By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — It was a time when West Virginia University’s weekly football interviews were in full swing.
Quarterback Jarrett Brown was front and center, a large crowd of cameras, tape recorders and scratchy, old-fashioned ball point pens chronicling his every word about the upcoming game with Marshall.
That’s when Jock Sanders walked out of an academic advisor’s office, latched hold of Mike Montero, the director of football communications, and said, “Let’s go.”
With that Sanders self-imposed silence came to an end.
After laying down the ground rules, that the diminutive slot back would talk only about the 2009 football season and nothing before it or leave, Sanders gave his first interviews since his two arrests for alcohol related incidents led to a six-month suspension during the off-season.
There were no great revelations, no baring of the soul, very little insight into the man.
But what did happen is the walls within which Sanders had been penned up came tumbling down.
He was completely back as a West Virginia football player, right down to answering some of the most inane questions put to any human being.
It goes with the job of college football hero.
Let us begin with some basics. Sanders was arrested on Feb. 10, his second arrest in a year’s time, and immediately suspended indefinitely by coach Bill Stewart. His locker was emptied and his future was very much up in the air.
He spent his off-season workout out religiously at Pro Performance. He was allowed back to the team on a limited basis for camp. Even the week before the Liberty game it wasn’t known if he was going to play, although all indications were that he would.
He had done all that had been asked of him by the legal system, by the school, by the team.
He had been contrite and genuinely sincere in his effort to turn a page on his life a year or two earlier than many college students who have similar problems turn the page, in part because of what was inside him, in part from the support he received from friends, family and coaches and teammates.
While Sanders was a key part of the West Virginia offense, having led the team in receptions the year before while scoring nine touchdowns, that was only a small consideration in his returning to the team. This had to do with a different set of values.
Opening day he found himself alone with his thoughts, dressed in West Virginia uniform, the stands full.
“It’s hard to say (how I felt),” he said. “Like any Mountaineer, I was excited. I was happy to be in front of 60,000 fans.”
But unlike any other Mountaineer, he had climbed a mountain taller than Law School Hill.
He had climbed a personal Mount Everest.
His return was a good one, setting a career high with eight receptions for 95 yards.
He would say that he never really thought he wouldn’t be back.
“Me and Coach Stew have a close bond,” he said. “I had my program. I just had to focus on working my way back.”
When he caught nine passes for 99 yards in the next game against East Carolina, you knew the football would be no problem. That was given.
Sanders had another objective in mind.
“It was getting the trust back from my teammates,” he said.
But being back and doing well wasn’t enough.
“You should never be satisfied,” he said. That’s why I want to take my game to the next level.”
As each game passed, Sanders played better.
He was catching passes, running well, and as important, had become a savage blocker, helping clear the way for his friend and teammate Noel Devine.
The third game was against Auburn and was WVU’s first loss, but Sanders had a third straight career-high game with 12 catches for 115 yards and a touchdown.
Now opponents were looking for him and Colorado held him down but he broke loose again against Syracuse with nine more catches for 67 yards and a rushing touchdown.
And, of course, there was that punt return where just when he seemed to break loose and was in the open “the turf monster,” as Stewart dubbed it, tripped him up in the open field just as it looked like he was breaking loose for a long TD return.
“I saw a lot of green grass,” he explained. “I don’t know what happened, but you don’t see that much grass at this level.”
Sanders return has been so successful that he ranks fifth in the nation in passes caught per game at 8.2 while ranking 48th in the country in total yards with 394.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
