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By Sam Ross Jr.
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Penn State linebacker Paul Posluszny is a contradiction, a linebacker who routinely plies his trade in front of more than 110,000 fans at Penn State home games, yet one who prefers relative anonymity.
That is no longer an option. He's already highly decorated, having established a Penn State career tackles record, earned multiple All-America recognitions, and come home from the awards circuit last season as the winner of the Bednarik and Butkus awards.
This week Posluszny, a former Hopewell High School star, will fly around the eastern and southern United States on the postseason college football awards circuit, neither loving it, nor hating it. Others might revel in the spotlight. For Posluszny, it's an exercise in going with the flow.
His father, Paul, and his mother, Jackie, will accompany him on this awards swing, which begins Tuesday in New York City, where Posluszny is one of 17 finalists for the Draddy Award, the academic Heisman that recognizes a combination of athletic and academic excellence.
The family continues on to Houston Wednesday, where Posluszny is a finalist for the Rotary Lombardi Award, along with Texas offensive guard Justin Blaylock, Ohio State defensive tackle Quinn Pitcock and Michigan defensive end LaMarr Woodley.
The trip concludes in Orlando, Fla., where Posluszny is in competition with Ohio State's James Laurinaitis and Mississippi's Patrick Willis for the Butkus Award, and with teammate Dan Connor and Woodley for the Bednarik Award.
Projected as a first-round pick in the NFL draft, and with just one game -- the Jan. 1 Outback Bowl -- remaining in his college career, Posluszny has been just short of deified among the Penn State family for his combination of athletic and academic excellence. Yet he remains largely unaffected by his accolades.
"I'm a very, very simple person," Posluszny said. "I love to play football. I love spending time with my friends, watching movies. And I love being with my family."
And the trips are fine with his family.
"We like to travel. It's fun meeting some new people," Posluszny's father said. "And nobody knows who I am. That's OK with me."
"We prefer not being in the limelight," Jackie said. "We're proud of him, but it's almost embarrassing to hear so many nice things said about him. There are a lot of great guys out there."
The football player is an apple who has not fallen far from the family humility tree.
"Football is the ultimate team game. For one person to do well, the 10 other guys on the field have to be doing well also," Posluszny said. "It's hard to single out one guy and say he's a great player. If you're a great player, you play on a great team."
Others are not as reluctant to single out Posluszny for praise.
"He's a guy who's going to represent Penn State to the fullest any chance he can get," fellow Penn State linebacker Connor said. "That's what he is. He's a blood and guts Penn State guy. He bleeds blue and white."
Tom Bradley, the man who recruited Posluszny to Penn State from Hopewelll, the coach who in his role of defensive coordinator presided over his four-year career, was emotional speaking of Posluszny after the regular-season finale against Michigan State.
"I have a close bond with Paul. I told him I was going to miss him," Bradley said. "I wrote him a long letter because I knew my emotions would well up a little bit with this being his last (home) game. But he knows how I feel about him."
Jack Ham, a former All-American linebacker at Penn State who enjoyed a Hall-of-Fame career with the Steelers and since has done extensive pro and college broadcasting, sees a bright future in pro football for Posluszny.
"He'll be a No. 1 pick, an outstanding pro," Ham said. "There's no problem with his knee. His burst is outstanding. He's so solid in pass coverage, so that won't be a liability in the pros.
"Plus, he's a smart guy. With that 3.5 or whatever in finance, he'll be able to handle his own money."
Season of transition
The seeming fairy tale that has been Posluszny's Penn State career has not transpired without rough spots.
He began playing in the fifth game of his freshman season and was a starter in the last game of that 2003 campaign, but both that season and his sophomore year produced losing records for the Lions.
Last January, late in what would be a triple-overtime win against Florida State in the Orange Bowl, a win that would conclude an 11-1 season and put the Lions at No. 3 in the final rankings, Posluszny injured his right knee. The diagnosis of partial tears of the posterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments did not require surgery. But the injury did shelve Posluszny and end his thoughts of possibly entering the NFL draft as a junior.
When Posluszny retook the field this season, a brace on his knee. it was as an inside linebacker instead of his customary outside role.
"I'm sure if he had his druthers, he'd have loved to have played outside again," said Ham, who had created a stir last season when he labeled Posluszny the best linebacker ever to play for the Lions. "My senior year, I had to go to the middle and play inside and it is such a change, it's like your freshman year all over again.
"The keys are all different. You have to think longer before you react to realizing what you're seeing. The last five or six games this year, he really came on."
Posluszny's assessment of his transition, designed to get talented sophomore Sean Lee on the field, was similar.
