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Wiley 1 of 7 Going Into WVU Hall of Fame
September 08, 2016 04:17 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It’s been 13 years since Grant Wiley last chased down quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers while wearing a West Virginia University football uniform, and although he won’t have on his familiar No. 6, he will be inside Milan Puskar Stadium once again this Saturday when the Mountaineers take on Youngstown State.
This time, however, it’s to be recognized as one of seven athletic immortals being officially inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame.
Wiley, a Trappe, Pennsylvania, native who now lives and works in New York City, became West Virginia’s ninth consensus All-American in 2003 after leading the country in forced fumbles with seven and ranking third nationally with an average of nearly 13 tackles per game.
He is the school’s all-time leader in career tackles (492), solo tackles (288) and tackles for loss (47½) while also registering eight interceptions, 17 pass breakups, nine forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries in what was clearly one of the most productive careers in school history.
Wiley said he’s spent the entire summer recalling since-forgotten moments from his playing days ever since he first got the call from WVU Director of Athletics Shane Lyons that he was chosen to be part of the Class of 2016.
“It’s been, what, 13 years since I last played?” Wiley said from his New York City office last week. “Because of this event, the whole summer I’ve been running things through my mind that I haven’t thought about in years.”
According to Wiley, one memory that immediately jumps out was the first time West Virginia University contacted him during his junior year of high school.
“When I was being recruited, I was getting letters from everywhere and I was getting calls from Florida, Michigan State, Georgia Tech and other schools around the country and then I started getting West Virginia stuff consistently every week,” he said. “I was getting letter after letter and I hadn’t talked to any of the coaches at all.”
Then, former WVU assistant coach Bill Kirelawich showed up at his high school one spring morning to give Grant his first real slice of West Virginia.
And what an introduction it was!
Kirlav made such an impression on Wiley that he chose to go in a much different direction than the rest of the top players in his area whose No. 1 goal was to play at Penn State.
“I was scheduled to go to Penn State’s camp that summer because in my area, Penn State is so huge. It’s like the area dream,” Wiley said. “I didn’t specifically care about Penn State, but I was going to their camp to see where I stood against their other recruits and see what they had going on and then West Virginia offered me that spring and I immediately took the money I was going to spend on Penn State’s camp and put it into West Virginia’s camp.”
So, naturally Wiley showed up in Morgantown for West Virginia’s camp wearing, of all things, a Maryland ball cap.
“I liked the way the hat fit on my head - it wasn’t even about Maryland because I was always wearing hats, but Maryland was a huge West Virginia rival and I didn’t even realize it,” Wiley chuckled.
It took Mountaineer coach Don Nehlen less than a millisecond to ask Wiley to come up with a much better-looking lid to wear if he planned on sticking around West Virginia for the next four years of his life.
“My mother has a picture of me framed with Coach Nehlen shaking my hand with my letter of intent next to the picture, and in the picture I have that Maryland hat turned around backwards so I think that’s kind of funny,” Wiley said. “Kids these days show up at their press conferences wearing a certain hat to try and evoke a reaction when they take it off and put on the hat of the school that they are actually going to go to, but the hat I was wearing that day was because I was just so naïve and wasn’t even thinking about it.”
Wiley’s signature moment at WVU happened in Blacksburg, Virginia, on Wednesday, November 20, 2002, when the Mountaineers upset 13th-ranked Virginia Tech 21-18.
The tense affair came down to a goal-line stand late in the game when Wiley was able to stop Virginia Tech’s Lee Suggs just inches from crossing the goal line.
“The whole game was back and forth and Lee Suggs was the most prolific scoring running back in the country at that time, and I believe he scored earlier in the game,” Wiley recalled. “It was interesting because on fourth down everything went quiet - at least in my head. I remember looking at Dirty (linebacker James Davis) and I said, ‘Dirty, I’m going to make this play and we’re going to stop them.’ He just looked at me and said, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’”
They did, and Mountaineer football had the first significant victory of the Rich Rodriguez era.
It was the first time West Virginia had defeated a nationally ranked team in four years, and it was the first win over a ranked team on the road in nine years dating back to WVU’s 17-14 victory at 11th-ranked Boston College to conclude the 1993 regular season.
Wiley believes that night in Blacksburg was the moment Rodriguez’s football program turned the corner for good.
“For the whole program, we were at such a transition with the new coaching staff, not beating a ranked team in so long, and being at Virginia Tech, which is a very tough place to play and win and our biggest rival at the time … just to beat them down there and to hear all of the commotion that was going on in Morgantown … you never forget stuff like that.”
Surely those and many other memories will bubble over when Wiley is back in Morgantown this weekend to celebrate his great Mountaineer career with friends and family.
Grant said he can still distinctly remember a conversation he once had with his father when he was struggling to make up his mind which college to attend.
Linebacker Grant Wiley earned consensus All-America honors in 2003. Here he is pictured putting pressure on Maryland's quarterback in 2001. All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo.
“My dad said to me, ‘Listen it’s your choice. Your mother and I are going to help you. We are going to ask you questions and help you pick the place you want to go, but keep in mind you could get injured and never be able to play again. So you better make sure you pick a place that you can be happy with from a social standpoint,’’ Wiley said.
That stuck with him from the moment he took his first step on West Virginia’s beautiful campus and continues to the present whenever he returns.
“I love celebatory culture and when I went down to West Virginia I had such a great time,” Wiley said.
Today, 13 years later, Grant is humbled beyond belief to be recognized at a place that carries so much meaning to him - his No. 1 football school, his alma mater and his adopted state - West Virginia.
“The hall of fame was not in my realm of thinking until someone brought it to my attention,” he said, “but it’s really satisfying to be able to enjoy this at this point in my life.”
A still very young life, by the way, with many chapters waiting to be written.
The general public is invited to attend this year’s WVU Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony taking place inside the Caperton Indoor Practice Facility at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning. Admission is free.
In addition to Wiley, this year’s class includes longtime WVU football player, coach and administrator Donnie Young, basketball standouts Don Vincent and Damian Owens, cross country and track All-American Charity Wachera, tennis All-American Joby Foley and rifle national champion David Johnson.
This year’s class brings the total number of inductees to 169.
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