to run a scout team in practice. NU will probably never have enough kids who can a) be admitted, and b) play well enough to be a factor in practice, but more will be better.
All of CCC's walkon's have been "preferred", haven't they? I can't think of any that made the team via "tryout"...
I was a wrestling walk on at NU back in 1980! All I did was beat out the returning starter,lettered as a true frosh,placed fifth in the 30 plus team Illinois Open. It's all in the head guys!
This is great to hear. Rick is a great guy and its hard to believe Tino is heading to college already. I remember him as such a little kid, but I guess that just means I'm getting old. I can't wait to see him in purple next year.
But doesn't wrestling only have a limited number of scholarships so over half of the first team group is walkons?
Walk ons are actually huge now because the new NCAA rule is support staff and managers cannot scrimmage / play in practice which a lot of teams do as the scout team or when injuries / illness take their toll. You can only have 13 scholarship players so if you are down a few you cannot throw a manager or video guy (who may be a former player) in the practices anymore