The Story Teller
10/26/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football, Athletics
The Storyteller
By Bruce Wood
It was a tough question, but it stumped Preston Copley only momentarily.
Is there a correlation, Dartmouth's co-captain from Louisville, Ky., was asked, between playing on the offensive line and acting? The 6-foot-5, 275-pound tackle, who had a lead role in every show put on when he was a student at Kentucky Country Day School, hesitated for just a second and then was off and running with the spirit of the 3-year-olds he enjoys watching at his hometown Churchill Downs.
Talk about a connection between acting and the offensive line? No problem for Copley, who calls playing Harold Hill in The Music Man his favorite role.
“As a lineman, the old saying is nobody knows you are out there until you do something wrong,” he began. “It's kind of the same way in acting because if you are doing the scene right, if you are in the moment and everybody is in the moment with you, then it's not like you are watching a play. It's like you are watching life happening.
“When you mess up your lines it suddenly throws everyone back into the reality that it's just a bunch of people on stage. It's the same in football. You've got to fully commit yourself to what you do because there's a possibility of really messing up as an offensive lineman and having everybody noticing it. There's nothing worse than missing a block and everyone seeing the quarterback get destroyed.”
Great answer.
Now do you understand how Copley was able to win a state championship at the Kentucky High School Speech League's Senior State Speech Tournament in improvisational duo acting? And why the same speech league recognized him in state competition for his storytelling ability?
The written word doesn't do justice to the timing, the inflections and the chuckles that perfectly punctuate Copley's stories. Consider his introduction to the game of football.
“I started padded football in second grade,” he said. “The peewee coach saw me at a grocery store on the signup day. I'm kinda big now, but I mean I was freakishly big when I was in second grade. The coach was like, 'Hey, does he live in this district and does he want to play football? They are signing up at the Dairy Queen right now so let's go over and sign'em on up.'”
Copley sounds as if he enjoys telling good stories as much as others enjoy hearing them. Listen to the tale of his first visit to Dartmouth.
It began on a serious note with good friend Emily Hillerich, daughter of his father's best friend and someone Copley said, “is like a sister to me,” having successful heart surgery in Boston. In New England to offer their support, the Copleys took advantage of the trip to check out colleges.
“Before her heart surgery I don't think I'd ever been north of Chicago,” Copley began. “When we were up here I took a look at all the northern colleges that I had been talking to. We saw Harvard and Yale. I remember when I was at Yale I thought it was a really impressive school but I didn't know New Haven was such a city.
“On the July 4th weekend we drove through New York City,” he continued. “We were Kentuckians, in New York City, and we were stuck on the George Washington Bridge for about three hours, I think. My dad is yelling at me from the front seat, 'You will never go to school in the north. You will never go to school in the north.' That was about it for Columbia.”
By Copley's reckoning Dartmouth was the final stop of his first college tour. “I don't know what it is,” he said, “but you get that feeling when you walk on a campus where you know that's where you are supposed to be. That's what happened here.
“It's a lot like Kentucky in the country aspect of it here. Being so far away from home the first time, that definitely had an appeal. I remember coming up to Dartmouth and it was, 'Wow, if they let me in here, this is the place I'd like to go to.' I knew right away.”
When Copley made an unofficial visit to Dartmouth to see his older brother's best friend and catch a game against Brown on snowy Memorial Field it only reinforced feelings about the school that he confirmed on his official recruiting visit.
“As luck would have it they gave me Daniel Tootoo '06 (as a player host),” he said. “We just jelled like we were old friends immediately. I had an incredible official visit. As soon as I met with (then head coach John Lyons) I knew I wanted to commit.”
Copley arrived at Dartmouth as a 230-pound defensive end. It didn't take him long to realize there was a serious log jam ahead of him.
“When I walked in freshman year I was behind Anthony Gargiulo and Ryan Conger, and Rich Knupp and Ryan Taylor,” Copley said with his infectious laugh. “I was like, 'Wow, all these guys aren't seniors. And they are all insanely good.'
