Slaton in a great big hurry
As kickoff nears and Steve Slaton straps on his helmet, the curtains are drawn, the spotlight shines brighter, and the spectators crane their necks to watch him.
Not exactly. But it's a feeling that grips the flashy West Virginia running back from Conwell-Egan High because football to him is about more than competing and winning. It is also about entertaining.
"I think college football is about putting on a show and I enjoy trying to put on a show," Steve Slaton said. "And if you're always putting on a show, it means you're getting better, and that's what I'm always trying to do."
Perhaps no player in college football is more worthy of the price of admission than the 5-foot-10, 190-pound Steve Slaton, who may be the fastest and most exciting player in the country. With his stunning ability to reverse field and be at optimum speed in two strides, he can turn a 5-yard gain into a highlight clip, a no-gainer into a long sprint to the end zone.
Yet, there is more substance than style to Steve Slaton's game, which is why the junior is the 11th consensus all-American in school history and why he finished No. 4 in last season's Heisman Trophy balloting.
In 2006, he averaged 7.03 yards a carry, the most ever by a Big East Conference running back with a minimum of 100 carries in a season. He became the first Mountaineer to surpass 200 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving in the same game, and set a single-season school record with 1,744 yards.
Steve Slaton is a master at dramatic timing. Maryland reneged on a scholarship offer after he committed, so Steve Slaton's payback was 149 rushing yards with TDs of 38 and 37 yards against the Terrapins. In the first quarter.
As a freshman in the Sugar Bowl, he legitimized WVU's claim as one of the country's top teams by torching Georgia for 204 yards and three TDs in a 38-35 win. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese proclaimed the win the most significant in conference history because it gave credibility to his revamped league.
And in his first start as a freshman, Steve Slaton burned Rutgers for 139 yards and 35 receiving. That performance forced Mountaineers coach Rich Rodriguez to wonder why he waited until the fifth game of the season to put Steve Slaton in the starting lineup.
"Shows you how smart I am," said Rodriguez, whose team starts the season ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press media poll.
Rodriguez was smart enough to woo Steve Slaton as zealously as he did, and he was rewarded after Maryland snubbed him.
"By watching his film, he was a no-brainer to us," said Rodriguez, who has the country's top running tandem with Steve Slaton and quarterback Patrick White. "All you have to do is watch him for 30 seconds, and you know this guy can go. Then you find out how competitive he is, how quickly he can learn, and Steve learned quickly. He's a very competitive guy, and I think that accelerated his process.
"He's the fastest guy I've ever coached," Rodriguez added. "And Pat's the second fastest, which is a pretty good thing. They make a bad play good and a good play really good."
Steve Slaton said he first realized how fast he was when he beat his half-brother, Charles Tiggett, in a foot race on the street near his Levittown home. Steve Slaton was in sixth grade; Charles is six years older.
"He wasn't necessarily happy, but he knew the throne had been handed over," Steve Slaton said with a smile. "I knew then I had some talent."
At Conwell-Egan, he debuted as a ninth grader with a 290-yard performance. Despite his remarkable career there - he ran for more than 6,000 yards and scored 73 TDs as a four-year starter - Steve Slaton wasn't regarded as a blue-chip prospect by the recruiting gurus.
He said he grew up a Penn State fan. "But they wanted me to play defense, like a lot of colleges," he said. "I had to prove to everybody that I could play running back. A lot of schools thought I was too small. I guess they didn't believe in Catholic League football."
Steve Slaton has certainly proved his toughness. He played his first two seasons with a painful right wrist injury that made him carry the ball in his left hand. No one noticed until he had two costly second-half fumbles in last season's 44-34 loss to Louisville. It turned out his good arm had gone numb because of a hit he took on his funny bone.
"The biggest difficulty was just keeping the ball in one hand and not being able to switch it when defenders closed in on me," he said. "It was frustrating."
Steve Slaton had surgery to correct the problem and stayed away from contact during spring drills. He's hoping for his first pain-free season and a run at the Heisman Trophy, although he may be at a disadvantage because teammate White could also receive votes. In 1994, Penn State quarterback Kerry Collins and running back Ki-Jana Carter damaged each other's chances for the Heisman by splitting votes. (Colorado's Rashaan Salaam won the trophy; Carter was second.)
"I'm taking it in stride," Steve Slaton said of the Heisman hype. "I'm trying to be the best. It's for the best player in college football and that's what I work for every day, to be the best. But it doesn't matter who wins it as long as we win the national championship."
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