Gibsonburg football line has blocking down cold, with help from Frost

Daniel Frost wanted to be a running back.

Then, the Gibsonburg senior learned how much running they do. As a freshman, Frost was well on his way on a troubling course.

Fewer than 12 months ago, Frost and his friend, Colin Basford, learned their Vanguard teacher, Brian Moreland, owned Ironcore Gym in Fremont.

Frost transformed his body, twice. He ballooned to 215 pounds, from 160 as a junior. Then he lost nearly 40 pounds, to 177, mostly during preseason.

Talk about shifting weight around. The evolution changed Frost's outlook on achievement and goals.

It translated to growth adhering to responsibility and avoiding poor choices. Frost stopped running.

Now, he's a tight end, which is a lineman in Gibsonburg's wing-T offense.

The six-seed host Golden Bears (8-2) play 11-seed Edgerton (7-3) in the first round Friday.

"In middle school, I only cared about myself," he said. "I went through rough patches, to be where I'm at, I never thought I'd do some of the things I'm doing now. It was always doubt from everyone. 'You're not going to amount to anything.'

"I'm 18. To look back, I came back from that. I'm going into the military, the Navy and do something in the aviation field. As a kid, the trouble I was causing, I never thought I'd be in the military. Nobody would ever guess, I wasn't going down the right path as a kid."

Frost was never arrested, but he was no stranger to a court.

"Until the eighth grade," he said. "Fighting. I got a couple detentions for punching a kid. That was a wake-up call. I don't have to get into a fight for everything. As an underclassman, I was still in a phase, I'd fight anybody. Freshman and sophomore it was better academically."

He started electrical trade with Moreland at Vanguard as a junior.

"He told me I don't have to be hard all the time," Frost said. "People will doubt you. He's an amazing role model. He's the reason I'm a polite young man. You don't always have to prove something. People didn't like the way I was.

"I don't know who it was I was trying to prove something to."

It wasn't the women in his life. HIs mom, Melissa, and sister, Larissa, always have open arms.

Mom as chef made it easy to gain weight and she suggested specific workouts with her medical background. Larissa is a varsity cheerleader as a freshman.

"My mom pushed me to be successful," he said. "That's my soft spot. Being able to hear my sister cheer, we say I love you and I give her a hug. Every game. She wanted varsity bad. This was her last chance to cheer for me."

Frost weighed 125 pounds and got abused as a freshman. It's part of the reason he has so much respect for Luke Foster, Spencer Waugaman, Aiden Morant and Jesus Rodriguez on the scout team.

"I know what it feels like to do that," Frost said. "You start from the bottom. That's what I had to do. I was trying to show out. I never thought I could bench two plates as a freshman. I struggled with one, now I'm going to three plates.

"I never thought I could be where I'm at. I always thought I'd be scrawny and weak. I never thought I'd be strong one day. Looking back to freshman, I never thought that would happen. I was always skinny."

Frost played special teams as a freshman and started as an interior lineman on defense as a still tiny sophomore. He played running back and started at nose tackle last season.

"I was there to block and clear holes," he said. "We have good running backs. We didn't need me to be a running back. We needed me on the line. I enjoy it. I didn't like the running. I gained a lot of weight. I was eating and lifting. I was tired of being scrawny and weak, so I decided to get bigger.

"It worked. A month of football got all that weight off. It's hard to get lower than I am right now."

His bench press went from 215 pounds to more than 300, his squat from 265 to 425 and his dead lift from barely more than 200 to 435. Still, he slid outside to end on defense this season.

"Guards aren't as big as tackles," he said. "Somehow, I gained weight and gained speed. I'm way faster than I was as a defensive tackle. I can move people around. Mentally, I know I'm bigger and I can take hits. My family loves our football.

"My dad [Daniel] loves to see me running the ball. He enjoys me being a lineman even more, seeing me hit people and pancake people. Against Calvert, I was going for a down block and I knocked a linebacker on the ground. That was my favorite run.

"Buck right."

It's difficult to say which of them was more excited about Frost's touchdown against Northwood. He has two touchdowns on 15 carries.

"It was a pass from Cam [Mooney], I high-pointed the ball and caught it," he said. "I was breaking a tackle to jump into the end zone."

Dylan Rodriguez, Sam Hansen, Alex Porteous, Martin Myerholtz and Cam Waugaman comprise Gibsonburg's offensive line, from left to right.

"Physically, it's harder being a lineman," Frost said. "There are big dudes on the line, 300 pounds. It gets to you. You have to be strong. At running back, you run to a hole. Linemen have to be smart and remember who's blocking where and what linemen.

"I thought they were just linemen. No. It starts with blocking. That makes us a good team. We have the same mindset, to aim high and give effort. There's so much mental and you have to be more aware of your surroundings."

Frost matured to the point he occupies a leadership position on the team.

"A senior needs to be a good role model and leader to show them what their role is supposed to be to live up to," he said. "Everybody looks up to the seniors."

Frost's parents are proud of him.

"My dad is ride or die," he said. "My dad is the one who pushes me to be the man I am. He's the dude I've been looking up to. Football, wrestling, baseball, track. He impacted me to push myself harder and push myself to the limit and to be tough.

"You have to get up and keep pushing. He's always taught me to push through everything. Strength is physical, toughness is mental. You have to be mentally tough to do most things."

Frost heard it, but it took him a long time to listen.

"He's all for the way I am now," he said. "He wasn't happy with me as a kid. I was falling down a similar path to him and his brothers and my cousins. Some of them are felons. They went to jail, prison. It was a bad influence.

"We're a good family. They're all changed. They've all found a good path now. I don't know who we were trying to prove things to, the world I guess."

He tries to admit faults and think before he reacts, something he continues to work at. He's adapted the fight to be much more simple.

"Don't be dumb," he said. "That's how I look at my old self. Why? Don't be stupid. Make good choices."

mhorn@gannett.com

419-307-4892

Twitter: @MatthewHornNH

This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Gibsonburg football plays host to Edgerton with fresh start