A very interesting story about former Pitt and Colt Fullback Randy McMillan (hat tip to Stratton).
He didn’t quite have the grades initially to get into a major college, but he dominated at Harford Community College for two years, and University of Pittsburgh coach Jackie Sherrill practically begged him to become a Panther. Oklahoma, Nebraska and Penn State wanted him, too, but when Sherrill introduced him to Dorsett, it was an easy decision.
“Tony Dorsett is the only reason I went to Pitt,” McMillan says. “He was my idol.”
McMillan didn’t even get the ball much in college, especially after a brash, young quarterback named Dan Marino showed up on campus, but he was such a good athlete, by the time he was a senior, NFL teams were intrigued by his potential. He was 6 feet 1, 220 pounds, and could run a 40-yard dash in 4.57 seconds. He could easily dunk a basketball, even though his hands were too small to palm one. Dolphins coach Don Shula told McMillan at the Senior Bowl that if he was available when it was Miami’s turn to draft in the first round, the club planned to grab him with the 13th pick. He showed up in New York for the 1981 draft, dreaming of sandy beaches, warm breezes and the beautiful women of South Beach.
“Baltimore had the 12th pick, and right before they went, John Madden says on TV, ‘I think they might be thinking about Randy McMillan here,'” McMillan says. “I wasn’t thinking about the Colts at all. They’d just drafted Curtis Dickey out of Texas A&M the year before. But they picked me. After they made their pick, Madden looked at me and said, ‘Well, are you happy?’ I said, ‘I’m ecstatic.’ But really, I wasn’t. I couldn’t tell the truth.”
He didn’t have a fantastic career, but he was doing okay until a car accident. He still made a life for himself after football, but another accident left him in a wheelchair. He fell into a depression, that old friends eventually pulled him out of. The unintentionally funniest line in the story, though:
“Gerry was really the sunshine in my life, to be honest,” McMillan says. “I hate to say that about another guy, but it’s true. Without him, I don’t know that I’d have any contact with anybody.”
Really, the whole story is very interesting, but that is just classic.
Meanwhile in high school the WPIAL AAA semifinal is tomorrow night and Pitt commits on each team will face-off.
Dickerson and Nix have met a few times at camps and also at Pitt games this season. Tomorrow, they will most certainly meet again, helmet to helmet.
Dickerson is a star receiver/running back/quarterback/defensive back at West Allegheny, while Nix is a standout running back/linebacker for Thomas Jefferson. Two slices of Pitt’s future will be on display on the artificial turf at Moon.
“I’m sure we both have something to prove to each other,” Nix said. “The fact that we’ll be on the same team next year brings a little more attention to this game. Hopefully, we’ll show people what Pitt is going to get.”
And hopefully, this sort of storyline/angle will become stock.
Then there was a Q&A with Dorin Dickerson.
Q: What is the most unique thing to happen since you committed to Pitt?
A: I took a bunch of sophomores to the Pitt-USF game. We were walking to get something to eat at halftime, and this whole section stood up and started clapping for me. The other guys were laughing at me. I was embarrassed. I was like, ‘Whoa! Uh, thank you.’ I’d go to the bathroom or get something to eat, and dads would bring their little kids up and ask me for an autograph. I’m not used to all that stuff.
A little disturbed by the bathroom approach is, but the rest is cool. You can also bet that his younger classmates took note of how he was treated for staying home.
