Tech's Vick ready for hype
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -
About 220 miles, several flocks
of sheep and countless tobacco
fields east of where Michael Vick
was rehearsing for a repeat vir
tuoso performance at Virginia
Tech, the man who perhaps
knows him best made a predic
tion.
“This,” said Warwick High
School Coach Tommy Reamon,
“is the biggest year of his life.”
An intriguing statement,
especially considering that as a
redshirt freshman, Vick prompt
ly became the nation’s most
electrifying player, running and
_i__
terbacks coach Rickey Bustle,
and his mother all told Vick the
same thing.
Marcus said: *We knew he
was going to be good, but he
shocked all of us.”
Michael Vick, who in high
school took a back seat to the
area’s, if not the nation’s, biggest
star in Hampton High’s Ronald
Curry, now at North Carolina,
was a virtual unknown when
last season started. By season’s
end, Vick had thrown for 1,840
yards and 12 touchdowns, run
for 585 yards and another eight
TDs and led the Hokies to an 11 -
0 record before a 46-29 loss to
Florida State in the Sugar Bowl.
_
passing the
Hokies to an
undefeated
regular season
and into the
national
championship
game.
B u t
Reamon, a
man who
regards Vick
*We knew he was
going to be good,
but he shocked all
of us”
Marais Vick
Michael Vick's brother
vick was
magnificent
even in defeat,
accounting for
322 of the
Hokies’ 502
yards. He
threw for 225
yards and a TD
and ran for 97
yards and
another score.
almost as a
son, wasn't just talking about his
on-the-fieid exploits.
“It has nothing to do with
how many touchdowns he
throws," Vick’s high school
coach said. "It has something to
do with if he throws two inter
ceptions in the first game,
they're going to eat him alive.
They’re going to talk about him
like a dog.
"People are going to not
accept him. And then I’m going
to have to worry about him
when he walks into that apart
ment and shuts that door and
looks at himself in the mirror.
"So,” he added, exhaling slowly,
"this is big."
For the record, Reamon said
he thinks Vick will do just fine,
both on and off the field. And so
far, he’s made all the right calls
concerning the 6-foot-l, 214
pound left-hander, who burst
on the college football scene last
September with such force that
just three months later, he
would gain 13 first-place votes
and finish third in the Heisman
Ttophy voting.
This hot and cloudy day, on
the field where Reamon turned
the soft-spoken Vick into what
some are calling a new breed of
quarterback - elusive, mobile,
accurate and improvisational -
Vick’s 16-year-old brother,
Marcus, is flinging passes all
over the place.
Standing in the middle of the
field, Reamon is wearing the
smile of someone who knows
something special is going to
happen again.
"He’s going to be great and
he doesn’t know it,” Reamon
said of the high school junior
while walking toward the side
line to greet Vick’s parents,
Brenda and Michael Boddie,
both of whom are sporting
Virginia Tech maroon and
orange garb. “He's got more flu
idness than Michael at this
stage.”
Better than Michael?
Perhaps Reamon, a former pro
running back in the mid-1970s,
has been swept up in Vickmania
like nearly everyone else. But
on? person not questioning
Reamon is Michael Vick himself,
who remembers his ex-coach
telling him before the ’99 season
about being ready to embark on
an incredible journey.
"It was like he saw it com
ing,” Vick said last month in
Blacksburg, Va.
Reamon wasn’t alone.
Hokies coach Frank Beamer,
offensive coordinator and quar
KSU sticks with
Beasley in game
against Iowa
HOBIRSOM from page 14
look to him.”
Elsewhere around the Big
12 Conference, similar quarter
back races are being waged,
while new quarterbacks settle
into positions where they’re
badly needed.
A case in point is Baylor,
where Coach Kevin Steele pins
much of his team’s hopes on
Greg Cicero.
Cicero, a former Texas quar
terback, spent one season in
junior college before transfer
ring to the Bears. He had the
starting nod upon arrival, and
former quarterback Odell
James has been moved.
