The snake was only about six feet long.

"I just picked him up out of the jungle and brought him home," Michael Haynes said.

This was in Panama, years ago. Haynes, now a Penn State defensive end on pace to break the NCAA single-season sack record, played his first three years of high school ball there.

During those days, he'd often show up at practice only to find out it had been cancelled.

"The coaches just bagged it," he said. "No good reason or anything."

So one day, instead of practicing football, he stumbled upon a gigantic snake while skipping through the perilous jungles of Panama.

"At the time, I wasn't scared of it," the animal sciences major said. "Now I am, but I wasn't back then."

Haynes called the snake, "a big random snake" and said that bringing it home was "definitely one of the dumbest things I've done."

Ah, yes, hindsight is, in fact, 20-20.

Haynes received the ultimate punishment for the act: a run with his mother.

That seems tame if you're talking about a soap-opera watching, bon-bon eating housewife.

But Catherine Haynes was serving in the Army in Panama. And she woke up at 5 a.m. to run. And she ran for miles and miles.

"My legs would be all tired," Haynes said. "You'd be sitting in class later that day, and all you could think was 'Man, that sucked.' "

But Haynes continued to earn running time with Mom. He and his older brother Curtis were only a year apart in school, and they'd often have class together. That almost always led to a call home from the teacher and an early run.

Haynes wasn't going to get his name out playing football in what he called "basically a rec league" in Panama, so he moved to Northern Burlington Regional H.S. in New Jersey.

While there, he was primarily a fullback, the position he played on the foreign team during his redshirt year at Penn State.

Then, Penn State coach Joe Paterno saw something.

"It was really Joe who mentioned it first," Haynes said. "Then I sat and talked with [defensive line] coach [Larry] Johnson, and we decided to try."

Haynes was an immediate success backing up Courtney Brown, and many predicted that Haynes would continue the lineage of dominant defensive ends after Brown left as the top pick in the NFL draft.

Haynes continued to develop in 2000, making six sacks in mostly a reserve role.

But last year, something changed.

"There were a lot of personal questions for me," he said, opting not to elaborate.

He was inconsistent in the first four games and didn't start against Northwestern. He recorded two fewer sacks than he did the year before.

So, really, the off-season call to Paterno's office should not have come as a surprise. But it did.

"The initial meeting, I wasn't sure what to take from it," Haynes said.

"Then I was able to talk to coach Johnson, and he calmed me down a bit and explained to me what I had to do."

That's often how it works at Penn State: Paterno throwing the fluid on the flames, his assistants cooling the coals to the slow, steady burn needed to play football.

Haynes improved his conditioning. He concentrated on becoming a leader. He got even closer with his senior line mates, Jimmy Kennedy and Anthony Adams, a group he now considers family.

Johnson, who with two sons on the team knows a little about that concept, is the father who holds it all together.

"He's been there through thick or thin," Haynes clichéd, but with warmth.

With seven and a half sacks already, Haynes is living up to past predictions.

And he doesn't bring home as many strange snakes as he used to.

Which is good, because his parents live in Allentown now, and although Catherine is retired, she'd probably be happy to lace up the sneakers a few more times.