Nov. 17, 2007

Pitt's McCoy focusing on football, academics

 

BY JIM LEWIS / Of The Patriot-News, 11/17/07 6:53 PM EST

UPDATED: 11/17/07 11:46 PM EST

 

PITTSBURGH

                                  

On a cold fall morning, LeSean McCoy, one of college football's newest stars, huddled inside a bulky gray sweatshirt as he walked quickly to class, his right sneaker untied.

 

The laces flopped on the sidewalk as he hurried through the busy cityscape that is the University of Pittsburgh's campus. For a moment, he considered tying them, but he ignored them.

 

"I'll tie it later,'' he said, but the laces flopped on the floor of the Cathedral of Learning, a Gothic campus skyscraper where his acting class is held, and on the stairs to the basement classroom. They remained untied in a hallway cluttered with piles of stage curtains, where he waited with other students for the professor to arrive.

 

He seemed like any other college freshman, standing casually outside a classroom with one shoe untied.

 

At breakfast, seated in a booth at Pamela's, a restaurant near campus that's popular with students, he was just another college kid ­-- with a big appetite, eating two egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches ­-- who smiled easily and frequently describing everything he likes as "cool.'' But McCoy, 19, a Harrisburg native who plays running back for Pitt's football team, is gaining national attention for his performance.

 

McCoy leads all freshman running backs in the country in yards gained and is only the third Pitt freshman running back in the team's 118 years of existence to earn more than 1,000 yards in a season.

 

He's also two touchdowns shy of Pitt's record for freshman running backs, set in 1973 by Tony Dorsett, a 1976 Heisman Trophy winner and former Dallas Cowboys star running back.

 

Fans and the media have begun to compare him to Dorsett, which makes McCoy a little uneasy. "I listen to that stuff, but I don't pay any attention to it,'' he said between egg sandwiches. "Tony Dorsett is the man.''

 

His coach, Dave Wannstedt, who played with Dorsett at Pitt in the 1970s, refused to compare McCoy to the Heisman winner. "It's too early yet,'' Wannstedt said after a recent Pitt practice. But the university, competing for sports fans' attention in a city where the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers are an obsession, doesn't seem to mind the comparison: When a Harrisburg TV station arrived last week to interview McCoy, the athletic department arranged it in a room at Pitt's practice facility where Dorsett's Heisman Trophy sits in a plastic glass case.

 

"He doesn't want to be compared to Tony Dorsett, if you ask me,'' said Aaron Berry, a teammate of McCoy's at Pitt and at Harrisburg's Bishop McDevitt High School. "He's a humble guy. He wants to be LeSean McCoy.''

 

Being LeSean McCoy ­-- "Shady'' to his friends and family -- means paying more attention to academics, something he admits he didn't do well enough in high school. His grades had slipped at McDevitt his senior year, so much so that he was unable to meet college football requirements for a Division I football scholarship.

 

He attended the Milford Academy prep school in New York last year to "get my academics straight,'' he said. "Everything you do, you have to make up for it,'' McCoy said. "But that's on the back burner. You learn from it.''

 

His proudest moment at Pitt came in a classroom, not on the football field. He earned a "B'' on his first test in an algebra class. "I studied for it the whole week,'' he said. "I want to start out right.''

 

McCoy's determination doesn't surprise Pitt quarterback Pat Bostick, a fellow freshman. McCoy often apologizes to teammates in the huddle for not running farther.

 

"He'll make 40-yard runs and he's [angry] he didn't make a 70-yard run because he didn't make a cut,'' Bostick said. "Shady magnifies everything he did wrong, and the best ones do that.''

 

`It's how you bounce back'

 

LeSean McCoy disappeared from family and friends for about four days in October.

 

He had fumbled the ball near the goal line in the last minutes of a game against Louisville as his team threatened to score a tying touchdown. He holed himself up in his dormitory room, in a collection of buildings that look like a suburban town house complex, with his dog, a pit bull named Shady.

 

He turned off his cell phone.

 

He wouldn't even return a text message from his mother, Daphne.

 

The only call he returned was from his older brother, LeRon, a pro football player for the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.

 

Daphne McCoy had given LeSean the nickname "Shady" when he was a baby. LeSean loved to smile, and when he became upset, he would suddenly cry without telling you why he was sad. You had no clue why he was upset. "He'd just change,'' said Daphne McCoy. "He wouldn't say anything to you. He'd rather be quiet.''

 

He's that way in college, too. Typically, McCoy is easygoing, with a charismatic smile. "If he's quiet, there's a problem,'' Wannstedt said.