“He's thrown the ball well
and all those things,” Steele
said. “But the thing that’s most
impressive is that when Greg is
in the huddle, people listen to
him.”
That guy
was awesome,” Seminoles safe
ty Sean Key said after the game.
The 2000 season opens next
weekend and the 20-year-old
Vick is the Heisman front-run
ner.
"Michael will be good,”
Beamer said. "He hasn't backed
down from anything that’s hap
pened yet. There will be a lot
written about what’s expected,
but I’ve told Michael not to
worry about that, just prepare
yourself well, play the way you
can and everything will turn out
fine.”
Easy for Beamer to say now.
But just what was it about Vick
that gave those among his inner
circle enough confidence to pre
dict greatness?
"When I first saw him on
film when he was in the 10th
grade, the quick release hit you
like a sledgehammer,” said
Bustle, who starts his 13th sea
son with the Holdes.
Ask Bustle about Vick’s
greatest asset, and you’ll get
this: "Is it his arm? Is it his run
ning? No. I’d have to say it’s his
personality. He is the most even
keeled young athlete I’ve ever
been around. The coolness he
plays with, his maturity? I’ve
never seen
anything like
it.”
His coach
es credit his
mother, who
was just 16
when she had
Michael’s older
sister,
Christine, and
17 when she
gave birth to
Michael.
“Michael is still
Michael, that’s
what so amazing
about him.”
Frank Beamer
Virginia Tech Head Coach
ting away from
what's really
important,
and that’s how
he plays,”
Beamersaid.
“The thing
with Michael is
he has a hard
time saying no,
so we have to
put some
order in his
week.
Exhausted
after coming home every day
after high school to take care of
her babies, Brenda quickly
vowed her children would have
a better life.
As Christine remembers,
Michael grew up not only sur
rounded by love but very much
the glowing center of the close
knit family even in the absence
of his father.
He never lacked for atten
tion.
These days, after gracing the
cover of nearly every preseason
magazine, appearing on nation
al TV to receive an ESPY award
for college player of the year and
getting drafted by the Colorado
Rockies after not having picked
up a baseball in six years (“We
think he's that talented,” the
Rockies said), it would be
Can there
ever be order again? Agents are
swarming, anticipating he will
turn pro after the season. *1 just
don’t talk to them,” he says.
People recognize him at
Kmart and Burger King. aIt
comes with the territory. It’s
OK,” he adds.
And folks in Newport News
recognize his mother, the most
famous school bus driver in
town.
“Are you Michael Vick’s
mom?” the lads ask her as they
hop aboard and look up at pic
tures of her two football-playing
sons hanging from a visor. “Can
you get me his autograph?”
Brenda’s bus, No. 121, broke
down last year, but she'll be get
ting a new one soon.
“Maybe they’ll give me bus
No. 7,” she said, smiling.
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understandable if Vick were
somehow changed by fame. But,
his coaches say, he's not.
“Michael is still Michael,
that’s what’s so amazing about
him,” Beamer said. “He is a kid
you want to be around. He’s
confident, and he hasn’t let all
this get to him.”
It’s easy to see how talented
Vick is. But what his family
knows better than anyone else is
what makes him tick. And that's
having a support system when
he needs it. He calls his mother
nearly every day and she still
calls him “Ookie,” the name
given him by his aunt after she
saw the muscles he had even as
a toddler. He talks to Reamon
before every game, and trusts
his coaches implicitly.
“He needed to go into a rela
tionship situation,” Reamon
said. “He’s not some ldd from a
bad background. He’s got a
tremendous family and a
tremendous support system,
and I was happy when he chose
Tech."
And happy when Vick was
redshirted in 1998.
“We just wanted to bring
him along slowly, not give him
too much too fast” Bustle said.
“We had a quarterback, and
Michael needed to get settled
into school and get a good grasp
of what we were doing.”
