Former Brookville player will face Steelers with the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl

January 29, 2011

Current Green Bay Packers center Scott Wells once lived in Brookville.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Current Green Bay Packers center Scott Wells wasn’t sure what to think of Brookville when he was 10 years old. The adjustment to living the small-town lifestyle was a lot different from what he was accustomed to in his native Texas.

He loved the aggressive, physical nature of the football he played in Texas, but after he moved to Pennsylvania, he couldn’t play his style of football anymore. No one in Brookville could, because there wasn’t an opportunity to play tackle football at such a young age.

“The strange part about Brookville, when I moved there, was that they didn’t have a youth tackle football league,” Wells said Friday. “I was always one of the more aggressive kids my age, so I wasn’t sure what to think. So I had to sit out of football for one year, and I played flag one year, too.”

Wells, who will start at center for the Packers in Super Bowl XLV Feb. 6 in Dallas, played his freshman and sophomore years at Brookville Junior-Senior School. He started at offensive guard as a freshman and guard and defensive line as a sophomore.

Wells moved to Spring Hill, Tenn., when he was 16, and graduated from Brentwood Academy. He went on to play at the University of Tennessee, where he started 49 consecutive games before being drafted in the seventh round of the 2004 NFL Draft by the Packers.

Wells hit his growth spurt as a freshman at Brookville. He was more than six feet tall and weighed nearly 245 pounds. Now, he is 6-2 and weighs 300 pounds.

“Growing up, I was always one of the biggest kids until I got to about ninth or 10th grade,” Wells said. “Then, I leveled off a bit.”

When Wells played for the Brookville Raiders, it was before the stadium had lights, and played games on Saturday afternoons.

“It was a lot different kind of atmosphere because in Texas, everything is Friday night under the lights,” Wells said. “I liked the atmosphere there. It was a lot of fun being in Brookville. Everyone was so friendly with each other.”

Current Brookville head coach Chris Dworek was an assistant coach during Wells’ freshman year and head coach for his sophomore season. Wells said Dworek’s coaching style had a lasting impact.

“I remember his work ethic,” he said. “He had us condition before practice because he wanted us to find out how we would play in games when we were fatigued. It helped me learn what to do when I was tired in a game.”

Dworek said he isn’t surprised with how Wells has progressed, saying he knew Wells’ sophomore year that he could play with the big boys.

“When Scott was a sophomore, we sent out some Division I feelers out for him and got a lot of responses,” Dworek said. “He was really lean, thick and very quick. He didn’t have the extra fat a lot of kids have at that age.”