Over the past four years, Cody Horner, Nash Murphy and Jacob Sitterding helped lead the Columbus East football program to 49 wins, a Class 5A state championship and runner-up finish and three regional titles.
The trio hopes to have a similar amount of success the next four years at Hanover College. All three recently committed to the Panthers, and they participated in a signing ceremony Thursday at East.
"I was kind of all over the place with where I was going to go," Murphy said. "I didn’t really know what to look for. I chose Hanover because being on the campus, it’s smaller, and it just felt more at home to me. I loved all the coaches. They’re all super nice, and I liked the academics."
Murphy, who will major in engineering, was a three-year starter at linebacker for the Olympians. He also is one of the leading hitters for the East baseball team and plans to play both sports at Hanover.
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"I started off my freshman year thinking I was going to play baseball, and really up until my junior year, I was thinking baseball," Murphy said. "But at the beginning of this football season, I kind of flipped things and started putting my tapes together to send stuff to colleges."
Like Murphy, Horner is ticketed to become a two-sport athlete in college. The top sprinter on the Olympians’ track team, he plans to do both football and track at Hanover.
"I just liked the programs and what they’re doing with their sports (at Hanover) and how up-and-coming they are," Horner said. "Their campus is beautiful. When we drove around the campus, I just fell in love with how cool it was. My major is environmental science, and their campus is perfect for that kind of study."
Horner caught 32 passes for 748 yards and eight touchdowns as a senior in earning team MVP honors and Class 5A All-State honorable mention honors by the Associated Press. He has been selected to play in the annual North-South All-Star Classic July 12 at North Central High School in Indianapolis.
Horner picked Hanover over DePauw and Franklin.
"Hanover and DePauw and Franklin were my big three, and eventually, I got it narrowed down to DePauw and Hanover," Horner said. "I just like those kind of schools because of how small they are, with small class settings."
Sitterding, who started at right tackle as a senior, also had Franklin among his finalists before settling on Hanover.
"I just liked Hanover because the campus is really nice," Sitterding said. "Plus, their medical program is really impressive to me. They have a lot of different classes, so I thought it would help me get to graduate school easier."
Veteran East football coach Bob Gaddis talked about all three players being leaders by example.
"What they’ve been part of for four years is phenomenal," Gaddis said. "I think that the biggest thing about these guys is that none of them are really vocal guys. They don’t say a whole bunch, but they let their play speak louder than words. At East football, we say talk is cheap, and these guys really live that. They don’t talk a lot, but they played awfully hard and made a lot of plays for us." We’re really going to miss them."
