Stork Montgomery Smyrna resident making highlight videos for prospects Montgomery made reel for Fighting Irish frosh, UT verbal commitment  By Tom Kreager - TENNESSEAN                                                                                                                                   Date: July 18, 2004 Special thanks to Tom Kreager for allowing us to post this article. SMYRNA - Scott "Stork" Montgomery is an avid sports enthusiast. His TiVo has sports contests or specials saved most days.  Montgomery, originally from Kentucky, has a box chock-full of press clippings about former University of Kentucky basketball standout Rex Chapman, a childhood friend. But walk up the stairs of his Smyrna home and it's easy to discover Montgomery's latest sports craze. In a nook at the top of his stairwell sits a computer, television, videotapes and DVDs that pack what might be affectionately known as the Stork's nest. That is where he now spends the bulk of his free time - looking at game films and splicing together highlight videos for one of his clients. In a day where high school athletes need every advantage possible, Montgomery has begun a highlight video business, where he makes high school athletes videos to send to prospective colleges. And Montgomery is quickly gaining the reputation of finding legitimate college prospects. "Stork is building a reputation of promoting players that are actual prospects," Scott Kennedy of TheInsiders.com wrote in an e-mail. TheInsiders.com is a high school recruiting Website.  "More times than not, I have to filter through 10 suspects that come across my desk to find the one prospect," Kennedy wrote. "When I get video from Stork, I know it's a prospect, and it makes the evaluation process that much easier because his guys go to the top of the list of prospects that need to be evaluated first." Montgomery's budding business - he has decided to begin charging for his services due to the amount of hours he has been putting into constructing videos - has been in part because of the rise of the Internet. Before the Web, coaches often simply asked high school coaches about players. Now, Websites dedicated to recruiting exist and highlight film is in high demand "Coaching is a fraternity," said Montgomery. "They ask, 'What do you know about Middle Tennessee (high school) football?' They know about Hillsboro and other schools around Nashville.  "But they might ask coaches about different kids. If you have a highlight film, that's the most important thing. The Web has opened that up." Former Smyrna football player Daniel Childs was Montgomery's first client. Childs is now at Maryville College on a football scholarship. Montgomery also constructed a highlight film for Smyrna graduate and University of Notre Dame signee David Wolke. His current clients include Smyrna seniors Marsalous Johnson, who recently verbally committed to the University of Tennessee, Charles Orona and Coffee County senior fullback Jake Nunley. "Stork Montgomery has done so much for me," Johnson said. "He did my highlight film. He took me to camps. He's done basically most of my recruiting for me. You've got to be a great person to do that. "He did Wolke too. If you can get two people to big colleges, you have to be a great person. He's going to Notre Dame and I'm going to UT. That's two schools with two great traditions. But people don't realize how much Stork and coach (Philip) Shadowens have helped me out." Montgomery insists he's just a videographer - not a recruiting analyst. But he feels he has an understanding of what colleges want in players. "I know what college coaches tell me," Montgomery said. "They want to know how fast they are and what is his 40 time. They want to know his grades in school. They want to know physical features like how tall they are. They also ask me what kind of kid they are (away from football)." Kim Blankenship, event coordinator for Nike football training camps around the country, said, "I believe Stork has the grasp and the eye to shoot and portray the athletes' talent over film." Montgomery admitted that the recruiting of Wolke was his first big client. He traveled with the Wolke family to Las Vegas for a quarterback camp and gave his opinions when offers began to roll in. Montgomery's quality of highlight videos has helped spark interest. Montgomery found out that coaches at Notre Dame were impressed with Wolke's film quality. "The quality helps tremendously," Kennedy said. "As a recruit, you don't want the first impression you make on a coach to be, 'Man, this video quality is terrible.'" Montgomery currently has his own Website for his new business at www.storkmontgomery.com.   Montgomery said he normally spends 50 hours looking at film. Montgomery can e-mailed at storkmontgomery@earthlink.net.