“I'd gotten up to about 255 with good weight after freshman year and there were some injuries on the offensive line, so Coach Lyons asked me if I thought I could get it done over there. I was looking for any shot to get on the field in any capacity, so I said it's worth a shot. I didn't see the starting slots for Conger and Gargiulo going anywhere.”
Good thinking. While Conger and Gargiulo were heading for All-Ivy honors, Copley headed to the offensive line where he found himself on the field in just the fourth game of his sophomore year.
“They had me at right tackle,” he said. “It was definitely an eye-opening experience because I went from being third on the depth chart and not even thinking about playing time to starting with a line that actually had a good amount of starters on it. Taylor Layman '08 got to play around that time also, so it was a freshman and a sophomore out there wondering what we were doing.”
Copley shifted to guard last year where the lanky junior freely admits he struggled trying to handle 300-pounders intent on building up their sack numbers. Back at tackle again this year, he's enjoying a solid season along with the rest of the much-improved line that has brought sack numbers way, way down this fall.
“For a long time I didn't even know how many we had given up and no one wanted to ask,” he said. “I think it's like not talking to your pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. I eventually broke down and asked everyone else. Jared (Dowdakin) finally asked (line coach Cyril Brockmeier) how many sacks and he was like, 'Don't even ask me.' So we had to figure out for ourselves.”
With just one more home game on the docket, Copley knows his days on the football stage are just about over. But not, perhaps, his days on stage.
“I was on campus my junior winter and took my first acting class here," he said. “It was great. For our first show we did a bench reading of a student-written play. (Sophomore tailback) Milan Williams was in it too.
“It was fun to get back to that side of me. I hope to do more of it after the season is over because I don't know how well I'm going to take not being able to play football anymore. I'll need something.”
A veteran writer and observer of Dartmouth athletics, Bruce Wood launched a web site last year, www.biggreenalert.com, specializing in Big Green football news coverage.
By Bruce Wood
It was a tough question, but it stumped Preston Copley only momentarily.
Is there a correlation, Dartmouth's co-captain from Louisville, Ky., was asked, between playing on the offensive line and acting? The 6-foot-5, 275-pound tackle, who had a lead role in every show put on when he was a student at Kentucky Country Day School, hesitated for just a second and then was off and running with the spirit of the 3-year-olds he enjoys watching at his hometown Churchill Downs.
Talk about a connection between acting and the offensive line? No problem for Copley, who calls playing Harold Hill in The Music Man his favorite role.
“As a lineman, the old saying is nobody knows you are out there until you do something wrong,” he began. “It's kind of the same way in acting because if you are doing the scene right, if you are in the moment and everybody is in the moment with you, then it's not like you are watching a play. It's like you are watching life happening.
“When you mess up your lines it suddenly throws everyone back into the reality that it's just a bunch of people on stage. It's the same in football. You've got to fully commit yourself to what you do because there's a possibility of really messing up as an offensive lineman and having everybody noticing it. There's nothing worse than missing a block and everyone seeing the quarterback get destroyed.”
Great answer.
Now do you understand how Copley was able to win a state championship at the Kentucky High School Speech League's Senior State Speech Tournament in improvisational duo acting? And why the same speech league recognized him in state competition for his storytelling ability?
The written word doesn't do justice to the timing, the inflections and the chuckles that perfectly punctuate Copley's stories. Consider his introduction to the game of football.
“I started padded football in second grade,” he said. “The peewee coach saw me at a grocery store on the signup day. I'm kinda big now, but I mean I was freakishly big when I was in second grade. The coach was like, 'Hey, does he live in this district and does he want to play football? They are signing up at the Dairy Queen right now so let's go over and sign'em on up.'”
Copley sounds as if he enjoys telling good stories as much as others enjoy hearing them. Listen to the tale of his first visit to Dartmouth.
It began on a serious note with good friend Emily Hillerich, daughter of his father's best friend and someone Copley said, “is like a sister to me,” having successful heart surgery in Boston. In New England to offer their support, the Copleys took advantage of the trip to check out colleges.
“Before her heart surgery I don't think I'd ever been north of Chicago,” Copley began. “When we were up here I took a look at all the northern colleges that I had been talking to. We saw Harvard and Yale. I remember when I was at Yale I thought it was a really impressive school but I didn't know New Haven was such a city.
