Super Steve
May 26, 2006 10:32 PM | General
May 26, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Grocery shopping and visits to the mall are still convenient for Steve Slaton, although it’s probably a good idea for the West Virginia University sophomore running back to start carrying a pen with him to sign autographs. Mountaineer fans can be pretty persistent when it comes to seeking out their favorite players.
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| Steve Slaton ran for a Sugar Bowl record 204 yards against Georgia.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“People don’t really notice me at the grocery stores because I’m just running in and out,” he says. “I think it’s a luxury that many people still don’t know who I am.”
Well, that’s going to change if it hasn’t already. ESPN’s Pat Forde was in town last spring to talk to Slaton, as were other national writers. Chuck Finder wrote a fine piece on Slaton for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last fall that revealed, among other things, that he had a difficult time hearing people until the first grade because the congestion in his ears was so bad.
During Slaton’s very first varsity football game as a freshman at Conwell-Egan High School in Levittown, Pa., he ran for a school-record 270 yards and scored five touchdowns. By his senior season he had done well enough to get a scholarship offer from Maryland but the Terps abruptly dropped him when they got commitments from two other running backs. Boston College and Wisconsin were interested in him only as a defensive back, but West Virginia kept right on recruiting him as a running back.
“There was no doubt in my mind that he was a running back,” said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez.
Even when the Mountaineers got a commitment from Parade All-American runner Jason Gwaltney, Slaton was unfazed.
“I don’t think all the hype makes a difference,” Slaton told Finder last fall. “We’re just performing now.”
College football has a way of sorting out the contenders from the pretenders. It’s like the old joke about the two hikers that stumble into a hungry bear in the woods. The one hiker says to the other, “I’m going to run for it.”
“You can’t out-run a bear!”
“I don’t have to: all I have to do is out-run you.”
It was clearly evident that Slaton wasn’t an ordinary freshman when the team began practicing in August. He may not have known the plays, but his natural speed and instincts made him stick out right away.
“The first day we saw him run we knew he had talent but he was just raw,” said strength and conditioning coach Mike Barwis. “Plus, he didn’t like getting beat by anybody: he was just so competitive.”
The chat-board junkies and bloggers were talking up Gwaltney because of all the great things they had read about him. Besides, the guy had five stars -- one more than Patton got for fighting the Germans. The chatters were predicting at least two Heismans for Gwaltney if he didn’t enter the draft after his sophomore year. It wasn’t fair to Slaton or to Gwaltney, who has since transferred to a junior college close to his home in Long Island, N.Y.
Amongst all that hype, the people in the know -- the ones that do this for a living -- were pointing to Slaton as the guy to keep an eye on. He fit Rodriguez’s offense perfectly. Little things like being the fastest player on the team, running through arm tackles, showing a willingness to work hard and being mature well past his years kept showing up in practice.
“You can sit and have a pretty mature conversation with him – you don’t have to deal with Nintendo football,” said defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich, who recruits Eastern Pennsylvania for the Mountaineers.
“There are elite athletes that are incredibly hard workers and there are elite athletes that have tremendous genetics -- and there are elite athletes that have both,” says Barwis. “Steve has both.”
The fans got their first real glimpse of Slaton’s athletic ability and speed when the Mountaineers played Virginia Tech. He was inserted into the game in the first quarter when Pernell Williams had problems holding onto the football, and Slaton’s first carry against the nationally ranked Hokies was nearly a disaster. With eyes as big as saucers, Slaton was looking at all those big guys in the white jerseys chasing after him instead of the football quarterback Adam Bednarik had just handed him. While Slaton’s legs were moving at light speed, the football was lying on the ground close to his own team’s goal line.
Slaton slammed on the brakes, went back to scoop up the ball, and figured the best thing he could do was to run in the opposite direction of the biggest guys. He wound up getting all the way back to the 20 yard line. On the stat sheet it read: Slaton four-yard gain.
Later, he got 44 yards on one third-quarter run in which he carried half the Virginia Tech secondary on his back for 10 extra yards. After rewinding Slaton’s run on their laptop computers for most of the next morning, the coaching staff figured it was time he learn the rest of the playbook on the fly. From that moment on he was West Virginia’s starting running back.
Slaton gained 139 yards and scored a touchdown in a 27-14 victory at Rutgers before breaking out in a big way against Louisville. He finished the game running 33 times for 188 yards and scoring five touchdowns in a triple-overtime thriller.
The Louisville game was not only the demarcation point in Slaton’s career, but it was also the demarcation point in West Virginia’s Sugar Bowl championship season. The Mountaineers cruised through the remainder of the regular season with both Slaton and quarterback Patrick White running virtually at will. When defenses tried to stop Slaton, White and emerging fullback Owen Schmitt had big games. For defenses it was like shoveling smoke or eating soup with a fork.
“We have three people in the backfield that you have to worry about,” Slaton said. “They can’t focus on one of us too much because someone else can hurt them.”
At some places there aren’t enough footballs to go around for their star players. But at the really good programs -- which West Virginia is rapidly becoming -- it doesn’t matter. It’s all about winning. Steve Slaton is all about winning. His closest friend on the team is White and they talk often about what they want to achieve during their careers at WVU.
“We have the same goals,” Slaton says. “We’re always around each other day-in and day-out. We have the same morals and the same upbringing and I think that’s why we click so well.”
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| Slaton and White have developed a close friendship and share common goals.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
It’s evident on the football field the way they play off each other. White ran for 220 yards and Slaton added 179 in the home finale against Pitt. When South Florida decided to take away Slaton, White had two long touchdown runs and finished the game with almost 200 yards rushing again.
Slaton ended the regular season still needing 76 yards against Georgia in the Nokia Sugar Bowl to reach 1,000 for the year. He got 204. Georgia defensive coordinator Willie Martinez was caught off guard by Slaton’s speed as was Bulldog safety Greg Blue, who during the week of the game described in pretty good detail what he was going to do to Slaton when he got his hands on him.
Blue had two good chances during the game to get his man and both times Slaton wound up with 52-yard touchdown runs. ABC announcer Bob Griese created and became president of the Steve Slaton Fan Club, “This kid can really run,” Griese kept saying over and over.
Slaton shrugs. It wasn’t that big a deal, although he admits he does watch the game when he goes home.
“My parents bought (the DVD of the game) and they watch it all the time,” Slaton said. “I have watched it with them a couple of times.”
Slaton's 204 yards broke former Pitt running back Tony Dorsett’s Sugar Bowl rushing record. One former college coach believes the similarities don’t stop there.
“He’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Dorsett,” he said. “He’s about as fast as Dorsett was and he’s actually a little bigger.”
Slaton’s main objective this summer is getting bigger. He was listed at 185 pounds last year but played closer to 175. Right now he weighs 195 and Barwis thinks he could easily carry 205 without losing a step.
“We’d like to get him right around there and hold him,” Barwis said.
Slaton’s Sugar Bowl performance has raised the bar dramatically. He’s now on all of the preseason lists. More feature stories are in the works. The bull’s-eye for opposing defenses this fall will be Steve Slaton’s jersey number 10.
Slaton realizes that.
“There is more pressure on me to keep performing and out-doing what I did last year,” he admitted. “And we’re looking forward to being better than we were last year."
If that happens, Slaton may want to bring a couple of pens when he goes out to the mall because he's likely to run out of ink.
