Growing Up
September 22, 2004 04:24 PM | General
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| Lehnortt |
There was a time when everything bothered No. 10. He looked up in the stands at Mountaineer Field and worried about letting people down. He worried about making mistakes. Gosh, what would happen if No. 10 didn’t make a play?
Back then his team was pretty good. Then came a coaching change. Then his team wasn’t so great. Then No. 10 started making plays but it seemed like the older guys were getting all the credit. Then his team was good again. Then came the unthinkable: the death of his best friend, his father.
Suddenly, everything changed for No. 10, and it was like life started all over again. This time he had to grow up a lot quicker. He still makes mistakes, but he’ll admit to them. He is still making plays, but he’s now getting the credit. His team is perhaps better than it ever was. And he’s still very much a football player.
“This is who I am and this is what I do,” No. 10 says. But if there is one thing different about No. 10, he knows there are greater things in life than just being a football player.
Adam Lehnortt is a man.
In his senior year, Lehnortt has a perspective on life that goes well beyond his years. He is one of only seven active players who remains from former head coach Don Nehlen’s final season in 2000.
Lehnortt has been through a lot since. Though he’s become one of the top linebackers in the country, that doesn’t matter compared to the man he’s become.
“I like my route so far,” Lehnortt says. “I wouldn’t change it because it’s made me who I am. The good things and the bad things that I have experienced the last four years here have made me that way.”
But where is he in terms of being the player he wants to be?
“Man, I haven’t even scratched the surface,” Lehnortt says.
In that case you can expect a lot more plays out of Lehnortt this year. Last season, Lehnortt, a native of Oil City, Pa., helped lead a Mountaineer defense by posting 135 tackles, second only to consensus All-American linebacker Grant Wiley. Including his 10.7 tackles per game, which ranked 33rd in the nation, Lehnortt had five sacks and 13 tackles for loss.
“I was a full-time starter making plays out on the field with my teammates and having fun,” Lehnortt says.
That was the high point.
His low point came just a few months earlier. In April, 2003, his father died in a motorcycle accident.
“Anyone who knows me knows that was the low point of my life,” Lehnortt says. “He was my dad, but he was also my best friend.”
Through his sorrow came a new perspective in life.
“My dad gave me a new day to live,” Lehnortt says. “I look at stuff differently. My whole outlook on everything changed because you get to appreciate things a lot more. I appreciate my mom and my sisters. I appreciate just being able to come out here and play every day. When you have something like that hit you so hard it wakes you up.”
The lows aren’t as low for Lehnortt anymore. Despite shoulder surgery during spring drills and pre-season arthroscopic knee surgery, his moxie and experience are the reasons no one doubts Lehnortt will be out on the field making plays.
“Everybody’s life takes turns and sometimes it takes detours,” Lehnortt says. “You just have to take that in stride and keep moving on.”
Lehnortt was a member of Nehlen’s last team that went 7-5 and won the Music City Bowl. The next season the Mountaineers, under first-year head coach Rich Rodriguez, went 3-8 including a loss to Temple.
Lehnortt played marginally that year as a redshirt freshman with 31 tackles in eight games. Still a reserve in 2002, Lehnortt saw action in all 13 games with 26 tackles. He went on to be an integral part of WVU’s berths in bowl games that year and in 2003, which included a BIG EAST co-championship after a 1-4 start.
“I’ve been around,” Lehnortt says. “I know now that everybody loves you when you win. Then everybody’s going to say something about it when you don’t. I guess that’s the way it is with everything.”
No. 10 doesn’t worry about letting people down anymore. He doesn’t worry about making mistakes. He says things like, “If you want something bad enough you have to will it to happen,” when he talks about his future as a football player. He loves his life and there’s nothing he would change. That’s just who Adam Lehnortt is.
“The only person I worry about letting down is me,” Lehnortt says. “If these stands were packed with 70,000 people I would trade every one of them for my dad.” That won’t happen, even with his strongest will, but in his mind it certainly has.
Justin Zackal is a graduate assistant in the WVU sports communications office
