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Young gun Super-poised freshman Vick makes difference for Hokies
Posted: Wednesday December 29, 1999 02:05 PM
By Paul Crane, CNN/SI BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Only two freshmen have ever quarterbacked teams to a national championship: Jamelle Holliway at Oklahoma in 1985 and Bernie Kosar at Miami in 1983. Michael Vick gets the chance to add his name to that list, and the Virginia Tech quarterback has quickly proven he is one special player. "He has got that poise; he's got that confidence," Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer says. "You get the idea that everything is under control here, and that is what you want out of your leader, and he's got it." Michael Vick is the first freshman quarterback at Virginia Tech to be the focal point of the team's offense since Don Strock in 1971. Vick took over a unit that had finished next-to-last in total offense in the Big East a year ago and led the Hokies to the top of the conference this year, ninth in the nation. All with the kind of calm rarely found in a 19-year-old. "The way Mike has been has been just amazing," safety Nick Sorensen says. "You can't even understand how good this guy has been, and how poised he is. It is just amazing." A product of Warwick High School in Newport News, Va., Vick played his football for coach Tommy Reamon, who knew early on he had something special. A former professional player, Reamon played a special role in Vick's development both on and off the field. "Coach Reamon helped mold me a lot," Vick says. "He took me under his wing and took me from a boy to a man. I was with him for four years, from freshman to senior, and he taught me a lot." Reamon was also instrumental in making sure Vick was redshirted last season, getting Beamer to promise in the recruiting process that Vick would not play his first year. Vick traveled with the team, dressed for games, practiced and did everything but play in 1998, and the promise became tougher to keep after Virginia Tech's top two quarterbacks got hurt in. Says Reamon: "To the people that questioned whether or not they brought him up when they had kids injured, 'why didn't they bring him up?' To me that is a credit to Coach Beamer's word." "It was just great," Vick says of his redshirt year. "I learned so much over the course of last year, and without that redshirt season, if I went out there and tried to play as a true freshman I think it would have hurt me a lot." Vick's long time high school rival was Hampton's Ronald Curry, who went to North Carolina and struggled while playing as a true freshman. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech's patience with Vick has paid off for everyone, and nowhere did it show more than this year's game at West Virginia. Trailing 20-19 with no timeouts and 1:15 left to play, Vick led the Hokies from their own 15-yard line before delivering what could be college football's play of the year: making something out of nothing for a 26-yard, third-down run that set up the game-winning field goal. "He turned right down that sideline and it was almost a blur," Beamer says. "I don't think I have ever seen anyone go by me, and I've seen a lot of guys go by me on the football field, but go by me as fast as Michael Vick went that time. It was the play that made our season, without question." "Sometimes we come to film on Monday mornings and I look at a play over and over and say, 'Hey, how did I do that?'" Vick adds. "Things out there just happen sort of natural for me. I just go out there and let things happen. Not try to make big plays, just let big plays happen." Vick is as humble as he is talented. He was the first freshman, redshirt or otherwise, to be invited to New York in the 18 years the Downtown Athletic Club has been bringing the top vote-getters to the Heisman Trophy ceremony. But Vick remains focused on the national championship game, saying if Virginia Tech should win, he'd like to go back to Warwick High and share the trophy with students there. "I have always been a leader-type person," he says. "I have always wanted to be the one that had people follow me, you know, set an example for kids or for anyone, it doesn't matter. As long as I am touching somebody else's heart." Beat Florida State and Vick could touch the entire state of Virginia.
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