Senior Gameday Program Feature - Darvin Ruise
9/10/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
Darvin Ruise
By Walt Scher, Mizzou Strategic Communications
Coming out of the highly touted high school football state of Florida, Darvin Ruise had offers from SEC schools such as Tennessee and South Carolina, but decided to travel even further from home to what was at the time a Big 12 Conference school in Mizzou.
Assistant coach Josh Henson received the credit for bringing Ruise to Columbia in 2010.
"He was at LSU earlier in my high school career, then I followed him here," Ruise said. "It has been a good ride ever since then."
Henson was the recruiting coordinator at LSU before joining head coach Gary Pinkel's staff in 2009.
Ruise, a two-way player coming out of high school, has athletic abilities looking for a way to fit on the team. He was exactly the type of player Mizzou coaches thrive at molding.
After redshirting his first year in Columbia, Ruise spent the next two seasons contributing off the bench as a reserve linebacker. He appeared in 12 games in his second year on campus and followed that up by appearing in all 12 games his redshirt sophomore season .
Last season, Ruise had an outstanding campaign of filling a run-stopping void during specific situations for Mizzou's defense. Ruise finished the year 10th on the team with 44 tackles while appearing in all 14 games. That redshirt junior year campaign included his first career interception and forced fumble against Tennessee and Indiana, respectively.
Those combined 38 game appearances over the last three seasons make Ruise the most experienced linebacker on the team. There is no need to tell Ruise what his focus is for his final Black & Gold season. The linebacker has his eyes set on leadership.
"Leading by example, you know you can only talk so much, but when guys actually see it with their own two eyes and understand what you're doing, those things kind of speak for themselves. I've just been working on being a better leader," Ruise said.
For Ruise, that leadership role has been earned over four hard-working years.
"It's a great feeling, having those guys look up to you for senior leadership," said Ruise. "I had to come in here and look up to people like Luke Lambert and all those guys, so it's a great feeling to come in here and be respected as one of the older guys on the team and one of the guys a lot of the guys look up to."
A shout out at one fall camp practice from a well-known former Mizzou Men's Basketball player served as a testament to how far a journey it has been. "What's up, Vet!" yelled Kim English from the sidelines.
"It's a good feeling," Ruise said.
Ruise has hopes to continue his football career in the NFL, but once his football days wind down he plans to get into an even more exciting career, homicide detective.
"It's something I got into when I was in high school, I shadowed, I've worked about ten homicides now, it's just been a really rewarding experience for me," Ruise said. "Certain parts of the job can be tough to deal with, but it's also very rewarding once you're able to apprehend whoever is responsible."
In his last year with the Tigers Ruise is looking to finish strong with his teammates.
"Just have a good season, finish it up with the guys," Ruise said. "Match what we did last season, or even better. Kind of piggy back off of that and have a good season, end it off on a good note."