“It was best for Michael,”
said Brenda, standing near her
minivan with the personal
license plate “VT MOM 7.”
Three years after Vick's grad
uation, Reamon remains as pro
tective as a mother hen.
He was, for instance,
annoyed when he found out
Vick had signed 300 autographs
at Virginia Tech’s media day ear
lier this month.
“Would you want to do
that?” Reamon asked. “The
most important thing is how the
adults around him handle
things.”
The Hokies sports informa
tion office, which set up a Web
site for Vick last month (nearly
100,000 hits since July 26), has
been deluged with interview
requests. Beamer promises the
school will do its best to keep
Vick’s schedule under control.
“People need to have access
to him, but his life doesn’t need
to change so much that he’s get
-w " •/* - jxr f" • 77..,' , 5 “I
Slechta returns to boost defensive line
Sledrta from page 14
"We think those three will
do a great job of controlling the
line of scrimmage,” he said.
Controlling the line of
scrimmage is crucial to NU’s
defensive scheme, first-year
defensive coordinator Craig
Bohl said.
"You have to establish the
line of scrimmage and shut
down the run,” he said.
"So if we are not able to do
that, then our fancy stuff does
n't work too well. Their impact is
going to be critical for us this
year.”
Practice Notes:
Nebraska’s first-team
defense received its Blackshirts
on Monday. Sophomore line
backers Randy Stella and Scott
Shanle, along with sophomore
rush end DeMoine Adams,
received the distinction for the
first time.
Kaiser said that the distribu
tion differed from years past.
Former defensive coordinator
Charlie McBride used to hand
out the Blackshirts in the locker
room personally.
But Bohl held a meeting that
included a video featuring for
mer Huskers talking about what
it means to wear the Blackshirt.
“Jeremy (Slechta)
is very tough, and
he understands
the difference
between pain and
injury,4 ,1
JeffJamrog
first-year offensive line
coach
“It was neat how they did it
this year,” he said. It is one of
the best feelings in the world.”
Woods-May
match shows
Tiger is merely
one to marvel at
TMi> from page 14
from human emotion on the
course, while being inter
viewed and in the public
domain.
So Tiger is not a man. He’s
Tiger. There’s never been
another athlete like him.
He’s so scarily driven, so
totally fixated on golf, that I
can only marvel at his great
ness. I cannot like him.
If and when he takes
those hands off the bill, he
won't be as successful.
And until he takes those
hands off the bill, he won’t be
able to understand the well
rounded personality, the
inner peace, of a guy like Bob
May.
While Tiger nipped the
anonymous man by a stroke,
the imperfect May, com
posed of heart, mind and
body, and not a million swing
thoughts, came out infinitely
ahead.
Until Tiger straightens
from the crouch and looks
around, like May did Sunday,
like Michael Jordan remem
bered to, like Arnold Palmer
did so well, I can’t like him. I
can only marvel.
Jayhawks7 hopes for season
rest on well-stocked backfield
KUPtEVlEW from page 14
Winbush is “as healthy as he
has ever been,” Allen said.
Allen and his coaching staff
said they hope that the trio, the
strongest backfield in recent
Jayhawk history, can propel die
team to greater things. KU fin
ished 5-7 last season, but return
17 starters from that team.
With a defense anchored by
Carl Nesmith, a First Team All
Big 12 selection at defensive
back last season, and a solid
offensive line, the backfield will
have help.
Allen has said his 2000 team
will be better than last season.
Whether that results in a better
record depends on the
increased strength of the Big 12,
he said.
This much is certain. With
Winbush, 5-foot-7, 180
pounds, and Norris in the back
field, the Jayhawks will have a
1-2 punch few conference
teams can rival.
It will be like night and day
when die two run the ball
“That will keep a whole lot
of defenses off balance,” Norris
said. “He’s shifty and quick, and
I’m a bruiser that's just going to
run people over.”
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