Double Duty
January 15, 2008 06:58 PM | General
January 15, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Scott MacDonald can offer an unique perspective on what football player Jarrett Brown is attempting to do by joining the Mountaineer basketball team this semester. MacDonald was the last West Virginia University athlete to play football and basketball 33 years ago in 1975. Wayne Yearwood also attempted to do both in 1987 but was never credited with any official stats as a wide receiver.
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| Scott MacDonald lettered three seasons in basketball and lettered one year in football in 1975.
WVU Sports Communications photo |
“I was one of those people that came in when I was a freshman and the NCAA still had the rule where freshmen were ineligible,” MacDonald said via telephone from his home in Batavia, Ill. “When I became a sophomore the NCAA changed the rule that made freshmen eligible and what that did was it gave me a fifth year of eligibility in some sport other than my scholarship sport which was basketball.”
Once upon a time, two and three-sport performers in college athletics were as common as the spread offense is today. But with the game becoming more complicated in the 1960s and 1970s it made multiple-sport participation nearly impossible.
That doesn’t mean that some have not tried it. Syracuse quarterback Donovan McNabb also went out for the Syracuse basketball team and played two seasons. He appeared in 18 games scoring 41 points and grabbing 20 rebounds.
Necessity required Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin to recruit Bearcat tight end Connor Barwin to fill out his roster last year.
Pitt punter Nate Cochran was asked to do the same thing back in the early 1990s when the Panthers encountered depth problems. According to Pitt historian Sam Sciullo, the last known Panther athlete to play football and basketball was quarterback Robert Haygood, who gave up football for good to play hoops after a knee injury ended his season in 1976.
MacDonald admits it was much easier going from one sport to another when he played in the 1970s because there was not a mandatory year-round training program. During the summers he simply went back home to help with the family business.
“The guy who is doing it now you’ve got to give him all the more credit because football is a year-round thing now,” MacDonald said. “The guys have to be there in the summer and everything. It’s hard to take time away from your sport.”
Once his basketball eligibility had expired, MacDonald was recruited to play football by WVU offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, who knew MacDonald had played football in high school and liked his size and the way he moved around on the basketball court.
“After my last year of basketball, which was very frustrating because I had a stress fracture of my fibula, (Cignetti) did approach me and asked me if I would consider going out for football. I said, well, I need a fifth year of school to graduate,” MacDonald recalled.
“I don’t know how they fly now but we flew so many commercial flights back then and sometimes we would miss three days of school for one road game,” MacDonald said. “After four years I hadn’t graduated so when he approached me I said yes if I could get a scholarship for a fifth year.”
Of course the caveat was that MacDonald had to come out for spring football practice and make the team as either a tight end or a wide receiver.
“I hadn’t had a football uniform on since my senior year of high school,” MacDonald recalled. “It was quite a learning experience.”
MacDonald got a rude awakening when he first walked into the weight room and saw guys like Tree Adams and Dave Van Halanger pushing up close to 400 pounds on the bench press.
“I come in there and I’m thinking I’m pretty strong,” MacDonald laughed. “I had never lifted before. I didn’t know the correct technique and I was lucky to get 150 pounds up. So I didn’t go there very often. Those guys were there every day. The coaches didn’t insist that you go so I was mostly down on the field catching passes and staying in shape by riding my bike.”
MacDonald also recalls having to prove himself to the football team, just as the football players had to prove to the basketball players that they could play when they tried out for the freshmen basketball team.
“Tons of football players would go out and try to make the freshman basketball team as a walk-on,” MacDonald said. “Only one player made it my freshman year and that was (fullback) Ron Lee. He ended up quitting if I remember correctly. These guys were three-sport stars in high school and thought they could play and they learned that it was a little different.”
MacDonald said he got some of the same medicine when he first began practicing with the football team. MacDonald remembers an introduction linebacker Steve Dunlap gave him once during skeleton drills.
“It was a non-contact drill and I was going down the middle, (Dan) Kendra threw it up high and I went and got it and Dunlap hit me. Oh did he crack me hard,” MacDonald recalled. “He just sort of smiled after it was over giving me this look like, how did you like that basketball player?”
The irony now, of course, is that MacDonald is better known today for his touchdown catch to beat North Carolina State in the 1975 Peach Bowl than for being a three-year basketball performer who appeared in 72 games and scored 419 career points.
“I attended every home game while I was there playing basketball and watched those guys out there and I knew they were big but I thought to myself that I could play the game,” MacDonald admitted. “I was in the unique position that I got to prove it to myself.”
MacDonald also has some advice for Brown, who is making his hardwood debut this week with games coming up against St. John’s and South Florida.
“(Basketball) is a lot different conditioning,” MacDonald said. “You think you’re in shape and then you go to the basketball court and it is stop-and-go running. It’s really a lot different type of conditioning.”
