40!|!REAL INSIGHT. REAL FANS. REAL CONVERSATIONS.!09/26/2011

By Steve Greenberg

Sight beyond what I seeYou know what’s best for mePrepare my mind, prepare my heartFor whatever comes, I’m gonna be ready

he words, from a gospel song by Yolanda Adams, speak deeply to

Russell Wilson. He believes in their message as fervently as he does in his parents; in the older brother and uncles

who advise him and the kid sister who awes him; in the power of prayer; in his reasons for playing baseball; in his

present, which includes the pursuits of a master’s degree and a Big Ten football championship; and in his future, which in 2012 will bring both a wedding and a job as an NFL quarterback … or whatever else comes.

He’ll be ready. Like he was as an 18-year-old redshirt at N.C. State, when he embarked on a mission to graduate in three years, made the ACC Academic Honor Roll and became the first freshman quarterback ever to be named first-team All-ACC. Like he was—76 touchdown passes later—as a 22-year-old grad student when Wolfpack coach

Tom O’Brien told him he was free to complete his studies but if he missed spring practice again for baseball, his quarterbacking services would no longer be needed. Like he was for his Wisconsin debut on September 1, when he completed his first pass attempt for 23 yards and his second for a touchdown and took his first carry a career-long 46 yards for another score.

And like he was weeks before that at his first practice—in his first huddle—as a Badger. For many years now, the soul of Wisconsin football has been its offensive line, and this year’s starting five were feeling the part. “Ornery and pissed off,” says left guard Ryan Groy. They were pumped, loud, loaded for contact and making sure the defense knew it. So what did Wilson do? He walked into their lair and told them to shut up. “It wasn’t great,” Groy says. “It was kind of shocking, to be honest.”

They hardly knew the guy. But that day and in practices to come, as Wilson implored them to hurry up, stay on point, be ready, it became abundantly clear whose huddle—whose team—it was. It wouldn’t have taken any time at all if they’d known him back when.

Ben Wilson is full of stories about his nephew. The time Russell’s brother, Harry, threw him out

at home plate outside Harrison and Tammy Wilson’s house in Richmond, Va., setting off feats of preternatural determination and Wiffle Ball skill from a 5-year-old.

The time a 10-year-old ballboy threw a long bullet pass to a ref during one of Harry’s games at Collegiate High School and nearly knocked the man over, wowing all who saw it, including Russell’s future coach. Also Russell’s first varsity start, his sophomore season vs. Collegiate’s biggest rival, when a long touchdown scramble was called back for holding and the quarterback just clapped his hands and ran it in on the next play.

“He’s oblivious to the calls,” says Ben Wilson, a successful Washington, D.C., attorney and a Harvard Law graduate in a family of academic achievers, “to the unfairness that might shake somebody else. He just moves on.”

In a similar vein—but with a sadness only his faith and family could mitigate—that’s what Russell did after Harrison Wilson III, a lawyer, a former football and baseball star at Dartmouth, and a diabetic, died at 55 last June, one day after his son was drafted in the fourth round by the Colorado Rockies. Russell decided to continue as a two-sport athlete, even if it would hasten the end of his time in Raleigh . And even if returning to football later would require him to pay back much of his $250,000 signing bonus.

Wilson, who’d already forgone spring

After three years as N.C. State’s starter, quarterback Russell Wilson wound up in Madison with one shot to get Wisconsin a Big Ten title, and maybe more. He’s approaching the test like he has all the others in his life: He’s prepared for the journey.

readymade

WILS

ON: M

ORRY

GASH

/ AP

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42 | REAL INSIGHT. REAL FANS. REAL CONVERSATIONS. 09/26/2011

WILS

ON: T

ONY F

ARLO

W; J

ONES

: SUE

OGRO

CKI /

AP

Russell Wilson is a very productive college quarterback, but he doesn’t belong among the top prospects for the 2012 NFL draft. Same goes for Boise State star Kellen Moore .

Wilson is an explosive athlete who can make big plays with his arm and feet, but he is listed at 5-11 and needs polish on footwork and mechanics. He is a likely fourth- or fifth-rounder.

Moore has won a lot of games, but he was measured under 6 feet this spring and lacks top arm strength . He’ll be drafted around the same time as Wilson.

SN draft expert Russ Lande, a former NFL scout, evaluated his top five college quarterbacks.

football in 2010 to play on the Wolfpack baseball team, spent 32 games as a second baseman in Pasco, Wash., with the short-season Tri-City Dust Devils. He returned to Raleigh, worked off the rust and led N.C. State to a 9-4 season and a bowl victory. This spring, he chose baseball again and reported to the Class A Asheville (N.C.) Tourists, for whom he would hit .228 and strike out 82 times in 193 at-bats. “It was a learning experience, for sure,” Wilson says, “but I’m not going to say I’m done with baseball. I definitely want to play in the NFL, but the baseball door is still open.”

