A road less traveled

Compared to most Penn State football players, Wedderburn's path to State College was atypical.

He was born in Jamaica, where he spent most of his childhood. Later, the Wedderburns migrated to Quebec before arriving in the Philadelphia area in 1988.

Before long, some football players from Wedderburn's high school began telling their coach about a huge Jamaican kid. Naturally, Upper Darby coach Jack Shingle wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

"I just expected to find some great big fat kid," Shingle recalled.

However, when the kids brought Wedderburn to his office, Shingle looked up in awe at the giant filling his doorway.

"I just looked at him and thought, 'There is a God, he lives in Upper Darby, and he's an Upper Darby fan,' " Shingle said.

Wedderburn joined the team the summer before his freshman year. Although he had never played football and was not very familiar with the sport, he managed to start for the varsity team that season.

That was just the beginning for Wedderburn. Before the end of his high school career, he would be named to almost everyone's high school All-America team, win Gatorade's Pennsylvania Player of the Year award and receive the Maxwell Award for the best player in the Philadelphia area. He was also a basketball player who averaged 20 points per game.

"Remember the mouse that roared? Well this is the goddamned elephant that roared," Shingle laughed.

Seen and not heard

Wedderburn was never an outspoken person and when the Jamaican native came to America he wasn't very fluent in English either. This made him even quieter.

"When Floyd first came here, he was very quiet," Shingle recalled. "He put his brain into gear before his mouth. And he evaluates people like that."

In sports, aggressiveness is often equated with being vocal. Many critics believed the soft-spoken Wedderburn was just a big softy who lacked a killer instinct.

While Shingle admits Wedderburn would let a ball carrier run out of bounds rather than tattoo him, he does recall a time when an opposing player made the mistake of doubting his fire. Shingle said during one game, a quarterback called Wedderburn, "a name he shouldn't have."

When watching the game film the next day, the Upper Darby coaches witnessed the transformation of a quarterback into a flying projectile, courtesy of Wedderburn.

"You can't find the goddamned quarterback (on the screen)," Shingle said. "That happened a few times during his high school career, where people would write checks their behinds couldn't cash. And Floyd cashed them."

What that quarterback, and the rest of those critics don't understand is that Wedderburn is one of those athletes who is a different person on the field than he is off it.

"He's a big softy . . . off the field," teammate Aaron Harris laughed.

A human development and family studies major, Wedderburn hopes to work with children one day. Last spring, he worked with kindergarten-aged children before working with troubled teenagers last summer. Wedderburn said he likes the rewarding feeling of helping and being a positive influence on children.

"I like kids and I want to try to help them out," Wedderburn said. "If I can I want to open up a daycare center -- maybe be a social worker."

The image of a 335-pound lineman working with little kids creates yet another contrast. Working with little kids isn't usually the work of huge athletes in a rough sport like football.

"When I work with the kids they say, 'How are you a football player? They're supposed to be mean,' " Wedderburn said.

"I'm two different people."

A tougher field of play

While Wedderburn met and conquered nearly every challenge he faced as an athlete at Upper Darby, he still had others to overcome.

The biggest criticism about Wedderburn coming out of high school was his brains. Due to a Jamaican school system that lacked some of the standards accepted in the United States, Wedderburn entered high school less educated than most other students his age.

He worked hard in the classroom to catch up. However, he fell a bit short. Wedderburn failed to meet academic requirements and was forced to sit out his freshman year at Penn State as a Proposition 48 player.

Wedderburn wasn't deaf to the criticism. He said scruples of his athletic ability didn't bother him, but those of his academic ability did because he felt people had no right to judge him.

"People doubted me both physically and academically," he said. "The physical part didn't bother me much, but the academic part did. People don't really know me that well."

Like other challenges in his life, Wedderburn kept fighting to win. He quickly got himself eligible, and was cleared to play his sophomore season. In December he will do what many thought he never would -- graduate.

"I think he knows that he has made it and he's made the grade and he's going to graduate," Shingle said. "He's sticking his chest out a little bit. I want him to stick it out damn far."

Another stumbling block

After becoming eligible for the 1995 season, Wedderburn was projected as a starter on the defensive line. However, fate had other plans.

During the first week of preseason camp, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. While the injury forced him to take a medical redshirt year, its aftershocks lingered much longer.

Wedderburn's massive size made rehabilitating the knee much more difficult than normal. In 1996, he returned as a substitute on the defensive line. His former speed gone, he looked like a shadow of his former self.

And, of course, the criticism continued.

Wedderburn said the injury created a frustrating time of his life. He wasn't playing much, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Even now, he still wonders how his Penn State career might have unfolded if it wasn't for the injury.

"I don't know what it would have been like if I wouldn't have had the knee injury," Wedderburn said. "But I went through it and I'm a better person now."

Wanting to protect the knee, the Penn State coaching staff decided to move Wedderburn to the offensive line last season. Not only had he played the position in high school, but he wouldn't have to protect his knee from people trying to chop block him.

Wedderburn had no objections to the move.

"I needed a new start," he said. "I needed something new and I felt I could do it."

And do it he has. Wedderburn has finally begun to silence the critics, slowly developing as an offensive lineman last season. He played in every game but Purdue, starting in four of the last five.

This season Wedderburn will be a full-time starter and a leader on the line. He said he's gained more confidence and has worked to improve his pass blocking.

"He's superb," Harris said. "He was on the defensive side of the ball, and he had his little injury and it kind of changed his game. He's one of the best blockers in the Big Ten, if not the nation. He can pass block, he can run block. You name it."

While Wedderburn admits the knee still gets sore periodically, he said he can finally play like his old self. In fact, he feels as if he's improved beyond that point.

"I might be a little bit better than I was before," he said confidently.