Splinters - life as a football freshman

Penn freshmen must make the adjustment to both tougher competition and a new style of life. Unlike the majority of freshmen who arrive at Penn in the first days of September, a select few arrive mid-summer to get a head start. They are faced with unnerving challenges beyond finding the bookstore and carpet for a 12-square-foot dorm room. They go from high school heroes to college zeros. They were studs just a year ago, and now they are forced to ride the pine. The freshmen of the Penn football team have little chance of playing, and even less chance of starting, but that's only part of a difficult transition they are forced to make. In the course of a couple of weeks, Penn's pigskin pups must familiarize themselves with a completely foreign football program, including new coaches, teammates and playbooks, not to mention the standard frantic facets of first-year college life. "When [non-football] freshmen come in and don't know anyone, our freshmen have had access to a hundred other kids," Penn football coach Al Bagnoli said. "They've gotten the advice from sophomores, juniors and seniors on courses, places to go, dining, so they've gotten a crash course to Penn in terms of all of those little things that turn out to be a major deal." Giving up the freedom of summer for the discipline of practices may be a rude awakening to college, but these young men already have a leg up when their classmates arrive. "We already have a unity amongst us," Matt Repsher, a linebacker from Mt. Laurel, N.J., said. "It makes it a lot easier. You already have a group of friends to hang out with. "All of the upperclassmen have been really helpful if you have a problem. There are a lot of them you look up to." "And if they don't have the answer, they can lead you in the right direction," D.L. Boulderick, a defensive back from Palm Harbor, Fla., added. Despite their common allegiances as teammates, when they strap on the pads, freshmen merely become tackling dummies for the starters, players who are not always bigger, stronger or faster, but always older. Therefore, as members of the practice squad, each newcomer must be versatile enough to learn the opponents' plays and execute them well enough to prepare the starters for the upcoming match-ups. To balance athletics with the rigors of academia is difficult for any student athlete, but it is especially hard for a freshman. The relatively easy senior year of high school is long gone. Professors show them no special treatment and they must work as hard for their "C" in Accounting 101 as the rest of the students. "Being a freshman with the classwork, it was really tough to handle," sophomore wide receiver Dominic McNeil said. "I had to adjust all year and I'm just starting to get used to it now." An even more daunting task for freshmen is switching positions. When freshmen arrive on campus for training camp, they are routinely forced into a completely foreign position, sometimes on the opposite side of the ball. Defensive backs in high school can routinely find themselves asked to play wide receiver at Penn. The learning process involved with a new position makes it virtually impossible for freshmen to see game-day action. "It's not impossible for a freshman to start," Bagnoli said. "But it is rare for a couple of different reasons. Some are physical. Some are football-related in terms of a whole different system. "But as much as anything else, there is a comfort level that many of the freshmen don't acquire because for most of them, it is the first time they are away from home, there is different terminology, different coaches. That can sometimes prohibit a kid from really playing up at a level that he's capable of playing." Last season, wide receiver David Rogers expected to see little playing time in his first season at Penn. However, after proving his capabilities early in the season, he fought his way into the regular lineup. Despite the occasional flashes of inexperience, Rogers played with enough regularity to finish with 17 receptions, good for third best on the team. "As a freshman, you are expected to mess up a few times," Rogers said. "As sophomores and upperclassmen, we can't. We've been through the program and the system." Now, as sophomores, Rogers and McNeil, with a solid year of experience under their belts, will be the starting wide-out tandem. However most freshmen are not lucky enough to make the impact Rogers and McNeil did. The most difficult adjustment each freshman is forced to cope with is the lack of playing time. Instead, they must show their best in practices to prove they are worthy of consideration of a starting role years down the road. "This is what I spent the last few months of my senior year preparing for," Boulderick said. "You're sitting there as a senior in high school, you're 'head honcho,' and you know that the next year, it's not going to mean a thing. Sooner or later, it hits you. Hopefully it hits you earlier and you are kind of adjusted." Better they figure it our before hard-nosed coaches like Defensive Coordinator Mike Toop help them to figure it out. "We went through the same thing in high school," Repsher said. "You start at the bottom and work your way up to the top, and the only way to do that is by busting your ass. That's what camp is about, and that's what being a freshman is about." Aside from a spot on the roster, these young men earned a slot in the Class of 2002 with their brains, so it should be no surprise that they have learned this early in their fledgling careers how to say and do the right things. "Most of the kids come in here with their eyes open," Bagnoli said. "They were all-league, all-conference, all-state, but usually on a I-AA level, your whole team is made up of all-area, all-league, all-state. But they also realize that at any good program, there is a natural learning curve, a maturation process and a patience level that you also need." By saying the right things and waiting their respective turns, they keep their coaches happy, as well as their teammates, with whom they are competing for playing time. "We all know that everyone who has come and can come here is capable of doing certain things," Boulderick, the Quakers' free safety of the future, said. "Everybody knows that everyone in here has talent. "You don't want to come in and intimidate as many people as you can and step on a bunch of heads." Good thinking, kid, because with the competitive nature of college football, it might be your head someday.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.