“On the July 4th weekend we drove through New York City,” he continued. “We were Kentuckians, in New York City, and we were stuck on the George Washington Bridge for about three hours, I think. My dad is yelling at me from the front seat, 'You will never go to school in the north. You will never go to school in the north.' That was about it for Columbia.”
By Copley's reckoning Dartmouth was the final stop of his first college tour. “I don't know what it is,” he said, “but you get that feeling when you walk on a campus where you know that's where you are supposed to be. That's what happened here.
“It's a lot like Kentucky in the country aspect of it here. Being so far away from home the first time, that definitely had an appeal. I remember coming up to Dartmouth and it was, 'Wow, if they let me in here, this is the place I'd like to go to.' I knew right away.”
When Copley made an unofficial visit to Dartmouth to see his older brother's best friend and catch a game against Brown on snowy Memorial Field it only reinforced feelings about the school that he confirmed on his official recruiting visit.
“As luck would have it they gave me Daniel Tootoo '06 (as a player host),” he said. “We just jelled like we were old friends immediately. I had an incredible official visit. As soon as I met with (then head coach John Lyons) I knew I wanted to commit.”
Copley arrived at Dartmouth as a 230-pound defensive end. It didn't take him long to realize there was a serious log jam ahead of him.
“When I walked in freshman year I was behind Anthony Gargiulo and Ryan Conger, and Rich Knupp and Ryan Taylor,” Copley said with his infectious laugh. “I was like, 'Wow, all these guys aren't seniors. And they are all insanely good.'
“I'd gotten up to about 255 with good weight after freshman year and there were some injuries on the offensive line, so Coach Lyons asked me if I thought I could get it done over there. I was looking for any shot to get on the field in any capacity, so I said it's worth a shot. I didn't see the starting slots for Conger and Gargiulo going anywhere.”
Good thinking. While Conger and Gargiulo were heading for All-Ivy honors, Copley headed to the offensive line where he found himself on the field in just the fourth game of his sophomore year.
“They had me at right tackle,” he said. “It was definitely an eye-opening experience because I went from being third on the depth chart and not even thinking about playing time to starting with a line that actually had a good amount of starters on it. Taylor Layman '08 got to play around that time also, so it was a freshman and a sophomore out there wondering what we were doing.”
Copley shifted to guard last year where the lanky junior freely admits he struggled trying to handle 300-pounders intent on building up their sack numbers. Back at tackle again this year, he's enjoying a solid season along with the rest of the much-improved line that has brought sack numbers way, way down this fall.
“For a long time I didn't even know how many we had given up and no one wanted to ask,” he said. “I think it's like not talking to your pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. I eventually broke down and asked everyone else. Jared (Dowdakin) finally asked (line coach Cyril Brockmeier) how many sacks and he was like, 'Don't even ask me.' So we had to figure out for ourselves.”
With just one more home game on the docket, Copley knows his days on the football stage are just about over. But not, perhaps, his days on stage.
“I was on campus my junior winter and took my first acting class here," he said. “It was great. For our first show we did a bench reading of a student-written play. (Sophomore tailback) Milan Williams was in it too.
“It was fun to get back to that side of me. I hope to do more of it after the season is over because I don't know how well I'm going to take not being able to play football anymore. I'll need something.”
A veteran writer and observer of Dartmouth athletics, Bruce Wood launched a web site last year, www.biggreenalert.com, specializing in Big Green football news coverage.
Players Mentioned
D
/ Men's Lacrosse
OT
/ FootballDE
/ Football
OG/C
/ FootballDT
/ FootballOT
/ Football
RB
/ Football2025 Dartmouth Football Positional Preview: Tight Ends
Monday, September 15
Field Hockey Head Coach Mark Egner Postgame vs #14 UMass 9.14.25
Sunday, September 14
2025 Dartmouth Football Positional Preview: Special Teams
Sunday, September 14
Bobby Clark Head Coach of Men's Soccer Bo Oshoniyi Postgame vs. Merrimack
Sunday, September 14
