Digging Deep

Digging Deep

By: Maddy Hill

 

    Pat Devlin, standing at six foot four, weighing two hundred and twenty-two pounds, and born on April 12, 1988 (age twenty), has transferred from PSU (Penn State University) to U.D. (University of Delaware). Luckily, I got some information from Pat first-handed (meaning that I interviewed him).

    Pat Devlin Downing Town East High School just about forty-five minute ride from here, which makes Pat happy to be so close to home. Just because Pat is known for football being his biggest hobby, but that doesn’t mean he has other hobbies. Depending on what season it is, he likes to hunt and fish. Every football player has a dream of someday making it to the N.F.L. (National Football League). Devlin says the ultimate goal would just be to make it to the N.F.L., and not everyone makes it.

    As a kid, Pat had three simple steps: go to school, do his homework, and go outside and play sports.  He would always go outside and either play basketball, baseball, or football. As he got older, he dropped baseball and continued high school with basketball and football until his senior year. Things worked out great for football so he stuck with that. Not only did Pat play quarterback for his high school team, but he also played a bit of safety too. Safety was fun for Pat because being the quarterback; people are always trying to hit him, so it felt good to be the other side of the coin and hit people as opposed to being the one hit.

    A lot of big athletes get nervous before a big game, so people need a little help to get calmed down. So Pat learned a couple of techniques, like meditations to calm him down and controlling you’re breathing. You should always try to use the technique before a big game if you are nervous or really tense.

    Just coming down from Penn State to U.D. in January, Pat has been getting to know the guys on the team better by going to one of the basketball games down at the Bob Carpenter Center, and some of the guys had fun and danced at half time. Not only did Pat need to get to know the guys on the team, but he needed to find a place to stay. For Pat, it was tough for him to find a house down here, but the coaches were great and helped him find a house. Again, socialization with the guys came in to play, because Pat was rooming with some of the guys who were on the team last year and are graduating this year. One of his biggest parts coming down here to U.D. was to try and get to know the guys on the team and hang out with them as much as possible.

    In each career, male or female, he or she has one major obstacle to overcome in their career. For Pat, his biggest obstacle was just the Penn State, but it came out for the best and he’s happy where he’s at now. Another obstacle for Pat would to make it to the N.F.L., but not everyone makes it, so you should always have a “Plan B” or a back up plan, just in case things don’t work out, so Pat needs to look in to other careers. Being finance major, he would love to go into banking or financial management if football doesn’t work out.

    In Pat’s college football career, he has had two coaches, Coach Keeler (University of Delaware’s Head Coach of Football) and Coach Paterno (Penn State University’s Head Coach of Football). Pat said he has recently talked to Coach Keeler a lot, and think he’s a really great guy, but when he think it comes to comparing both coaches, he says “I think both coaches want what’s best for their players.” Pat is also very thankful that Coach Keeler took him in and gave him a second chance.

    At Penn State being a Division One team, they did not have play-offs; instead, they had bowls (no, not the kind you put cereal in) such as the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, etc., but down here at U.D., we have the play-offs. Pat said he is definitely excited for the play-off system versus the bowl system because for bowls, you have to wait around for a while (like you get a month off then you play one game), but in the play-offs, there’s more excitement and it just follows the regular season immediately.

    If you are a recruit, it means you transferred from a different college to another college to get more playing time in a sport, just like Pat and others down here at U.D. But
Pat has noticed that some of the other recruits have more experience here on the field than him and he thinks that you wont see as many things down here as you see in Division One, but as far as experience goes, there are more guys down here that have more experience than me, but just against some of the guys such as Joe King, I think that gives him more of a heads up. So far, Pat can’t tell between the Division One recruits. A lot of the guys who got recruited from One A, but they just didn’t get scholarships for whatever reason. Back when Pat was up at Penn State, his team had some great wide receivers, but he can’t gage it of that, he has to gage it off everyone else. He couldn’t see a step down as for athleticism, but we got some short guys, some tall, guys, and all kinds of stuff down here at U.D.

    Academically, Pat is considered a junior, but on the field, he’s considered a sophomore, which means he has two more years of playing time on the field. With the schedule already out for the Blue Hen’s 2009 season, the game Pat is looking forward to the most is the West Chester game because a few of the guys who were on his high school team plays for West Chester.

    Athletes have the “shining” or “golden” moment in their careers. Pat’s moment was when he was a senior in high school and his team was in a play-off game against a team, which the odds were, they were going to lose. The night was just beautiful and they scored with ten seconds left in the fourth quarter and won the game. Pat said there was nothing better than to go out in front of your community and play, but there’s a lot more people who come to see the college games and it’s such a rush.

