The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football (67 page)

At the same time, he recognized what was at stake. “There is not many people that I grew up around that actually make it to a four-year university,” Marsh said. “To say that I got a scholarship to a four-year university makes my mom really happy.”

On the eve of National Signing Day, Marsh talked to his mother about the big decision. “If you have games in Utah, sometimes I can travel out there,” she told him. “In Washington, I wouldn’t be able to go because I’d have to fly. And I’ve never been on an airplane in my life.”

That sealed it. Marsh called Whittingham. “I’m coming to Utah,” he told him.

The moment Alphonso Marsh and Brandon Beaver graduated from high school, they got ready to leave for college. “The colleges like to get these guys on campus as soon as possible,” Donerson said. “That gives them a head start on college classes, and it gets them out of Compton right away. There is nothing here for them but trouble.”

On June 19, Marsh and Beaver got together to say good-bye. They posed for pictures. And they talked about the fact that Utah and Washington were scheduled to play each other in 2012. Then they made a pact.

“Ball out,” Beaver said. “We’re gonna do our thing.”

“We’re not on the same team no more,” Marsh said. “It’s going to be different.”

“But we’re gonna make it to where we want to make it,” Beaver said.

“We’re always on the same team,” Marsh said. “No matter what.”

“No matter what.”

Saying good-bye to his mother was even harder.

Rachal faced her son. “Keep your grades up,” she told him. “And stay out of trouble.”

“Okay, Mom,” he said.

“Be careful,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mom,” he said.

They embraced. “I’m very happy,” she whispered. “Very happy. Very happy.”

Then they both cried. It was the first time since he was a toddler that Marsh had shed a tear.

As he walked off, Rachal melted. “My baby is leaving home,” she thought. “He’s all grown up.”

The drive to Utah took two days. Marsh traveled with his friend Delshawn McClellon. Along the way, Marsh thought about turning back. The “stranger in a strange land” second thoughts were something Whittingham had seen many times before. “The reality hits a recruit in the face when it is time to tell your mom good-bye,” Whittingham said. “A recruit is starting a new life at that point.”

Marsh did what many high school seniors do in his situation: kept his mind on his dream of reaching the NFL. To get there, he had to go through college football. They arrived in Salt Lake City on June 21, a hot summer day. An assistant coach took them to the apartment they’d be sharing for the summer. It was clean, spacious and empty. One cupboard had packages of the all-American college staple—Top Ramen noodles—inside. The refrigerator had some energy drinks.

The coach left them to unpack, a process that took Marsh all of five minutes. He had brought one duffel bag containing his clothing. Other than that, he had a cell phone in one pocket and $200 cash in another pocket. That was it.

A couple days later he sprawled out on some perfectly manicured grass beneath a cluster of leafy trees. The sky was blue. The air was warm. The campus was quiet. “It’s so nice here,” he said. “It’s so different. It’s joyful. I can walk around without looking over my shoulder.”

Whittingham wasn’t surprised. “We get that same story from a lot of
kids that have grown up in some rough places,” he said. “Being up here is a breath of fresh air. It’s a chance to be at ease.”

That same week, Marsh enrolled in summer classes—College Prep and Writing 110. He worked out with his new teammates every day—mainly weight lifting. The food was great; he ate with the team four times a day. Everything was clicking.

Then his appendix burst. Suddenly he couldn’t participate in workouts. Alone, he started thinking about home. Then he got word that one of his best friends had been gunned down. That marked the fifth friend he had lost to gun violence in Compton. He went to a tattoo shop in Salt Lake City and got
COMPTON
tattooed on his forearm.

Early in the 2012 season, the situation at home prompted Marsh to head back to Compton. He left without telling his coaches. When he returned, Whittingham sat him down. “Alphonso,” he told him, “that’s not how it works here. You don’t just arbitrarily decide you are going home for
x
amount of days and not tell anybody.”

On October 12, Utah traveled to Los Angeles to play UCLA. This time Marsh got permission to leave the team and deal with some personal matters. By that point he was contemplating withdrawing from Utah. Keith Donerson made a point to talk with Marsh that weekend.

“There is nothing here for you if you come back home,” he told Marsh. “At least there you have a place to stay. You have meals. And you are getting an education.”

Utah lost to UCLA 21–14 that weekend. When the team flew back to Salt Lake City, Marsh remained behind in Compton.

The following week Utah released him from his scholarship. “We just mutually agreed that he would go home and take care of things,” Whittingham said. “I firmly believe if he hadn’t had the appendicitis, he probably could have gotten through it all. When everyone else was doing two-a-days, he wasn’t involved. He had a lot of time to think and get homesick.”

