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Texas Tech football: The biggest JUCO flops in Red Raider history

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX - SEPTEMBER 12: The Texas Tech Red Raiders mascot Fearless Champion leads the team onto the field prior to the game against the UTEP Miners September 12, 2015 at Jones AT
LUBBOCK, TX - SEPTEMBER 12: The Texas Tech Red Raiders mascot Fearless Champion leads the team onto the field prior to the game against the UTEP Miners September 12, 2015 at Jones AT /
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DT Myles Wade 2009

In what has been somewhat of a rarity in the modern era of Texas Tech football, the end of the 2000s saw the Red Raiders play some respectable defense.  But that did not stop the program from taking a chance on JUCO DT Myles Wade in 2009.

The 6-foot-2, 315-pound former high school U.S. Army All-American was dealt a difficult hand just as his college career was beginning.  With his mother battling brain cancer, the one-time Oregon signee chose to play at Arizona Western College in 2007 before sitting out the 2008 season after his mother passed away.

When he returned to football, he was bombarded with offers from major programs like USC, Nebraska, Auburn, and Washington.  But he signed with the Red Raiders where he hoped to resurrect his career.

However, he played in only ten games over two years at Tech making virtually no impact on the field but earning his degree in the process.  Ultimately the problem was that he was unable to overcome his grief during his time in Lubbock.

"“When I got to Lubbock, Texas, I thought it would help me take my mind off of (everything),” he told Ian Ruder of The Oregonian in 2011. “But in actuality, all of the things I had to go through to get to Lubbock, all the memories of my mom and all the hardship and the struggle that my family and I had to go through kept on reoccurring in my head.”"

For his final year of football, Wade returned to the Pacific Northwest to play at Portland State.  Ultimately, the one-time can’t miss prospect had a brief stint in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks but he never developed into the type of player that he might have had tragedy not thrown his life into chaos.

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