"It was just a mental thing. The reason why I was able to play the outside position so well was I just really felt comfortable. I knew the ins and outs," Posluszny said. "This year, it took me a little longer mentally to get everything squared away in my mind."
Posluszny still led the team with 108 tackles, seven for loss.
Bradley sees that Posluszny has mastered the new position, as he knew he would.
"There is no one playing better at linebacker than he is in this country," Bradley said. "I will be disappointed if he doesn't win the Butkus again."
Posluszny hadn't expected to win the Butkus Award, emblematic of the nation's top linebacker, last year. He'd said then that Ohio State linebacker A.J. Hawk deserved it.
Posluszny will accept any outcome this year.
"I think I'm a much better linebacker this year than I was last year," he said. "Whatever that goes into, I'm not sure. We'll see. The other two candidates, they're great linebackers as well."
Family ties
The work ethic that has produced football and academic success for Paul at Penn State was honed at home.
"We were strict," his mother, Jackie, said. "Our children didn't get a lot of toys the other kids got. They didn't get to stay out late like other kids. As they got older, they appreciated it
"After Paul's freshman year in college, he said, 'Mom, when I have kids I want to raise them like you raised us.' "
His family, Paul said, has been an "enormous" factor in his success. "I'm lucky enough to have two great parents and great brothers and sisters that have always been there for me and always supported me. For that I am extremely fortunate."
Paul is the middle of five children, with an older brother, Stan, an outfielder who plays in the Seattle Mariners farm system, and an older sister, Mary, who works as a pharmacist in Kansas City, Mo. A younger brother, David, is a standout football prospect who has completed his junior season at Hopewell High School, and a younger sister, Annie, attends Pitt.
Jackie credits Paul's team-first attitude in part to his place in the birth order.
"I think being No. 3 might have helped Paul. He knew you have to be part of a family," she said. "He never said he wished he was an only child like two oldest ones did.
"Paul has had a good work ethic since he was young. He actually has more drive, makes himself work harder than my husband or I would. He puts more stress on himself to do good. I think it's his type-A personality."
Posluszny's father was an athlete at a younger age.
"I played Little League, Pop Warner, all the sports kids played," he recalled of a childhood in Bayonne, N.J. "I played baseball and football in high school (Bayonne Marist) but gave up football when the other kids all got bigger than me. I saw the writing on the wall."
But the elder Paul, a mechanic for U.S. Airways, is quick to give credit for the athleticism of his offspring -- both daughters also played high school basketball -- to wife Jackie, a gym teacher who works at Our Lady of Fatima in Hopewell Township and Holy Trinity in Robinson Township.
"She grew up on a farm. She had to do all the chores," he said.
This elicits a laugh from Jackie.
"I don't think so," she said. "I didn't play any sports. I was too busy working on our farm (in Summit Township, Butler County). I came from a big family (one brother and five sisters). My parents were not about to haul us around to play sports."
Jackie had modest expectations when Paul went to Penn State.
"I didn't expect him to play until his junior year, and play a little more as a senior," she said. "I figured at least he was getting his education paid for.
"But in his sophomore year, it seemed like he was doing pretty good. I thought, OK, maybe he has chance of realizing his dreams of going to the pros. Before that, I didn't think there was any hope. I never thought it would really work out. It seems like so few guys get there. How was my little boy going to make it?"
Paul Posluszny awards travel itinerary:
Dec. 5: Travels to New York City for 9:30 a.m. press conference and National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame dinner that night at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Paul is a foundation scholar-athlete and a finalist for the Draddy Award, the so-called Academic Heisman.
Dec. 6: Travels to Houston for Rotary Lombardi Award activities and dinner. Paul is a finalist for the award.
Dec. 7: Travels to Orlando for the College Football Awards Show and Butkus Award reception. Paul won the Butkus Award last season and is a finalist for that and the Bednarik Award, which he also won in 2005, again this year.
Dec. 8: Participates in children's hospital visit and Butkus Award luncheon and returns to State College.
Posluszny also is a finalist for the Lott Trophy to be awarded Dec. 10 in California. He will not attend that because of a conflict with Penn State's football banquet.
Bednarik Award: Given to college football defensive player of the year
Butkus Award: Given to nation's top college linebacker
Draddy Award: Given to player who best combines outstanding athletic, academic and community achievements.
Lott Trophy: Given to college football's IMPACT (Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community and Tenacity) player of the year.
Rotary Lombardi Award: Given to nation's top college offensive or defensive lineman or linebacker
Sam Ross Jr. can be reached at sross@tribweb.com or (724) 838-5144.
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