Patience finally pays off for Stephen Pitts

Stephen Pitts stood on the sidelines at Purdue's Ross-Ade Stadium two weeks ago, rocking from his right foot to his left, never sitting, never taking off his helmet, occasionally dipping into a deep crouch to stretch his legs. He would clench his fists and then release, expanding the black gloves that were pulled snugly over his hands.

He was ready to play. The pain of a nagging foot injury had left him three weeks before. There was now nothing holding him back from going on the field, taking a few hand-offs, gaining a few yards, turning a few heads that seemed to have forgotten him.

So he fidgeted about behind the offensive coaches, waiting for one of them to turn around and shout, "Hey, Pittsy, get in there!" But they wouldn't. They had not said that since the final minutes of the Rutgers game in the Meadowlands, when the Lions led by almost 20 and Pitts carried a whole two times for a whole two yards. Some homecoming for the Atlantic Highlands, N.J., native.

But the game with Purdue was a tight one. There would be no mop-up duty. So instead of running the ball, Pitts was left to offer the encouraging welcome of a shoulder-pad slap to senior Mike Archie and freshman Curtis Enis when they returned to the bench after getting the tailback opportunity Pitts so coveted.

He did get to step between the white lines 12 times in the game -- for six kickoff returns and six kickoff coverages. He played well when he was out there, making one tackle and returning one kick 25 yards.

But after the Lions beat the Boilermakers 26-23, Pitts would not gripe to the coaches that he's a running back, not a kick returner. His mother says he was a mischievous little kid, and whining is something he would have done back then. He had to be told that he couldn't go outside whenever he felt like it or have everything he wanted. He learned that lesson all those years ago, so he wasn't going to tell the coaches, "I'm healthy, I'm a senior, put me in the damn game."

Instead, he showed up at practice the following Monday with the same attitude he always has had. He sat up in front of the offensive meeting, just like he always does. He took notes, just like he always does. And he went on the practice field, as Lion offensive coordinator Fran Ganter put it, and hustled "his rear end off," just like he always does.

But for some reason, even though Pitts wasn't playing any differently in practice than he had the week before, he caught Coach Joe Paterno's eye.

"He's hot," Paterno said to Ganter about the fifth-year senior.

Paterno will say that about a player that grabs his attention in preparation for a game, whether it be a wide receiver, a running back, or Bobby Engram every week of the season.

Again the following day, "He's hot."

So Ganter told Pitts that the big guy had noticed how well he was running the ball, and to keep it up. He would, and it stuck in Paterno's mind when the team faced Iowa three days later in a game televised by ABC.

Pitts was out there on kickoff coverage when Brett Conway booted the ball to Iowa's Damon Gibson to start the game. Gibson took the ball at his own six, raced out to the 27, where he was met by the hot guy, who caused him to fumble, and the Lions recovered for a first down at the Iowa 33.

What Paterno saw in practice is what he would see on Saturday. First, in the forced fumble and a 42-yard kickoff return in the game's opening quarter. Then, with Pitts as the primary back in the Lion offense.

"Hey, Pittsy," Paterno shouted during the Lions first drive of the second quarter. Finally. The call Pitts had waited weeks to hear. "That's where it all began," Ganter said.

Pitts would enter the game at tailback, taking his first carry in four weeks and just his fourth since last Nov. 26. It was a four-yard gain. Nothing special. Two plays later, Pitts went 26 yards on a draw. Special. He picked up six more yards on another draw, accounting for 36 of the 81 yards in a touchdown march.

He would end the first half with six carries for 70 yards, and two kick returns for 55 yards. And he would end the game with a career-high 134 yards on 12 carries, and 150 yards on six kickoff returns. His 284 total yards are the third-highest single-game total ever posted by a Penn State running back. Pitts could not mask how pumped he was.

"I just really wanted to play," he said. "I was just really excited to play, as I always am, and good things happened."

