Player of the Week: Evangel’s Charley Abraham

SHREVEPORT, LA (KTAL/KMSS) — Football teaches you many things, including toughness and hard work. Just ask Evangel senior wide receiver Charley Abraham, who put up nine catches for 221 yards on a sprained ankle against Airline.

“I had finally put it in my head that I got to play through adversity, play through anything that if I want to make it to the next level, I got to play through it,” Abraham said.

It also teaches you life lessons. 

“That says that he’s a football player because in our game you’ve got to be able to play hurt, and what a principle that is for life,” head coach Denny Duron said.

During his time at Evangel, he has embodied the team’s values and goals. 

“What we teach and preach every day, he has fully embraced. He’s gonna be on time, he’s going to work hard, he’s gonna win the sprints if he can. He’s taking advantage of every opportunity to improve himself as a football player and as a man,” Duron said.

That improvement all begins at practice. 

“We took practice to the next level and we start going 100% in practice, full speed, no breaks, just relying on everybody. We put the pressure on us because we know that we one of the best top receiver cores,” Abraham stated.

“Charley performs like that at practice. I told him one day, I said, my man, if we gave a practice award, an MVP for practice, I said you’d win it every day,” Duron said.

The work has translated on the field, 506 yards receiving with two touchdowns in 4 games this season. 

“It helped me to let me know that I can actually do it and God blessed me to be able to give me the talent to do it,” Abraham said.

Oh, and that speed of his, goes back to his running back days. 

“He started for us as a running back his sophomore year, so he’s got all that in him. He was catching that ball underneath and then he made just beautiful runs after he caught the ball,” Duron stated. 

“Knowing that the ball was coming to me during the game, it felt good catching the ball because that’s the key part of a wide receiver. You have to catch the ball first before you do anything. So, I’m just excited I had nine catches and a lot of yards,” Abraham said.

Abraham and Evangel hit the field again on Thursday, October 2 against Huntington.