    Athletes strive to do their very best and to make it to the top. If Pat could give advice to a high school football player who wants to play football in college he would say “Work as hard as you can. My dad always told me there is someone out there always working harder than you. There will always be someone always bigger, faster, and stronger and you got to work up to that level. You work harder in high school, but when you get to college it’s another step up.”

    Every quarterback will always have one hit in their career that they will always remember. When Penn State played Ohio State, Pat got some playing time because Penn State’s starting quarterback got hurt. On one play, they ran the Quarterback Sneak (QB Sneak) and what your supposed to do is you step back and get low and then the linemen are supposed to make and opening for you to run through. Well, Pat took the snap, stepped back and got low and then he stood up a bit because he thought he was clear and then one of Ohio State’s linemen came and hit him right in the chin.

    Penn State went undefeated the whole season until the Iowa State game came. Pat described the day being a terrible, cold, and windy Iowa day. Iowa was a good team but not a great one, nut something went wrong in every play, and things just didn’t click that day, so we came out with a loss. It was disappointing because you go the whole season undefeated and then you face a team that’s good, but not great and then you lose when everyone expects you to win.

    On January 1, 2009 in Pasadena, California, Penn State traveled there to compete in the Rose Bowl against USC (University of Southern California) Trojans. Pat went to Coach Paterno and said that he was going to look at different schools, but Paterno said okay, but I don’t think it’s the best thing for you to do, but you do what you think is best. Pat and his team had a meeting with Coach Paterno about going to Pasadena, but Pat didn’t ask to go, but in the meeting Coach Paterno said you deserve to go, but he didn’t say I think you should go. Pat gave him Paterno a call saying what did he think about Pasadena and Coach Paterno replied give me two days to think about it. So Pat gave Paterno a call two days later thinking that he would have made up his mind, but Paterno said “I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to go to Pasadena, I think it would just be a distraction.” But Pat thought coming to U.D. would be great because it would give him a second chance to get more playing time on the field.

    Even though Pat is from the Philadelphia area, he’s a Pittsburgh, Steelers fan (booooooooo!!!). His mom was from the Pittsburgh area and always watched the Steelers so he just picked up on it and became a Steelers fan. A lot of people have iPod’s or MP3 players. On Pat’s current play list, he likes to listen to Pearl Jam and a little bit of the older stuff. If Pat could ever run his own play, it would probably be a pass play, defiantly something deep. Studying does not come natural to Pat. He has to work really tough and he had good high school academics. Pats a really picky eater, so he’s doesn’t eat anything like pizza. A lot of athletes have nicknames. So far, Pat says he does not have a nickname because he says he hasn’t been down here long enough to get a nickname. Probably the most common trait people first see in Pat is his athleticism, but besides that, people usually notice that he’s very calm and reserved. Most little boys have a dream of someday becoming a superhero. Pat didn’t watch too much TV when he was younger, but when he got older he was in to multiple sports and stuff. So if Pat could be a superhero, he said, “I’d be Batman you know, because he has all that money, and he goes out around Gotham and saves people.” Liking to watch movies, Pat would say one of his favorite movies would be “The Dark Knight” following the Batman scheme. Like most people, Pat has siblings. He has an older sister who just graduated from Penn State and now is in a Master’s program up there, and a younger sister who is still in high school at Downing Town. One of U.D.’s former quarterbacks, Joe Flacco, (now currently playing for the Baltimore Ravens in the N.F.L.) had the same exact problem as Pat. Joe was also a recruit and came down to U.D. hoping to get more playing time. Well, Pat got a chance to meet Flacco at U.D.’s Pro Day and Pat said he was a really great guy. Every person has a role model to look up to. Pat’s quarterback role models are Tom Brady (New England, Patriots), Peyton Manning (Indianapolis, Colts), and Ben Rothlisberger (Pittsburgh, Steelers). If Pat could go anywhere in the world he would go to Ireland because he’s Irish, and he would love to go and see the scenery. Pat is not absolutely one hundred percent sure, but he thinks his jersey number for U.D. will be number seventeen. Pat was never really big on numbers. When he was little, he started out on the number “ten” and then one season got the number “seven” and stuck with that for a bit. One year, his dad was coaching his Pee-Wee All-Star game and he wanted a specific number, but his dad said you get what you get, and Pat ended up being a quarterback with the number “seventy-five.” Since then, Pat never really cared which number he got. If Pat could throw a football to any wide receiver in the N.F.L., he would choose Larry Fitzgearld because what he did in the play-offs was just amazing. And last but not least, if Pat could learn from any N.F.L. quarterback he would choose either Peyton Manning or Brett Farve (New York Jets) because they have been around I the leagues for so long.