Yet he’s back to football. Because he’d graduated with a communications degree from N.C. State, he was able to transfer to another school without having to sit out a year—as long as he chose a master’s program not offered by his former school. And because he’s his father’s son—Harrison, a wide receiver, made it to the final preseason game with the San Diego Chargers in 1980 only after he’d completed law school at Virginia—he won’t give up on any dream until he has to. (Brother Harry, five years older, played football and baseball at Richmond.) For the paternal grandson of a Norfolk State president and an Old Dominion professor—and a role model to sister Anna, a 14-year-old point guard who’s on college coaches’ radars—that includes completing his master’s program in educational leadership.

“The fact my family has done such great things in their lives, from education to sports to influencing people, I want to be like that,” Wilson says. “I have so many family members who are role models.

“My dad was always there for us,

making us better, hitting us grounders at 6 in the morning. I’d throw the football, he’d catch it. I’d watch from my bedroom window as my dad and sister would just go after it: bounce passes, layups, reverse layups, every day. My sister fell in love with basketball that way. She’s a good one, as

strong as it gets. She’s amazing. We’ve cried together, talked, just hugged. Sometimes I wish I was there every day with her so I could throw her those bounce passes.”

But he’s in Madison now. And, not coincidentally, the Badgers are looking very good.

Maybe it was the eyeballing of its offensive linemen that sold Wilson on Wisconsin. On

Wilson’s lone visit to campus, a 24-hour blitz in June, Badgers coach Bret Bielema gathered his top eight blockers in a room with the 5-11 quarterback, who hadn’t exactly played behind an iron curtain in Raleigh. “They are kind of overwhelming,” Bielema says. “They’re all big, good-looking guys, not fat and sloppy. And they’re great kids.” It was 364 days after the passing of his father, who surely would’ve wanted Russell to be well-protected.

It could have been his lunch with Bielema and his soon-to-be co-captain, safety Aaron Henry, an hour later at the Big Ten Pub down the street from Camp Randall Stadium. Henry told Wilson of the weekly Bible study sessions he leads; they’d started in his bedroom, attended by four or five teammates, and now were bringing dozens of Badgers to the football program’s academic center. Henry and Wilson instantly connected. One night during camp, Henry led the group to a cemetery, stood before the tombstones and asked them, “How are you going to be remembered? By what it says here or by the lasting impression you make on the people in your life?” He and Wilson now locker next to each other.

The night he arrived in Madison for his visit, Wilson was met at the airport by Bielema and the coach’s fianc ee. Behind the wheel of his white Camaro, the coach drove his prized recruit the long way into town, down John Nolen Drive and into a glorious view of the state capitol along Lake Monona. “It was absolutely beautiful,” Wilson says. “I was

Russell Wilson is a very productive college quart erback, but he doesn’t belong among the t op prospects for the 2012 NFL draft. Same goes for Boise Stat e star Kellen Moore .

Wilson is an explosive athlet e who can make big plays with his arm and feet, but he is list ed at 5-11 and needs polish on footwork and mechanics. He is a likely fourth- or fifth-rounder.

Moore has won a lot of games, but he was measured under 6 feet this spring and lacks t op arm strength . He’ll be draft ed around the same time as Wilson.

SN draft expert Russ Lande, a former NFL scout, e valuat ed his t op five college quart erbacks.

Measuring College Football’s QBs

LandryJones

Wilson’s football numbers look a lot

better than the ones he put up in Asheville

this summer, but he says he isn’t finished

with baseball.

1. ANDREW LUCK,

STANFORD. If Luck improves as much this year as he did in 2010, he will be the best quarterback prospect to enter the NFL in 25 -plus years. He separates himself from other quarterbacks with his football smarts . Projection: No. 1 overall pick

2.!LANDRY JONES,

OKLAHOMA. He flashes the ability to make great throws, but his accuracy is not nearly as consistent as it needs to be. Projection: second round

3.!KIRK COUSINS,

MICHIGAN STATE. He needs to work on footwork and consistency, but everything is there for him to be a good starting quarterback in the NFL. Projection: second round

4.!BRANDON WEED EN,

OKLAHOMA STATE. It doesn’t hurt to have Justin Blackmon as a target. Weed en, who will turn 28 in October, is smooth and fluid and maintains good body positioning when throwing . He has the arm strength to make every NFL throw . Projection: third round

5.!MATT BARKLEY,

USC. He received a ton of hype after starting as a true freshman but isn’t an elite NFL prospect. He looks small on film and doesn’t have a cannon for an arm. He is much more of a Jimmy Clausen-type prospect than a Mark Sanchez type.Projection: third round

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Even forgoing a fourth year as the starter at N.C. State, Wilson is all over the Wolfpack record books: His 8,545 career passing yards rank third in school history, and his 76 touchdown passes and 682 completions are second.

WILS

ON: G

ERRY

BROO

ME /

AP; G

LENN

ON: E

THAN

HYM

AN / A

P

09/26/2011!SPORTINGNEWS.COM | 43

Multiple recruiting services had 6-6, 194-pound Mike Glennon rated as the No. 3 quarterback in the nation when N.C. State coach Tom O’Brien signed him in 2008. Three seasons later, the first spent as a redshirt, Glennon had added an inch of height, 40 pounds and zero starts to his resume. Some short dude named Russell Wilson kept getting in his way.

