MORGANTOWN —
Stedman Bailey isn’t as well known as Geno Smith, but like his former high school teammate he expects to play football for West Virginia University this fall.
As all Mountaineer fans should know, Smith is the new starting quarterback for WVU. Bailey happens to be a wide receiver who’s battling for playing time, if not a starting spot.
He’s a 5-foot-10, 195-pound redshirt freshman who was learning while sitting out last year.
“I’ve learned a lot since coming here, and I’ve improved in the spring and then in fall camp,” Bailey said. “I was able to learn more about the game and able to read coverages by defenses.
“It helped me just knowing everything about a receiver up here and getting better doing what I’m supposed to do. I worked hard over the summer, too, and hope I have a shot at starting.”
Lonnie Galloway, who coaches the wide receivers, said of Bailey:
“Stedman has done an outstanding job during camp and is making plays. He has worked hard and made himself a better player each and every day.
“He is figuring out the speed of the game, doing a good job on running the correct routes and working hard on his blocking.”
Bailey, smaller than the taller WRs, doesn’t have any difficulty catching passes. He has a vertical leap of about 38 inches.
Smith and Bailey worked together for two years at Miramar High School in Miami , Fla. Ivan McCartney, a true freshman, came from the same school. He’s also a wide receiver and was coached by former WVU standout Damon Cogdell.
Bailey, who transferred to Miramar after one year at Main-Coral City, Fla., High, caught 68 passes for 1,163 yards and 14 touchdowns as a senior. He had 48 for 1,028 yards — an average of 21.5 per catch — in his junior season. He scored 11 times that year.
“Coach Cogdell is a great guy and he taught me a lot,” Bailey said. “He told us about West Virginia and that he liked it up here.”
Bailey earned numerous honors on great teams at Miramar High. He made the Florida 6A All-State first team as a senior and the second team as a junior.
“Yes, I’ve learned to adapt here,” said Bailey, a member of the Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll. “Life for me has slowed down. Having Geno and McCartney here helps.
“Being with those guys, I have been tight with them for so long it just helps me to relax and be myself. I get into a comfort zone with them.”
He believes the Mountaineers have really good chemistry, thanks to working so hard and so good this summer as well as in the two-week fall camp.
“Taking more reps (with the season’s opener just six days away), I was able to see more in preparing for the first game.” Bailey said.
It is on Saturday against Costal Carolina at home.
Bailey, who has 4.4-seconds speed for 40 yards, was on numerous Top 100 lists of prospects nationally in 2008.
Besides Class 6A All-State, he was a Miramar High School team captain as a senior.
He also made the All-Broward County teams selected by several newspapers.
WVU Sports
Bailey battling for starting spot at WR
- WVU Sports
-
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - God bless America
Perhaps the most welcome innovation in major league baseball in recent memory has been the introduction of a seventh-inning rendition of “God Bless America” while honoring an active member of the U.S. military.
-
Orlando, Pastilong highlight ’12 WVU Hall of Famers
Retired athletic director Ed Pastilong and safety Bo Orlando of the 1988 football team that played Notre Dame for the national championship lead a class of seven into the West Virginia University Sports Hall of Fame.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Patrone finally gets his due
Lee Patrone says he remembers it vividly, even though more than 50 years have passed, and while it was the greatest accomplishment in his life it has nothing to do with the West Virginia University basketball career that has lifted him into the Class of 2012 that will be inducted into the Mountaineer Sports Hall of Fame in September.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: No doubt WVU made out well
There was a cold, ill wind blowing in from the north on Friday.
It was the kind of wind that blows whenever a Pitt man opens his mouth, as the Pittsburgh athletic director Steve Pederson did. -
Tears and memories: VIDEO
It was mid-Thursday afternoon at the Morgantown Event Center and the crowd stood mostly silently in line that wound out of the Events Hall and into the hallway toward the staircase.
A young lady was there holding a singular golden rose
“I wish,” Rebecca Durst said, “it could be gold and blue.” -
HERTZEL COLUMN: Stew fondly remembered by players
The tributes have poured in all week for Bill Stewart, the former West Virginia University football coach whose sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack at age 59 on Monday stunned the state, but it wasn’t the administrators or executives or politicians who really knew him.
-
Friends, fans mourn loss of Stewart
Condolences streamed in from as far as Texas and Massachusetts as fans and friends gathered Thursday in Morgantown to pay tribute to former West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart.
Stewart died Monday of an apparent heart attack at age 59 while on a golf outing with former athletic director Ed Pastilong. -
HERTZEL COLUMN: White right there with Hall of Famers
Back on New Year’s Eve, 2008, shortly after West Virginia University had edged North Carolina, 31-30, to win the Meineke Car Care Bowl, an attempt was made to put Mountaineer quarterback Patrick White into his proper historical perspective.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Pat Beilein follows in father’s path
In a day filled with the sorrow of former West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart’s sudden and unexpected death, there was a ray of sunshine that managed to slip through, a happening that shows us all that even in death there is life and as one son grieves, as does Stewart’s son, Blaine, somewhere else a father basks in pride over his son.
-
Bill Stewart services scheduled
Visitation and funeral arrangements for former West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart have been announced.
There will be public viewing from 2-9 p.m. Thursday, at the Morgantown Event Center, 2 Waterfront Place. - More WVU Sports Headlines
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - God bless America