Marsh ended up enrolling at West Los Angeles College. But after one game he was in a car accident and separated his shoulder. No more football.

Then, in late December, Marsh was shot multiple times. One bullet lodged in his abdomen. He ended up spending Christmas in the hospital.

“Hit twice but one still inside,” he tweeted on January 7, 2013. “Doctor tomorrow for X-rays then last bullet out of my body.”

Two months later his mother passed away. More than ever, Marsh thought long and hard about his life and now fervently wished to return to Utah. The odds were low, but he did reach out to Whittingham. There was a hope he might come back—a small one—but a hope nonetheless.

S
tudents shuffled between class buildings as sunlight blanketed the cottonwood trees at the center of BYU’s campus. It was a little after 11:00 on August 29, 2012, the day before BYU’s season opener at home against Washington State. Kyle Van Noy was standing in the quad, facing a female photographer from a national magazine. A backpack strapped over his shoulders and earbuds around his neck, he had on a white Cougars T-shirt, black cargo shorts and a pair of white-and-blue Nikes.

“Do you want me to smile?” he said.

“If you are feeling happy, smile,” the photographer told him.

A grin swept his face.

Click. Click. Click.

Van Noy had plenty of reasons to smile. He was on the preseason watch list for the Lombardi Award, which recognizes the top lineman or linebacker in the nation. Mel Kiper’s Big Board had him listed as the No. 2 junior linebacker in the country behind Georgia’s Jarvis Jones. Agents were burning up his cell phone, positioning themselves, telling him he’d go in the early rounds if he declared for the NFL draft at the end of the season. The latest thing was a flurry of text messages from friends, saying they saw him on the new giant billboards BYU had put up along the I-15 corridor from Salt Lake City to Orem.

It was surreal. Three years after arriving in Provo on probation, he had literally become the face of the university in its new marketing campaign:
Y TRADITION: FOUR DECADES OF WINNING
.

Van Noy’s on-field success was the result of his new off-the-field routine. Up at 7:00 every morning and in bed by 11:15 every night, he filled his days with classes and tutoring sessions, team meetings, practices and countless hours of weight training. He even met regularly with a BYU dance instructor to optimize his lateral movement and flexibility.

His schedule left him no time for parties, girlfriends or anything else that might distract him from his goal—playing on Sundays.

“Back in the day I used to be focused on girls and all these distractions that got me in trouble,” Van Noy said. “Now I’m just focused on football. It only lasts for a little part of life. I’m trying to take full advantage of it.”

That meant remaining in Provo year-round. “Guys that make plays are here summers, working out as a team,” he said. “These are unofficial but official workouts. I only see my parents a couple times a year. I would get to go home more if I was in the NFL.”

In the previous calendar year, Van Noy spent just four days in Reno, over an abbreviated Christmas break. During that visit he caught up with his old high school friends one evening. When it got late, Van Noy said he was heading home to go to bed.

“The party is just starting,” said one of his friends.

“Not for me. I have to get up early and start my day.”

“Who
are
you?” said the friend.

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” another said.

Van Noy smiled. “You guys have no idea what I do now.”

That was the last time he saw them.

His new best friend was a Provo police officer, Cody Harris, a married man with three small children. Van Noy met Harris playing pickup basketball. Something clicked. As a result, when Van Noy needed a place to hang out, he went to Harris’s home to have dinner, watch television and play with the kids. They thought Van Noy was their adopted big brother.

The photo session was wrapping up. “Just a few more shots,” the photographer said.

Students had begun congregating. “Kyle, good luck tomorrow night,” one of them said.

He nodded and smiled.

“Go get ’em, Kyle,” another said. “We’re with ya.”

Then he headed for a meeting. It was time to turn his sights to Washington State. “I’m looking forward to playing against Mike Leach’s offense,” he said to a reporter. “They throw the ball a lot. But I think we’ll shut them down.”

The front page of
USA Today
’s sports section featured a big picture of Mike Leach above a bold headline:
THE NEW SHERIFF
. The story reported that since Leach’s hire all luxury suites at the new stadium in Pullman had been sold and season ticket sales and donations to WSU athletics were at all-time
highs. Expectations were big as Leach boarded the team bus outside the Provo Marriott and a police escort led the way on the five-minute ride to LaVell Edwards Stadium. ESPN had rescheduled the game to its prime-time slot on Thursday night.