Editor’s note: As we wait for the sports world to return, we’re occasionally looking back at some of our favorite Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press Sports stories. Former Landstown star Percy Harvin recently announced he was attempting an NFL comeback. This story originally appeared in The Pilot in December 2006 after I visited with Harvin for a few days at the University of Florida.
Percy Harvin snatched the handoff and darted toward the line of scrimmage.
A few moves, some befuddled defenders and 67 yards later, the University of Florida freshman was in the end zone.
Big play, big stage. Same old Percy Harvin.
Or was it?
Harvin is still the most electrifying player on his team, and that touchdown earned him Most Valuable Player honors in last week’s Southeastern Conference championship game and propelled the Gators into the Jan. 8 national title game against Ohio State.
But only months after ending a sometimes astounding, sometimes confounding tenure at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach, much has changed for Harvin.
Just about everything.
“I’m not pretending to be happy when I’m really burning up inside,” Harvin said during a recent interview. “People are getting to really see me. Back home, it was hard having a happy face. Now I can just be happy.”
Happiness was a rarity for Harvin at Landstown.
Certainly there were highlights. Harvin was a three-sport mega-star. He scored 77 career touchdowns, accounted for more points than any other player in South Hampton Roads history and led Landstown to three consecutive Group AAA Division 6 state football championship games. As a junior, Harvin led the basketball team to the state final and became the first athlete since 1936 to win five gold medals at the state track and field meet.
For Harvin, eluding 11 defenders on a football field was easy. Sidestepping controversy was not.
Harvin was suspended for three games over his final two football seasons for unsportsmanlike conduct. He scuffled with an opponent during basketball season last year, and was later banned from athletics by the Virginia High School League.
Widely regarded by recruiting analysts as the nation’s top high school football player, Harvin always said he was targeted by opponents, who tried to goad him into retaliation. He now admits that at times his ultra-competitiveness got the best of him and says he has “matured a lot.”
“I took all that stuff as life lessons,” Harvin said, “and now stuff (doesn’t) bother me like it used to.”
Harvin’s banishment — news he now calls “devastating” and “the worst feeling I had in my life” — gave him a chance to start over.
He cried on the drive home from the high school league office, but in the ensuing days began looking ahead to Florida. He considered hiring a personal trainer to prepare for the rigors of college football.
Then, his aunt called.
“You ready to work out?” Terri Burnham asked her nephew.
Burnham, a professional bodybuilder who lives in Virginia Beach, was soon dragging Harvin out of bed at 5 a.m. for daily 90-minute workouts. Twice a week, the pair headed for sprints up Mount Trashmore.
Soon after his high school graduation, Harvin and his mother, Linda, crammed her Dodge Durango for the nearly 700-mile drive to Gainesville. He was in better shape than ever and couldn’t wait to leave Virginia Beach behind.
Linda Harvin also wanted to get away and later joined her son in Florida. She left her Virginia Beach home and day-care business in the hands of her mother and moved to Green Cove Springs, just outside Jacksonville and about an hour from Gainesville.
“Every morning I woke up in Virginia I had a headache, my mom had a headache,” Harvin said. “It was always something. Just waking up and knowing you could concentrate on football and school work took a whole lot of weight off me.”
Harvin dove into football at Florida. In preseason he was the first freshman to have his black stripe removed from his helmet — signifying his arrival as a Gator.
Star quarterback Chris Leak dubbed Harvin “Reggie Bush” after the former Heisman Trophy winner at Southern California and teammates joined in.
“His whole attitude as a young guy was amazing,” said Jemalle Cornelius, a senior receiver. “He was a playmaker and everybody on this team knew that. He earned the respect of the players, and he did that by coming in here and working hard right from the start.”
While Harvin wowed his teammates and coaches in preseason he also wiped out doubt about his character.
“We heard a lot of rumors about him having a bad attitude and that he was a bad person,” said Andre Caldwell, a junior receiver. “But he’s a great person, and he put all that in the past and moved forward.”
Added Florida coach Urban Meyer, “A lot of people said he came with a lot of baggage. The only baggage was he’s extremely competitive.”
Harvin climbed the depth chart, and by the Sept. 2 game against Southern Miss he had become the first true freshman at Florida to start a season opener.
