A Taverna divided: Papadakis plans to play football for UCLA

Demetri Papadakis will reportedly enter UCLA as a preferred walk-on.

A sentence like that wouldn't normally stir up the football recruiting world, but Papadakis is from a legendary USC family. It's "the" family, according to many online message boards, which are all atwitter (not to be confused with tweeting). Demetri's father, John, was a linebacker at USC and owns the Papadakis Taverna -- where the Trojans would host recruits until the NCAA realized the restaurant was just outside the limits of where recruits could be wooed. His older brothers, Petros and Taso, played for the Trojans. His mother and sister are also USC graduates.

To put this in perspective, imagine Billy Bush running for Congress as a Democrat.

Or a member of the extended Kennedy clan coming from nowhere to be a Republican governor.

Perhaps anything is possible in the state of Schwarzenegger.

This isn't exactly a recruiting coup for Rick Neuheisel (those would be Randall Carroll and Morrell Presley), but the walk-on tailback can't be too bad. He was MVP of his high school, first team all-league, and MVP of the local All Star game. Apparently, football runs in the family.

It isn't the first time that a local prep standout has broken the line of his family's football lineage. NFL linebacker Ryan Nece, a four-year starter at UCLA, is the son of USC legend Ronnie Lott.

In other sang real news, John Elway's son, Jack, has decided to drop football at Arizona State. Jerry Rice's son, Jerry Jr., is planning on walking on at UCLA next season with Papadakis. Joe Montana's son Nick has a dozen scholarship offers (including Notre Dame, of course) and probably a few more on the way (including, potentially, USC). Just as you suspected, Rice is a wide receiver and Elway and Montana are quarterbacks.

-- Adam Rose

Comments

[Glitz]

drama. I was too shocked to read this post at work. It was bad at first, but then I realized this.

Petros. He started off at Cal. I believe a a walk-on at Cal. Even after he came from a legendary USC family, but he ended up at 'SC. So maybe. Just maybe. Little D will come to realize that it's so not about Westwood. ;-)

Trust me. Greek boys need to listen to Greek girls.

xo- Glitz

[Glitz]

oh one more thing. Being in ASU country. I am pretty excited to see the young Mr. Elway play ball at Sun Devil Stadium!

[Robert]

Demetri seems to be the only smart one in the Papadakis family... Well Petros commentates on Bruin games, and he is starting to get better and has warmed up to me over the past few seasons... Anyway, this youngster has finally seen the light!!!

;)

GO BRUINS!!!

[Bonnie L.]

Boooooooooooo Demetri