 

It was a new experience for McCoy. Never in his football life ­-- not in high school, not in any game he could think of ­-- had he fumbled at such a crucial moment. He had faced adversity before -- his McDevitt career ended with an ankle injury in the waning minutes of a game with archrival Harrisburg High -- but this fumble was on a national stage.

 

"I was sick,'' he said. "I couldn't move. Couldn't look at anybody in the face. Couldn't leave the room.'' Worse, the game had been televised. "That was the biggest thing -- to do that in college, on national TV,'' he said.

 

After the game, McCoy didn't remove his uniform for some time. His despondency lasted for days. "Let's learn from it. Let's react the right way,'' Wannstedt told him.

 

Others tried to cheer him up. "The best always have bumps in the road,'' Bostick said. "It's how you deal with it.''

 

Six days later, McCoy showed up at Pitt's practice facility, a new complex along the Monongahela River built on the site of a demolished steel mill, and his coaches told him, "Don't worry about it.'' His mood changed. "Nobody was really worried about it except me,'' McCoy said. "I just let it go.''

 

Shady was back.

 

"He's really just a fun-loving kid,'' Bostick said. "I don't think he realizes how good he is. He's so lost in how good he wants to be.''

 

Weeks later, on his way to acting class, he ran into Chuck Bonasorte, a former Pitt player and teammate of Dorsett, across the street from the Cathedral of Learning. Bonasorte was standing next to the canvas and pipe kiosk where he sells Pitt T-shirts and sweatshirts. On the front of one of his T-shirts is printed this message: "Shady for Heisman.''

 

"What's up, brother?'' asked Bonasorte, shaking McCoy's hand. "I was going to put up a sign after the Louisville game that said, `We Love You, Shady.' ''

 

McCoy smiled. Bonasorte told him a story:

 

McCoy's fumble reminded him of a game in 1974. Pitt trailed Notre Dame by a touchdown. Bonasorte had blocked a punt that gave Pitt the ball near Notre Dame's goal line. As time was running out, Dorsett ran toward the end zone for a tying touchdown. But around the 1-yard line, Dorsett fumbled. Notre Dame recovered and eventually won, 14-10.

 

"That adversity makes you better," Bonasorte said. "Let it go.''

 

McCoy left for class, already familiar with that lesson.

 

"Things will happen,'' he said. "It's how you bounce back.''

 

Working to get tradition back

 

Four days after rushing for 140 yards against Syracuse ­-- and moving closer to a freshman rushing record in the Big East, the league in which Pitt plays ­-- McCoy was sought out for media interviews at the practice complex.

 

He leaned forward eagerly in a chair in an office where a Pittsburgh TV sports reporter was interviewing him, talking easily. McCoy seemed relaxed and assured ­-- he didn't pepper his sentences with "like'' or "umm.''

 

Even in high school, he possessed "the gift of gab,'' his mother, Daphne, recalled. After a playoff loss, she remembered McCoy's teammates crying, broken-hearted boys who had dreamed of a state championship, as reporters rushed the field. They surrounded a dry-eyed LeSean as he left the field, and he gave them an interview. "He didn't even have time to cry if he wanted to,'' Daphne McCoy said. "He held it together. He's good at it.''

 

With the camera set up, the Pittsburgh reporter asked McCoy a question -- about Tony Dorsett, the Heisman Trophy winner. "A lot of people are saying you could walk out of here with some major hardware,'' the reporter said.

 

"If the hardware happens, that's cool,'' McCoy replied. "But let's get the tradition back here -- the tradition of winning football games,'' he added, referring to the losing season that Pitt is having this year. In Dorsett's senior year, 1976, Pitt won the national championship.

 

When the interview ended, the cameraman asked if McCoy could remain seated so he could get a "reversal shot'' -- a shot of the TV reporter nodding, as though he was nodding so intently during the interview. "The magic of television,'' the reporter told McCoy.

 

As the cameraman pointed his camera, the reporter said to McCoy, "So tell me a story.''

 

"Story?'' McCoy said, surprised. "My stories ...'' He stopped.

 

"What did you have for breakfast today?'' the reporter coaxed.

 

"I can answer that one,'' McCoy replied. "An egg, bacon and cheese sandwich. Scrambled egg.''

  

The reporter nodded. "One or two?''

 

"Two.''

 

The cameraman said, "OK, that's good,'' and packed up his gear.

 

The moment was a reminder that McCoy is still learning.

 

McCoy left the office, hurrying to a team meeting. A football staffer stopped him in the hallway, carrying a film of McCoy's fumble. "I could see what you saw ­-- you had a line into the end zone,'' the staffer said.

 

"You got to let me see that,'' McCoy said. He smiled.

 

"Damn,'' he muttered, before disappearing into the meeting room.

 

 

JIM LEWIS: 255-8479 or jlewis@patriot-news.com