Featured Future is a summer series where the Observer will highlight local student athletes who are preparing to continue their athletic and educational careers at the college level, or those who have already begun that journey.
After four years with Durant, offensive lineman Logan Mayo will be heading to West Virginia Wesleyan College in the fall to continue his athletic and academic journey as a member of their football team.
“Man, my time at Durant was a wild ride, to be honest with you,” Mayo said. “It started off pretty good. I was a starter on varsity as a freshman, which was pretty cool to me, I had a pretty good season. Then sophomore year rolled around.”
Roughly halfway through Mayo’s sophomore year, he suffered an injury during practice that ended his second high school season.
“The last game I played was against Newsome and it was probably my best game of the year, I mean I had like a two minute long highlight tape,” Mayo said. “Then we go to practice that next week, coach tells us to go take a lap around the field and as we’re going to do that, we’re running out the door one of my buddies stepped on the inside of my ankle, my ankle rolled, it broke and it ended my season right there. I was pretty bummed about that, as anyone would be, because that’s half of my season gone. But I wasn’t too worried about it, I still had two more years to play.”
After recovering from his ankle injury and ready to get back on the field as a junior, Mayo hit another road block as he suffered yet another injury that would derail his third year with the Cougars.
“My junior year comes around, once again everything’s going good and then we’re playing against Strawberry Crest when a defensive lineman took an outside move and my arm came out of position,” Mayo said. “I reached out too far to get him, he took my arm all the way back and it snapped it right out of socket, tearing my labrum which resulted in me getting surgery in December. That was the end of my junior season.”
With now two consecutive years lost due to injury, Mayo began to question whether playing football at the college level would even be a possibility. With ground to make up and very little buzz around his name, he had a lot riding on his senior season. Mayo noted a significant change in Durant’s method of showcasing their players, spearheaded by assistant coach Jon Finley’s approach.
“At that point honestly I didn’t think that I was going to end up playing college ball after that, that’s two years just gone, out the window, and at that point I didn’t have anyone looking at me,” Mayo said. “Then my senior year rolls around and all of that changed, thanks to Coach Finley to be honest. He really, really changed the way that Durant approached recruiting. He was constantly on Twitter, constantly posting us and getting us out there.”
The summer heading into his senior year, West Virginia Wesleyan got in contact with Mayo and began building a relationship with him. By October they made him his first collegiate offer. With a former teammate in tight end Nathan Brennan on the roster, the coaching staff had become familiar with Durant’s front and Mayo stuck out.
“Their coach already had one of my teammates up there playing, Nathan Brennan, he played with me for three years and graduated in 2021,” Mayo said. “He liked the way that Nate played so he started looking through all of our team’s film and once he got to our offensive line and saw the size that we had — because we had a pretty big O Line last year, we were all over 6’2”, all over 250 pounds, we had some big dudes — he told us that he liked our nastiness and the way that we played. Not to pat ourselves on the back but we had a really hard-nosed offensive line.”
Mayo played all across the offensive line in his time at Durant, from center to guard to tackle, and added that West Virginia Wesleyan plans to have him work primarily at offensive tackle due to his 6’4” frame. And while he garnered more offers by the time his high school career was finished, he says that the relationship built with offensive line coach Mike Maloney was different, remaining in constant contact throughout his recruitment process and up through his commitment.
“Getting that offer was breathtaking,” Mayo said. “I’ve wanted to play college football since I was a little kid, it’s always been my dream, so for someone to come out of nowhere and give me a chance like that, I was just honored. I was ecstatic, I couldn’t believe it. It was just a dream come true at that point… I had a couple of different schools talking to me but I didn’t have that relationship with those schools like I did with Coach Maloney at West Virginia Wesleyan. He really took the time to talk to me every day, we were constantly texting back and forth, it seemed like he was really interested in me and wanted me to get up there.”
But more importantly than the football side, Mayo will become the first member of his family to go to college and commented on how important it was to him to make his family proud in that regard. Off the field, he’ll major in criminal justice and plans to one day serve as a police officer and ultimately a detective.
“It’s amazing,” Mayo said. “It’s pretty cool to make my parents as proud as they were. I’ve never seen my pops cry, but the day I got that offer he was in tears. So it’s just an honor to make them proud, to be honest.”
In addition to joining a former teammate at West Virginia Wesleyan, the DII football team plays in the Mountain East Conference alongside Alderson Broaddus, where former Plant City High School running back Reggie Bush Jr. is currently committed.
