A strong and sinuous high school football prospect sat at the table ready to make his mark on the world, starting with his signature etched onto an otherwise normal piece of paper called a letter of intent.

It had all led to this -- every homework assignment he did, every weight he lifted, every leaf he raked in the neighbors' yards for a little extra money to help feed the family. And all of it was worth it now.

Now that he had the paper in front of him.

This paper showed he was going to be a somebody. Not just another nobody who amounted to nothing in this no-man's-land town.

The flash bulbs, newspaper writers and television cameras were there to capture this high school athlete's supreme moment. They watched, along with his friends, teachers and the surrogate parents who helped him reach this moment.

And they all knew that, with a few strokes of ink, he would punch his ticket out of the rust-belt city of Sharon, Pa.

So Terrance Phillips took the pen in his hand, gripped it firmly like he had just snagged it out of the air while running a post pattern and, without hesitation, he signed away the next five years of his life to play football for the school he had always dreamed about -- Penn State.

Little did he know then what ridicule and tribulations he would face there. He didn't -- well, couldn't have -- realized that he would be part of a group of wide receivers shouldering much of the blame for the worst stretch of losing in Penn State history.

If only he knew that fans would boo him and his teammates when things soured. If only he knew that reporters would constantly ask him why he couldn't hold on to a football or run the right routes.

But, if they only knew what Phillips went through to get here. Or how much worse off he could have been.

Then, they would see that no matter how many catches or drops he has, Phillips is doing just fine.

*****

He oozed potential in every way, but Lou Rotunno understood it would take more than that if the boy was ever going to have that chance to sign on the dotted line.

Phillips needed help from someone -- mostly because he never had enough time to help himself.

He always had a lot more responsibility than his age suggested he ought to have, but when you're the oldest of 11 sibling, that's tough to avoid.

There were three bedrooms -- and, of course, one bathroom -- for Phillips to share with his four brothers, six sisters and mother Hazel.

He was really like so many other kids in Sharon, a town were it's easy to get lost in the shuffle.

With a population of about 16,000 situated an hour and a half away from Pittsburgh and Erie, it's not quite big enough to hold it's own place of distinction, but it's not near enough to anywhere to be considered part of somewhere else.

For some -- that is, the upper class -- it is a quaintly secluded haven. For others -- that is, the lower class -- it is isolation in the most literal sense.

"Sharon is a -- how should I put this -- a socio-economically diverse community," said Jim Wildman, Phillips high school football coach. "There are $200,000 houses, and the projects."

The small city can be divided into three parts: the upper class, poor blacks and poor whites.

Many within the latter two-thirds never leave Sharon, and that portion of the economic spectrum was the one in which Phillips was raised.

And so he decided to start working by the time he was in eighth grade. With hungry mouths quickly devouring what little food the family had, maybe it could help make life a little better, was his thought.

That's when he started doing yard work for Lou Rotunno and his wife Adrian. Phillips' athletic talent was already well known to Lou, who was a booster for the Sharon High School athletic department.

"He just needed some way to make money," Adrian said. "He tried to help his mother any way he could. He was the father figure in the family."

Eventually, the arrangement became less about money and cutting grass, and more about how the Rotunnos, particularly Lou, mentored Phillips and about how Phillips found a place in the Rotunnos' hearts.

During the summer of his junior year of high school, Phillips asked if he could live with the Rotunnos. It hurt Phillips to leave his family, but he knew he didn't have a choice.

"If he was to escape the stereotype of the Afro-American in Sharon, he knew football and academics would get him there," Wildman said.

Said Adrian: "I think he knew he needed to live somewhere where he could concentrate better, where he could have more quiet time to study without the kids being around."

Yes, a place of structure and discipline is what Phillips knew he needed, and Lou -- "Big Lou" as he was called -- provided just that. He was a strict foster parent, said Phillips' stepbrother, Frank.

Big Lou stressed grades to Phillips, and he prodded him to get his minimum SAT score and earn the Div. I-A scholarship he knew Phillips could achieve.

"Their relationship was the best I had ever seen," Adrian said. "They would disagree, but Terrance always knew Lou was making the best decision for him."

But where Phillips would go to college was never up for discussion. It was always Penn State.

"If you mentioned any other school, [Terrance] didn't want to talk about it," Adrian said.

*****

After waiting his turn, Phillips is finally getting his chance at that school of his childhood dreams.

In the Nittany Lions most recent game -- a 20-13 loss to Purdue -- Phillips snagged two spectacular catches for 53 yards.

It appears things are starting to turn around, but for a while, though, it seemed like his opportunity couldn't have come at a worse time.

Phillips caught passes in each of the Lions' final four games last season, but the team went 1-3. This season Phillips has caught a pass in every game except one, but the Lions are a disappointing 2-4.

As an individual, it hasn't been easy for Phillips, either. He's often criticized for running the wrong routes, and he and his fellow wideouts have been singled out by Penn State football coach Joe Paterno for dropping too many balls.

Then, there's Big Lou -- that, too, hasn't made it any easier.

The surrogate father barely got to see Phillips finally get his chance at Penn State.

He died of liver cancer on Nov. 18, 2003, a little more than two weeks after Phillips made his first collegiate catch.

When Phillips made that reception -- a 28-yard grab in the first quarter of a 21-20 loss to Ohio State -- he wore a special wristband. Scribbled with marker, it said, "Big Lou."

"When he scored his first touchdown [against Michigan State in the last game of the season] he called us and told us, 'That one was for Lou,' " his foster brother Frank said.

After all, it was mostly Lou who guided Phillips to that defining moment, where a simple dash of his pen on letter of intent ensured his passage out of the Sharon housing projects.

How fitting, then, that Phillips would remember Big Lou with a few splashes of ink -- a simple action.

But no less simple than the glorious moment of his life that gave him this opportunity to escape, to succeed.

And to be the somebody Big Lou and the Rotunnos gave him the chance to be.