Harvin talks about that first game with reverence.
It was a glorious day at “The Swamp,” Florida’s home field. Sun shining, 90 degrees.
He had goose bumps as he raced into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium before more than 90,000 fans of “Gator Nation.”
Then, as his teammates’ bright-orange helmets excitedly bobbed along the sideline, Harvin paused to soak it all in.
“Man,” he whispered, “I’m finally here.
“I’m finally here.”
Harvin’s freshman season has had frustrating moments.
He was slowed by a high left-ankle sprain that kept him out Sept. 30 against Alabama and limited him in several other games. He has started only four of Florida’s 13 games.
Harvin, rarely injured at Landstown, was eager to return from his ankle injury, but that got him into trouble with Meyer, who at times stationed an assistant coach next to Harvin during practice to ensure he stayed on the sideline.
“Most guys will sit down and drink Gatorade and not practice for a couple of days,” Meyer said. “Percy’s one of those guys who will not stop, and he struggled with that.”
Harvin was injured again in a frightening collision Nov. 25 against Florida State. A national television audience watched as Harvin was carted off the field. He was numb, but knew he was fine after a few minutes. He was taken to the hospital as a precaution and missed three days of practice.
“It was all just frustrating,” Harvin said of his injuries.
When healthy, though, Harvin has been brilliant.
At Landstown, Harvin lined up at receiver and in the backfield, and he’s playing a similar role in Meyer’s spread offense. Harvin’s 782 total yards rank behind only senior receiver Dallas Baker, and his 11.3 yards-per-carry rushing average leads the team. He has 25 receptions and four touchdowns.
As he did at Landstown, Harvin loves the big stage.
His did-you-see-that moves have been featured on ESPN, and in the SEC championship game he scored two touchdowns, one on a 37 -yard reception, the other a 67-yard run that all but sealed a 38-28 victory over Arkansas.
Harvin was the first freshman named MVP of the conference championship game, and days later earned SEC Offensive Freshman of the Year honors from The Associated Press.
“There’s not another guy like him in the SEC,” Arkansas cornerback Darius Vinnett told the Miami Herald after the conference championship game.
Harvin’s transition to campus life has been seamless in Gainesville, a football-crazed city in north-central Florida where folks can frequent Gator Nails, Gator Cinemas and the Christian Gator bookstore.
A good student at Landstown, Harvin has already decided on a major, communications. He took English and math classes during the summer, and his fall load included theater and communications courses.
Harvin, who shares a campus suite with freshman quarterback Tim Tebow, is recognized regularly on the 2,000-acre campus and at the Gator-themed restaurants across University Avenue from the Swamp. He receives so many high-fives and autograph requests that he no longer writes out his full name. Only the “P” and “H” are legible because, said Harvin, “I started getting tired.”
At Landstown, the spotlight glared on Harvin, with college coaches and media ringing the field during his games. In Gainesville, he shares billing with his fellow Gators. Leak, a four-year starter, and Tebow, a highly touted recruit from Jacksonville, garner most of the squeals.
For the first time in a long time, Harvin is not the guy who sticks out.
“I just feel like a regular guy here, even though I’m kinda not,” he said.
Harvin hasn’t become a party regular. Instead he usually spends weekends with his mother and girlfriend Phylicia Winslow, a Tidewater Community College student from Virginia Beach who has been to most of the home games. It’s not unusual to find the trio at Linda Harvin’s house, watching a movie, or at a bowling alley. After a recent home game, they enjoyed a “Rocky” marathon, watching I through V.
Friends and family marvel at the change in Harvin.
“He used to be real uptight and stiff and angry,” said Florida State freshman receiver Damon McDaniel, a close friend and former teammate at Landstown who talks to Harvin weekly. “Now you can tell he just feels comfortable in his environment.”
There are other differences. Harvin’s face is fuller, he has put on a few pounds of muscle and he has a new uniform number.
Harvin wore No. 11 at Landstown. At Florida, he chose No. 8.
Then there are the tattoos, which he got before leaving Virginia. On one shoulder is Harvin’s mother’s name and praying hands. On the other is a lion, which reminds him of a quote: “Only the strong survive.”
All are part of a new, different Harvin.
