High school football countdown, No. 2: Tanque Verde OT Jack Endean is 'old-school'

Editor’s note: The Star is counting down the top high school football players in Tucson. Up next: Tanque Verde offensive tackle Jack Endean.

Name: Jack Endean

Rundown: Endean is a 6-foot-6-inch, 290-pound senior offensive tackle for the Tanque Verde Hawks.

Who he is: “Two-a-days” are a tradition as old as high school football itself. Jack Endean makes it three. His morning workouts are followed by physical therapy, weight lifting, football practice and then “another lift in after practice,” he said. In between, he watches practice film and reads books. His current read: “Battle Cry: Waging and Winning the War Within” by Jason Wilson.

As for his diet: “Pretty much anything and everything,” Endean joked.

Endean is entering his final season at Tanque Verde after transferring from Salpointe Catholic prior to the 2020 season. Last season, the Hawks had their first winning season in program history with a 7-3 record. Now, they’ll try to double-down in 2022.

“We’ve been working on getting bigger, stronger, faster and just connecting as a group. The guys are working hard and some of the younger guys are working,” Endean said. “We’ve spent a lot of time in the weight room, out on the field and we’re just crafting our skills together and working well as a team.”

Life at Tanque Verde wasn’t always easy. Prior to its 2020 hiring addition of coach Jay Dobyns, a former Arizona Wildcat who previously served as an assistant at Salpointe under longtime leader Dennis Bene, Tanque Verde was a combined 4-26 in the previous three seasons.

“We were blessed at Salpointe to have a culture of winning and have top-performing athletes. When I came to Tanque Verde, it’s no secret, this place was a dumpster fire — the football program was at least,” Dobyns said. “The biggest part has been convincing kids who never had athletic success that they were winners and that they were capable of winning if they followed the program, and they jumped in with both feet and took it under water with them.”

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Lately, Tanque Verde has been winning — and Endean has played a massive role in the turnaround.

Proof he’s good: Endean is among the top prospects in Arizona for the 2023 recruiting class.

“It’s a pretty easy sell,” Dobyns said. “When you put eyes on him in person, it sells itself. His film sells it.”

Endean committed to Oklahoma State in December, choosing the Cowboys over offers from Michigan State, Arizona and Cal, among others. OSU offensive line coach Charlie Dickey played on the Wildcats’ O-line when Dobyns was a receiver.

“Those two are very much alike,” Dobyns said of Endean and Dickey. “Charlie was a vicious competitor. He was a leader on our team and guys wanted to play for him and follow him. Charlie made players better in the huddle, and Jackie is a lot like that.”

Endean said Oklahoma State’s culture is “second to none.”

“The environment they have there is awesome, and Coach Dickey and Coach (Mike) Gundy do a great job making you feel comfortable as a person and not just as a player. We have a phone call each week. (Dickey) checks in to see how I’m doing, how practices are going — both here and in Stillwater,” said Endean. “He’ll talk about how his family is doing, how my family is doing, what’s going on in school, what’s going on outside of football. … That stuff has really helped with a relationship that’s not completely based around football.”

He said it: “Jackie, in addition to being a great football player, he’s a great leader and a great teammate. He’s dominating physically but he’s also a supreme athlete. He’s got great feet, very strong, he’s a gym rat, very old-school — like, you can’t give Jack Endean enough work. He’ll do the work you give him, then go find more work on his own. As a coach, you love those kids. He’s just one of those old-school gym rats.” — Dobyns