From OnlineAthens.com
September 21st, 2016 10:39 AM
Two scholarship athletes from different SEC schools put their skills to the test against each other back in May.
Mackenzie Engram would have owned the bragging rights if it was a jump shooting contest. The junior is one of the top returning players for a Georgia women’s basketball team coming off an NCAA tournament trip.
Evan Engram would be the one to beat if it was catching passes fired his way. The Ole Miss senior leads the SEC with 20 receptions for 302 yards and two touchdowns. No tight end in the nation has better numbers.
Brother and sister this time out went at it at Topgolf in Atlanta, where players hit balls into targets to rack up points.
“He did beat me, I’m not going to lie,” Mackenzie Engram said. “I wasn’t very good at it.”
“We used to play video games all the time, we used to play this racing game all the time,” Evan Engram said. “She would beat me sometimes, but other than that…”
A game Saturday will have higher stakes for Evan. His No. 23 Ole Miss team plays No. 12 Georgia in Oxford. Mackenzie will be there with their parents, Derrick Engram and Michelle Zelina.
“She said she’s going to wear red,” Evan said referring to the color that both teams wear. “She can’t go wrong with red. She doesn’t want anybody to take a picture of her and use it against her in Athens with some Ole Miss stuff on. She has before but a lot of people are going to be looking at her this game. She’s going to go with red to kind of support both.”
Both starred at Hillgrove High in Powder Springs and grew up playing a range of sports with the support of parents that also were athletic. Their father, now a manager at a warehouse store, signed to play football at Louisville and later went to Life University in Marietta to play basketball. Their mother is a nurse.
Since her brother is at a different SEC school, Mackenzie is hearing it good-naturedly from some other Georgia athletes this week.
“They’ve been giving me crap about who am I going with and (what) if Ole Miss loses and how Evan’s going to perform,” she said. “
She’s made the trip to Oxford more than a half dozen times to see her only sibling--Evan is 15 months older--play for the Rebels.
Evan catches his sister back in Athens in Stegeman Coliseum, especially when he’s home during break from school.
“Walking around Athens, I’d get a random Hotty Toddy every now and then,” he said. “Whenever she comes here, she’s taking pictures with little girls at the game who know she is.”
Mackenzie started the first 14 games last season at forward but missed the final 15 games with an upper respiratory illness. She averaged 8.2 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. She was cleared to play in June but will have another checkup.
Ole Miss offered Mackenzie and was in her final three, but she said she felt more at home in Athens.
“In high school, I was Evan Engram’s sister and I didn’t want to make it seem like I kind of followed him and be Evan Engram’s sister at Ole Miss as well,” she said. “I kind of wanted to branch off and make my own name and kind of do my own thing. Plus, it’s easier for my parents to come see me play because I’m a lot closer as well.”
Evan Engram didn’t get much recruiting attention from Georgia. He was a 3-star prospect.
“I was kind of like what they like to call a tweener,” he said. “I was kind of too slow to be a true wide receiver and I wasn’t really that big to be a true tight end. There’s a lot of teams that didn’t believe in that and it kind of felt like not a good time for them but Ole Miss, they took a shot on me and it’s paid off. I’ve always been a competitor and knowing that and the people that doubted me and didn’t see it in me, it just kind of drove me to prove everybody wrong. Ole Miss pulled the trigger on me and it’s paid off.”
Now Georgia will have to try to stop Engram.
“He’s talented,” said coach Kirby Smart, who saw Engram have a team-high 71 receiving yards on three catches in a 23-17 Ole Miss win in 2014. “He runs like a receiver. They put him in spots where he can get vertical down the field. The guy runs by DB’s, and he’s a tight end. When you’ve got a tight end that runs faster than your DB’s you’ve got a problem because he can get matched up on a linebacker.”
On the hardwood, the 6-2 Engram has a hard time matching up with her 6-3, 235-pound brother.
“He’s just so big so it’s kind of hard to score on him,” Engram said. “Skill-wise, I’m definitely better.”
“She can’t beat me one-on-one,” he said. “On the court, she’s never beat me. If you talk to her, she’s going to lie but she’s never beaten me. But she has beaten me in Horse or Pig. She has a better jump shot than me. I’ll give her that.”
Growing up, they played on the same youth baseball team together. He also played football and basketball. She played softball and in high school was on the volleyball and basketball teams and was a cheerleader.
“We were so competitive with each other and we support each other,” Evan said. “We were both pretty good on all of the teams we played on. Most of the time we were some of the best players on the team. We were just having fun in the moment being young but once we kind of started growing up and really putting the work in, we’re really started to understand that we could take this somewhere, we definitely believed in each other to get this far.”