“As a whole it was tough,” Glennon says, “because the competitor in me, the competitor in all backup quarterbacks, wants to be out there helping the team win games.”

Put yourself in Glennon’s shoes for a moment. With Wilson absent from spring practices in 2010 so he could focus on baseball, Glennon, the nominal starter, dominated the spring game, throwing for 432 yards and three touchdowns. Basking in the afterglow, he told his family that if Wilson didn’t come back, he’d be ready to take the reins. “And if he does come back, I’m ready to compete.” When Wilson came back for two-a-days and stepped into the huddle with the 1s, can’t you imagine how Glennon must have felt?

But he is the man now, at last.“Right now I have two years to do

everything I wanted to do,” he says, “plenty of time to win a championship and prepare myself for the next level.”

About that next level: O’Brien believes Glennon is an NFL quarterback. Not just a guy on the sideline in a baseball cap, either. “I had four quarterbacks at Boston College play in the league,” O’Brien said in late July. “That’s an assessment of looking at his talent compared to their talent.”

One of those quarterbacks, Atlanta Falcons starter Matt Ryan, is the player with whom Glennon feels he has the most in common. And where do you suppose he got that idea?

Glennon knows it’s too early to have any sort of solid read on his future. But: “I can put the ball where I want to,” he says. And: “I want to be great.”

Those are good starts. — Steve Greenberg

really shocked. I’d always pictured Madison being not a very nice place, really cold all the time, more of a rural area. It’s not like that at all.” This helped sell him, too, as did his X’s-and-O’s session with offensive coordinator Paul Chryst; his viewing, with the team’s offensive skill players, of last season’s prime-time win over Ohio State at Camp Randall; and his time with host Nick Toon, the Badgers’ best receiver and another fast friend.

It likewise impressed him that, in the ensuing weeks, Bielema avidly followed Wilson’s box scores with the Tourists, texting atta-boys after good games and encouraging messages after bad ones. Wilson was considering only two schools for football: Wisconsin and Auburn. Wisconsin and the defending national champion, which had a certain Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall NFL draft pick to replace. Bielema surprised Wilson—and himself—one night when he told him: “Russell, if you don’t play football at Wisconsin, play at Auburn. You need to play football. You’re too good a player.”

“I might’ve blown it right there,” Bielema says. “I kind of held my breath, but I meant it.”

In the end, what made Wilson sign on the dotted line nearly three weeks after his visit was—along with input from his brother, his uncles, his mother and his fiancee, Ashton, and much prayer—his determination that the wisest path to the NFL went through Madison, not Auburn.

The best coach in the history of the program, current athletic director Barry Alvarez, had managed to get in Wilson’s ear, too. “You’ll have the chance to play right away,” Alvarez told him. “Someplace that will fit your style, where you’ll get exposure, where you’ll play an NFL brand of football. If you go to Auburn, all the pressure will come right back at you because the last one-and-done they had won them a national championship. Here you’ll have a line like you’ve never played behind before. We’re going to run the football like you’ve never seen. It’s a pro-style attack—it’s not just going to be you.”

Alvarez credits Bielema primarily, but it was a team effort, a program effort. “Just the way we do things around here,” Bielema says.

Annabelle Myers understood Wilson better than most people at N.C. State. As the athletic department’s head of media

relations, she heard local writers complain that Wilson was a dull interview. “They loved him because of the person he is,” she says, “but can you

N.C. State Had a Backup Plan All Along

get him to say something besides, ‘It’s all about the team,’ and, ‘We’re just going to work hard’? ” Myers, too, sometimes wished he’d be more of an entertainer, but she knew those weren’t cliches to him. “He believes those things with all his heart.” She had his back and became a dear friend.

Wilson texted the words “I’m Gonna Be Ready” to Myers during fall camp and said, “You’ve got to go find this. It’s my song for this year.” After his man-among-boys performance in the season opener vs. UNLV, she hit him with a congratulations. Her phone chimed almost instantly: “You know what song I was listening to before the game, don’t you?”

A few weeks before then, Wilson had addressed his team in a meeting and shown them a side that Henry describes in two words: “Heart. Wisdom.” He’d told them about his journey, about his priorities—about his father. He’d said: “My dad told me there’s a king in every crowd. There’s always somebody watching. In my faith, the king might be the Lord. It might be a parent or a loved one who’s watching over you. If a scout is here or a kid is watching and wants to be a football player, it might be you.”

“I always want to play the hardest I can, the best I can,” Wilson says. “I’m really dedicated to my plan. When I set a plan, I’m always going to go for it.”

That plan, right now: to win a Big Ten championship and make it to the NFL … or whatever else comes.

Meantime, there’s a king in the huddle at Wisconsin. There’s no mistaking that.

Strength to pass any testI feel like I’m so blessedWith you in control, I can’t go wrong’Cause I always know, I’m gonna be ready

Mike Glennon

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