Landin named Teaff Award winner

Among the many awards handed out at the Snyder High School football banquet Sunday was the 17th annual Grant Teaff Character Award, which Teaff presented to Snyder senior Corey Landin.
Landin played quarterback and defensive back for the Tigers and became the first skill position player to win the award. He was also named to the academic all-state team.
“It is a big award for the community and it means a lot to me to win this award,” Landin said. “It was a big thing for me growing up to see who got the award and I always said, ‘I want to be the next person to win that award.’”
First year head coach Wes Wood said Landin made an immediate impression on him even before he took the job at Snyder. They met during Woods’ interview process.
“He is the first kid I ever met when I came to Snyder,” he said. “When I came for my interview, I was waiting for my motel room, so I was driving around town and drove up to the track. There was this kid sitting up on the track and little did I know, it was Corey, who was up there preparing for track. I went up, introduced myself and he was very respectful and nice. He put a really good impression for the first athlete that I met here. If I had met a guy who was rude or disrespectful, it could have changed everything on my approach or vision for what Snyder could be. But when I met him, I was hoping every kid was like that.”
Wood went on to say that even after his arrival in Snyder, Landin stood out as a leader during the summer workouts.
“So I get here and what do you know, he is the one at every workout, he is the one at the front of every single line, he is the one running as hard as he can during workouts and he bought in,” Wood said. “It’s no secret we had a quarterback battle for a long time and he had an injury. So maybe his vision of what he thought his senior season was going to be like probably unfolded out a bit differently than he wanted and expected. But he stepped up to the plate every single day and tried to be a leader. He is resilient and if my son has a lot of the same character traits that (Corey) has, then I think that I will have done a pretty good job as a dad.”
Zach Garcia, Snyder’s offensive coordinator and a Grant Teaff Character Award recipient in 2004, Landin has always shown the leadership qualities he displayed in 2019.
“He is an excellent leader,” Garcia said. “He has the ability to bounce back from things and we saw that last year. He missed the back end of the season last year due to an illness and I really thought that hurt him a lot. But he bounced back and played in the playoffs and had a great basketball season. His attitude is great.”
Additional awards handed out at the banquet included senior Greg Williams, Offensive Player of the Year; junior Nathan Beaver and sophomore Bryce Ford, Co-Defensive Players of the Year; Cyrus Soria, Offensive Lineman of the Year; senior Kaden Vess and sophomore Maverick Hernandez, Fighting Heart Award; and Jayden Samaniego, Most Valuable Player.