...READ MORE HERE...
September 21st, 2016 10:39 AM
Two scholarship athletes from different SEC schools put their skills to the test against each other back in May.
Mackenzie Engram would have owned the bragging rights if it was a jump shooting contest. The junior is one of the top returning players for a Georgia women’s basketball team coming off an NCAA tournament trip.
Evan Engram would be the one to beat if it was catching passes fired his way. The Ole Miss senior leads the SEC with 20 receptions for 302 yards and two touchdowns. No tight end in the nation has better numbers.
Brother and sister this time out went at it at Topgolf in Atlanta, where players hit balls into targets to rack up points.
“He did beat me, I’m not going to lie,” Mackenzie Engram said. “I wasn’t very good at it.”
“We used to play video games all the time, we used to play this racing game all the time,” Evan Engram said. “She would beat me sometimes, but other than that…”
A game Saturday will have higher stakes for Evan. His No. 23 Ole Miss team plays No. 12 Georgia in Oxford. Mackenzie will be there with their parents, Derrick Engram and Michelle Zelina.
“She said she’s going to wear red,” Evan said referring to the color that both teams wear. “She can’t go wrong with red. She doesn’t want anybody to take a picture of her and use it against her in Athens with some Ole Miss stuff on. She has before but a lot of people are going to be looking at her this game. She’s going to go with red to kind of support both.”
Both starred at Hillgrove High in Powder Springs and grew up playing a range of sports with the support of parents that also were athletic. Their father, now a manager at a warehouse store, signed to play football at Louisville and later went to Life University in Marietta to play basketball. Their mother is a nurse.
Since her brother is at a different SEC school, Mackenzie is hearing it good-naturedly from some other Georgia athletes this week.
“They’ve been giving me crap about who am I going with and (what) if Ole Miss loses and how Evan’s going to perform,” she said. “
She’s made the trip to Oxford more than a half dozen times to see her only sibling--Evan is 15 months older--play for the Rebels.
Evan catches his sister back in Athens in Stegeman Coliseum, especially when he’s home during break from school.
“Walking around Athens, I’d get a random Hotty Toddy every now and then,” he said. “Whenever she comes here, she’s taking pictures with little girls at the game who know she is.”
Mackenzie started the first 14 games last season at forward but missed the final 15 games with an upper respiratory illness. She averaged 8.2 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. She was cleared to play in June but will have another checkup.
Ole Miss offered Mackenzie and was in her final three, but she said she felt more at home in Athens.
“In high school, I was Evan Engram’s sister and I didn’t want to make it seem like I kind of followed him and be Evan Engram’s sister at Ole Miss as well,” she said. “I kind of wanted to branch off and make my own name and kind of do my own thing. Plus, it’s easier for my parents to come see me play because I’m a lot closer as well.”
Evan Engram didn’t get much recruiting attention from Georgia. He was a 3-star prospect.
“I was kind of like what they like to call a tweener,” he said. “I was kind of too slow to be a true wide receiver and I wasn’t really that big to be a true tight end. There’s a lot of teams that didn’t believe in that and it kind of felt like not a good time for them but Ole Miss, they took a shot on me and it’s paid off. I’ve always been a competitor and knowing that and the people that doubted me and didn’t see it in me, it just kind of drove me to prove everybody wrong. Ole Miss pulled the trigger on me and it’s paid off.”
Now Georgia will have to try to stop Engram.
“He’s talented,” said coach Kirby Smart, who saw Engram have a team-high 71 receiving yards on three catches in a 23-17 Ole Miss win in 2014. “He runs like a receiver. They put him in spots where he can get vertical down the field. The guy runs by DB’s, and he’s a tight end. When you’ve got a tight end that runs faster than your DB’s you’ve got a problem because he can get matched up on a linebacker.”
On the hardwood, the 6-2 Engram has a hard time matching up with her 6-3, 235-pound brother.
“He’s just so big so it’s kind of hard to score on him,” Engram said. “Skill-wise, I’m definitely better.”
“She can’t beat me one-on-one,” he said. “On the court, she’s never beat me. If you talk to her, she’s going to lie but she’s never beaten me. But she has beaten me in Horse or Pig. She has a better jump shot than me. I’ll give her that.”
Growing up, they played on the same youth baseball team together. He also played football and basketball. She played softball and in high school was on the volleyball and basketball teams and was a cheerleader.
“We were so competitive with each other and we support each other,” Evan said. “We were both pretty good on all of the teams we played on. Most of the time we were some of the best players on the team. We were just having fun in the moment being young but once we kind of started growing up and really putting the work in, we’re really started to understand that we could take this somewhere, we definitely believed in each other to get this far.”
...READ MORE HERE...
