Where it all began: Testaverde reflects on Fork Union experience

The historic old gate that leads into Fork Union Military Academy served as a time machine for football great Vinny Testaverde last Friday evening when he returned for induction into the school’s sports hall of fame.

For Testaverde, it was 1981 all over again.

Years have passed since he passed through that gate with his father, Al, on their first trip to FUMA in search of a place that could get Vinny academically eligible for a college football scholarship.

Might as well as have been yesterday in Vinny’s mind — the event remains fresh in his memory.

“We were here for the first time, coming from a public school in New York, and we toured the campus, saw all the crew cuts, the barracks, noticed the curfews, the study time,” Vinny Testaverde recalled. “On the way out, my father asked me what I thought about the visit and I said, ‘It’s not for me, Dad, I’m not going to school here.’”

Al Testaverde immediately pulled the car over to the side of the road and Vinny clearly remembered what his father told him at that very moment.

“He said, ‘Yes, you’re going to school here,’” Vinny recalled.

Plain and simple, Al Testaverde, the construction worker who used to eat from his lunch pail outside New York’s Downtown Athletic Club and dream of someday being an invited guest to see his son accept the prestigious Heisman Trophy, had given Vinny his marching orders, so to speak.

Early into Vinny’s acceptance speech at FUMA, he surrendered briefly to his emotions upon retelling the story and having felt fortunate to have had a caring father with the foresight to drive his son eight hours from home to insure a better future. Vinny choked up as he thanked his late father for his wisdom.

Like his dad, Vinny had always dreamed big. He was a gifted athlete with a golden arm. He wasn’t a dummy — just unfocused when it came to academics, and that was why Al drove them from Long Island, N.Y., down to the heart of Virginia.

A New York Jets scout had watched Vinny play in high school and thought the kid had a future. He recommended Fork Union as a place where the youngster could cure his academic shortcomings and attract a major-college scholarship.

“It wasn’t that I hadn’t developed,” Testaverde said. “I just hadn’t taken my academics seriously in high school. I was being recruited as a junior in high school but didn’t have the grades to get a scholarship. It was just the grades and this was the place to take care of it.”

John Shuman, now FUMA’s post-graduate program head football coach, remembered the first time he saw Testaverde. Shuman was in his first year as an assistant back then, working under the great Red Pulliam.

“I will never forget that day,” Shuman said. “Coach Pulliam had this thing he’d do with quarterbacks at the beginning of every year. He would line them up on the goal line and tell them, ‘No step, just throw the ball and let’s see what you’ve got.’”

Testaverde’s ball bounced one hop and went through the other end zone.

“So, I think it bounced on about the 94-yard line,” Shuman said. “I was like, ‘Whoa.’”

When the coach went to pick up Testaverde and his family at the airport Friday, Shuman was amazed.

“He looks exactly the same. He’s been 6-foot-5 1/2, 240 pounds since the first day I laid eyes on him,” the FUMA coach said.

Despite Vinny’s first impressions of Fork Union, he became comfortable with the thought that the school would help him reach his goals. He wasn’t a troublemaker or a wild kid, and he realized he needed academic discipline.

“The thing I remember was getting so homesick the first couple of weeks,” Testaverde said after Friday night’s banquet. “None of the students were here, just the football players who were in training camp.

“On top of being homesick, I pulled a muscle between my ribs and I had a hard time breathing. I didn’t practice and because of that I didn’t think I would get to be the starting quarterback. So, it was a tough go the first couple of weeks. After I survived that I knew I could make it.”

Testaverde and the Blue Devils went on to have a great year. The team finished 10-2 and Vinny threw for what Shuman estimated to be 2,000 yards and 15 touchdowns.

“We had three quarterbacks and had to rotate them,” Shuman said. “But Coach made sure that when the bullets were flying that Vinny was in there.”

The watchful eyes of Howard Schnellenberger were monitoring the results from afar. Schnellenberger had recruited Joe Namath out of Pennsylvania to lead Bear Bryant’s drop-back passing game at Alabama and then had gone on to coach in the NFL before taking over the Miami program.

“We knew we were about to run out of quarterbacks at Miami, so we decided we’d make a study of the 10 best quarterbacks east of the Mississippi River,” Schnellenberger said Tuesday from his office at Florida Atlantic University, where he is now the coach. “That list boiled down to Vinny and Bernie Kosar being in the top five as we evaluated them.”

Schnellenberger and assistant coach Tom Olivadotti accumulated tape to study all of those quarterbacks in their Miami offices and analyzed them all summer long before the recruiting season came around. They rated the top five.

“Fortunately, we got No. 1 and No. 3 on our list,” Schnellenberger chuckled. “I’ve never said who was 1 and who was 3 because that would be ‘Truth in coaching.’”

Somehow, both Kosar and Testaverde were convinced to sign with the Hurricanes.

“Neither Vinny or Bernie were recruited by the very best programs,” Schnellenberger pointed out. “But I had been running this offense since I was a junior in college at Kentucky when Blanton Collier came in and put in the Cleveland Browns offense when I was still a player.”

The coach’s memory was spot on. Shuman verified that Miami was the first school to jump on Testaverde. Temple came in late and Syracuse tried to get into the hunt, but Miami had won his heart.

Those two quarterbacks would battle it out to see who would replace Jim Kelly. Kosar won the battle, not because of talent according to Schnellenberger, because Testaverde had much more than talent.

“By all rights, Vinny should have been the starter, but I felt Bernie was a little bit more mature and more mentally tough than Vinny was, and for that reason we went with Bernie,” Schnellenberger explained.

Kosar went on to lead the Hurricanes to a national championship, and Testaverde was perhaps the most talented backup in the nation.

“Vinny makes me so proud and I love him that much more because of the fact that it took so much courage to stay lined up behind Bernie,” Schnelleberger said. “When I brought Vinny in and told him I was going to start Bernie, it really, really hurt him. But he handled it in such a classy way when he talked to the press.”

Testaverde said he thought about transferring and even called Pulliam back at FUMA to get his input on the thought. Pulliam and Miami quarterbacks coach Earl Morrall convinced Vinny to stay. He had plenty of confidence and believed he would get a chance to compete for the job, but Schnellenberger wouldn’t be around to see it.
Instead, the coach jumped for a job in the USFL and a big contract that never materialized. Meanwhile, Kosar graduated early from Miami and turned pro, leaving Testaverde the opportunity to play for two years.

Needless to say, he made the most of his chances, setting Miami records that stand today and finally fulfilling Al’s fantasy of getting that invite inside the Downtown Athletic Club to watch as his son was awarded the Heisman Trophy in 1986.

He went on to a great NFL career, playing 21 seasons for eight teams and holds the NFL record for having thrown a touchdown pass in 21 consecutive seasons, and for throwing TD passes to 70 different players.

On Friday night, he was greeted by familiar old faces, and he heard their stories — similar to his — about how Fork Union changed their lives.

“My time here was a life-changing experience,” he said of FUMA. “You won’t find many places like this anywhere in the country. This is a special place.

“Fork Union,” Testaverde said, “is a place where you can become a man.”



(dailyprogress.com)