Things good enough for Engram to say Pitts won the team the game and for Ganter to call what he did darn near amazing.

"To be that sharp without having played is surprising," Ganter said. "I mean, that's a career day."

And it was a day Pitts and his family have waited for.

Francis Euell, Pitts' legal guardian and father figure (Buffalo Bills Interim Coach Elijah Pitts is not Stephen's father, as ABC reported Saturday), often wanted to get on the phone and call State College. Call Ganter. Call Paterno. "Why not just put Stephen in for one entire game to see what he can do?" he would have asked them.

But Pitts always dissuaded him.

"I would always ask him if he wanted me to call," Francis said. "And he would always say no."

If Stephen was satisfied, then so was Francis. And somehow, Stephen has stayed satisfied.

He chose Penn State over Michigan, joining Archie and Ki-Jana Carter as one of the Lions' best incoming corps of running backs. But Pitts admits, "That had no bearing at all on my decision to come here."

He liked Penn State for its atmosphere, its academic standing, not only its football. He came here knowing he would have to claw for playing time.

Archie and Carter would always seem to win that fight for minutes -- heading into this season, the duo combined to start 20 games while Pitts started just two. But Pitts was not bitter, saying he has envisioned himself at another school for "all of about five seconds."

He stayed confident in his abilities, knowing that someday he would be a prime-time player on his team. And he would show just what a virtue patience is. He would hone his role as shoulder-pad patter, not as full-time tailback. Sure, he played. But not very much and not in many situations where the game hung in the balance.

But he never complained. Doing so, Pitts said, causes unnecessary strife.

"I've never been one to be part of the problem," Pitts said. "I want to be part of the solution."

When this season began, he was supposed to be part of the solution for replacing Carter, who had left for the NFL. He was expected to share the majority of the snaps at tailback with Archie, and get to finally showcase the talents he knew he had. But in the Lions' second scrimmage of the preseason, Pitts sustained a stress fracture in his foot and would again be forced to the back burner.

He doesn't even like to watch football, rather turning on an auto race than a football game. But that is what he had to do while his foot healed.

It eventually would, and Pitts said he finally felt ready to play again before the Wisconsin game. His folks were there to watch his return. It didn't happen. Francis left at halftime.

"I got real upset after he had put Enis in," Francis said. "(Paterno) had always told us he would put his fifth-year seniors in before his freshmen."

So Pitts would continue to wallow in sideline obscurity, losing some of it in West Lafayette, and all of it in Iowa, where in the press box a reporter who covers the Hawkeyes clamored: "Who the hell is Stephen Pitts?"

Four years built up and he finally let loose," Francis said of last Saturday's game.

Pitts has thought of letting loose in ways other than on the football field. He said he has often thought about throwing aside his well-tested patience and venting the pent-up frustration he had quelled for so long -- maybe by walking into a coach's office and demanding to play more or by unloading on his teammates.

Instead, he has relied on what he calls his "outlets." His family is as tight as those black gloves, so he has confided in them, and also in his girlfriend Marisa.

There was a time in the spring of 1993 when even his therapeutic family life couldn't help him. Everything -- and football in particular -- had gotten to him. He secluded himself from everybody else, letting his relationships and even his grades suffer.

But that is the one and only time he gave in to his football disappointments. He has always realized other, much more important things overshadow football.

Things like the degree in broadcast/cable he will earn in May and the invaluable education he has received. And the 44-11 record the Lions have compiled since he arrived at Penn State in his redshirt season of 1991. And the group of friends he has made here and will take to his grave.

And while his stats have not left much of a mark, his personality will.

"You would hope that everybody has enough courage, confidence in themselves and enough persistence in whatever job it may be," Paterno said, "that they're not going to get discouraged the first time they get set back or the second time they get set back or the third time.

"I think it's just a great example for all of us no matter what we're in . . . It certainly has been to me because we preach it all the time. To see someone live it is exciting. He is a great young man."