UCF's Veenstra can't stomach not starting

[bullwark]

Teammates along UCF's offensive line refer to Dan Veenstra as "Pukie," their term of endearment for the guy who most often vomits on the football field.

Both kinds of bile are common. The largest football players often lose their breakfast, lunch and/or dinner during intense parts of practices and games, and players of all sorts create teasing nicknames.

So long as he is in UCF's huddle and not on the sideline -- or not visiting a trainer or doctor -- Veenstra plans to tolerate whatever his peers spit out. Despite daily belches and spews, he is healthy.

And because he's healthy, he's also a bit bent out shape.

"I don't think Danny liked looking at the depth [chart] and seeing his name not at the top," offensive line coach Joe Gilbert said. "That kind of ticked him off. The good part is he had a great summer. He looks ready."

Readiness stems from sickness and loss. While fellow players and students frolicked in faraway places during spring break in March, Veenstra invited quarterback Kyle Israel and center Cedric Gagne-Marcoux to his parents' home in Largo for a mini-vacation.

By the time Israel arrived from Orlando, Veenstra, feeling miserable, was sweating and sick, tucked into his bed. When Israel got up the next morning, his host, who had spent the night vomiting, had gone to the hospital. There, doctors determined Veenstra needed his gall bladder removed.

"I called my friends to tell them to take Kyle and Cedric out and make sure they had a good time," Veenstra said. "I was done."

Israel said he ended up rushing back to Orlando the next day when his father had an emergency heart procedure. Gagne-Marcoux got a tour of Largo and a quick education in gall bladders.

"Not good," he said.

When UCF's spring practice started a week later, Veenstra was absent. By the time he took the field two weeks later, he had lost 25 pounds, he was physically weak and his side ached. For him, spring practice was a bust.

Veenstra played tackle during UCF's forgettable 0-11 season in 2004, but he began the spring listed as the Knights' No. 1 right guard. When coaches posted the post-spring depth chart, he was behind former Winter Springs High player Sean Gilhuly.

"I understood why, but that made me mad," Veenstra said. "It made me want to work."

Veenstra attacked his offseason weightlifting and conditioning programs as if doctors, to paraphrase longtime baseball coach Don Zimmer, had removed the bladder but left the gall. Determination supplanted pain. Veenstra regained his lost weight and reported for fall camp "at 300 pounds but in the best shape of my life," he said. "I'm as strong as I've ever been, but I feel really good on my feet."

Coaches are forbidden by the NCAA from watching voluntary summer workouts, but word of Veenstra's reinvigoration made it back to meeting rooms. UCF's 2004 experiment to put the guard at tackle, it was decided, would get another look. In camp, Veenstra is battling redshirt freshman L.J. Anderson to be the Knights' starting left tackle. Thus far they've taken turns playing with the first and second units.

The position is central to the success of an offense that seeks significant upgrades. UCF ranked in the country's bottom 10 percent in rushing, total offense and scoring.

"If we're going to get better offensively we have to be better up front," UCF Coach George O'Leary said. "It all starts there. . . . We have to make more progress, but I like what I see."

[E.T.]

We seemed to be neck & neck recruiting this kid.