Son of Ron Claudon, a huge Cougar booster and a talented center at WSU in the late-70s whose career was cut short by a knee injury. Bryant was a two-year starter for Auburn High at tight end and defensive end. A star in the classroom, he received recruiting overtures from Ivy League schools as well. Fritz Jr., from Portland's Waterview High, was a first-team all-Metro League pick in 2003.Ī first-team all-Greater Spokane League pick as a junior and senior. Played both ways for Lewis & Clark –- the same school that produced such nationally recognized Cougar linemen as Dan Lynch, Johnny Bley and Harold Ahlskog - and squatted a school record 465 pounds. Turned down Big Sky scholarship offers to walk on at WSU. His grandfather is none other than Bobo Brayton, an All-American Cougar infielder before going on to become the school's legendary baseball coach. If that's not enough, his cousin Tyler Brayton plays for the Oakland Raiders. His dad, Fritz Brayton Sr., played receiver at WSU in the early 1970s, catching balls from Ty Paine under the watchful eye of Jim Sweeney. This kid's cup runneth over with crimson and gray. As a junior he set the all-time Medical Lake record for longest kickoff return - 99 yards. He played in the East-West All-Star game with fellow Cougars Thomas Ostrander and Pat Bennett. As a prep senior in 2000 he was an all-league and honorable mention Class 2A All-State performer in football. He spent the 2002 season with the Class A Spokane Indians, just 20 miles from his boyhood home in Medical Lake. 225 with five homers and 22 stolen bases. After getting drafted in the 18th round in 2001, he racked up 355 career minor league at bats, hitting. The former Kansas City Royals farm hand is so versatile that he's already changed positions three times, going from receiver to defensive back and now linebacker. No matter how you slice it, the Cougars have struck gold with their newest group of walk ons. Dad is Jack Thompson, the fabled Throwin' Samoan of the 1970s who rewrote the NCAA record book before all was said and done on his remarkable Cougar career. A standout tight end on Ballard's state runner-up team last season, his genes are about as good as they get. They'll be joined in January by another kid with serious crimson blood lines: Tony Thompson. Their talent takes a bit of the sting out of the fact 25 percent of the regular 2004 class of scholarship recruits failed to qualify academically.Īnd get this. Together, they make for one of the most memorable groups of non-scholarship players ever to show up at Martin Stadium at the same time. They are part of a group of nine players who were invited to walk on to the WSU football team this season and accepted. Two are sons of former Cougar players - one of them also the grandson of a WSU legend. ONE SPENT THREE years in the Kansas City Royals' farm system.
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