Staff Writer

Scarborough High School senior Brian Woodbury started playing football in sixth grade because he was tired of being referred by classmates as a “gentle giant.”

“I was a pretty shy kid, always kind of quiet. I was called a ‘gentle giant’ and was always ridiculed for it. So I played football to get them at their own game,” he said.

Six years later, Woodbury, a 6-foot, 2-inch, 240-pound defensive tackle on the Red Storm football team leaves an impact on the field, having recorded 41 total tackles last season, with 20 tackles for losses and two sacks. 

Woodbury said he will continue his football career at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., where he has received an athletic scholarship to play for the Hawks, an NCAA Division II program.

Woodbury said he began to receive attention from colleges last year after attending various football camps to gain exposure. He said schools interested in recruiting him included the University of Maine at Orono and Boston College. He said he was able to take a tour of Boston College athletic facilities during a one-day showcase – meeting with coaches, watching game film and seeing former Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie’s 1984 Heisman Trophy.

Woodbury said he originally planned to play at UMaine, but changed his mind after being asked to walk on to the football team instead of being offered a scholarship, meaning he would have to pay money to attend the school. He said he decided to play for Saint Anselm because of the selection of academic majors and familiarity with the other Saint Anselm recruits – he went to football camps with many of them – and the school’s brand new weight room, which he said is a multi-million dollar facility.

Academically, Woodbury said he wants to major in criminal justice and to someday work for the FBI, CIA or Homeland Security.

He said he also hopes to help turn Saint Anselm’s football program around, as the Hawks finished last season with a 2-8 record. Woodbury said he was asked to change positions from defensive tackle to defensive end for Saint Anselm next season, as he said he is considered small  to play defensive tackle at the Division II level.

Woodbury said he likes the position change, as he will get to rush the quarterback more by playing defensive end, instead of being responsible to plug the line of scrimmage and stop run plays, which he did at Scarborough.

Woodbury said he’s played defensive tackle since middle school.

“If you can’t run and can’t catch, you play lineman,” Woodbury said. “We don’t get all the publicity, but it’s a lot of fun.”

On the football field, Woodbury said his best assets are his leadership abilities (Woodbury was a captain for the Red Storm last season) and his physical strength (he said he can bench press 335 pounds). He said he needs to work on his speed and flexibility, which he hopes to do by signing up with the Parisi Speed School, a performance enhancement training facility geared toward helping athletes work on speed and located in Saco, when the school year is over. In the meantime, he said he works out at the gym five days a week for two to three hours.

In his downtime, Woodbury said he also likes to play video games on his Xbox 360.

Woodbury said he tries to pattern his own play from New England Patriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork, because he said Wilfork is a physically dominating player and a “game changer” for opposing offenses. He said he changed his football jersey number from 68 in middle school to 75 in high school in honor of Wilfork, who wears the same number for the Patriots.

Woodbury said his football experience was “rough” record-wise at Scarborough, as the team had a 0-8 record his sophomore year and a 2-6 record last season. However, he said the program is heading in a positive direction under second year head coach Dave Sterling.

He said he is also happy to have made friends while playing football for Scarborough.

“It’s cool having that second family,” Woodbury said.

Woodbury will be involved with outdoor track in the spring in the shot put. He is also a member of the indoor track team, which won the Maine Principals’ Association State Track and Field Championships last month. He said he finished in fifth place at the state tournament and 12th place overall in the New England Championships, but was the highest placed Maine shot putter.

“We won states this year, which was pretty cool,” he said. “It makes me win something. The walls here [at Scarborough High School] are covered in plaques and trophies, it makes you feel like you contributed.”