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Origin myth
Mogus is from Lorain, Ohio, where he played for St. Edward's. Between Deonte Gibson and Greg Kuhar, I've already written twice about St. Ed's 2010 team, which went 15-0 and ranked as high as No. 2 in rankings of all high school teams in America. Anyway, at this point, St. Edward's is fishing for compliments by having this many dudes on the Northwestern team that I have to write about and talk about how good St. Edward's was at football in 2010. Like, congrats, guys, we get it.
Anyway, Mogus was a captain on that team from his offensive guard spot, with "96 percent blocking efficiency" and "50 knockdowns," per NU Sports, who normally doesn't list high school offensive line stats, which leads me to believe everybody else sucks. He was first-team all-district and third-team all-Ohio per the AP. That gave him three stars, and he ranked as the No. 54 guard in the country per 247's composite. He chose Northwestern over Illinois, Vanderbilt, West Virginia, and pretty much the entire MAC in the July before that stellar senior season. Here's his high school highlights:
At Northwestern
After a redshirt freshman campaign, Mogus appeared in all 13 games last year as a backup left guard, behind Brian Mulroe.ANAGRAM OF CHOICE
Discovering the Wildcats' true inner selves through spelling
Geoff Mogus, anagrammed, is
EGG OFF SUMO
At 280 pounds, Mogus isn't quite big enough to do sumo. Mayhaps if he downed some omelettes. The anagram is unclear whether these omelettes woud have to literally be eaten off of a sumo wrestler, which would be so grose. (Also considered: "Go fog fumes," which is a cheer at a sporting event from a pollution fan, "ego mug offs," which are competitions between really cocky dudes to see who can make the cockiest face, "some guff go," which is an awful sequel to "Chicago" by Sufjan Stevens, and "fog fogs emu, " which is an awful sequel to "duck duck goose."
Relevant musical selection
"Chicago N*****", L.E.P. Bogus Boys
Errrr, the L.E.P. Mogus Boys.
It seems Chicago is overrun with wildly popular rappers who have found success re-hacking into the decades-old rap trope that they're super good at shooting people. Of these, I find L.E.P. is one of the more stylistically diverse, but there's no mistaking their bread-and-butter.
And it's hard not to watch this really, really well-shot video (that's three years old!) and see why they're wildly popular. This is Chi, and there's a terrifyingly large percentage of people living it, just a few miles from Northwestern's gorgeous suburban lakefront.
Although I'm a New Yorker and I rest my head here, I often swell up with civic pride about Chicago. I miss its boozy embrace, and feel a little bit as one with a town thrilled with everything about itself, even if it can openly acknowledge that it isn't the best, most perfect, thing in the world, a city capable of reveling in its imperfections.
But the thing I'm repping is so different from what rings to mind when rappers shout out Chi, from anything L.E.P. mentions in this or any of their songs. I've been following fellow Daily alum Adam Sege on twitter, and his nightly dose of tweets about the latest young black men murdered is so tremendously heartbreaking. A red line ride spans universes, from the beer-filled air of Wrigley through an often stunning downtown to half a city where just staying alive is damn difficult. And I wish I could do anything to fix that. Until then, I'll nod my head to L.E.P. and be glad I'm from where I'm from, and appreciative of a place that took me in.
Oh, and this is the third best rap song I can think of with sleigh bells, behind "Halftime" by NaS and "Microphone Fiend" by Eric B. and Rakim. Not sure if this is the same sample.