Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 9, 1993 TAG: 9309090033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
One September day in 1990, a pug named Joe Swarm figured his fighting days were over.
He had walked on to Virginia Tech's football team a year earlier, but was no better than the fourth-string fullback. His descending grade-point average had long since passed the 2.0 mark.
He asked to meet with Billy Hite, Tech's running backs coach. He was "choked up," he remembers, when he asked Hite: Can I play Division I football, or should I transfer to a smaller school?
"Joe Swarm wasn't ready to play at Division I," Hite said. "I told him, `If you need to play that bad, then you need to look somewhere else.' "
Swarm left the team.
"I thought about throwing everything away," Swarm said. "Something made me push a little harder. . . . It seemed like I was being kind of lazy, just giving up. I was giving up something I love, and I knew it was wrong.
"From there on, it's been like a mountain climb."
Two months after Swarm left the team - after spending several Saturdays suffering in the stands at Lane Stadium - he was back. He lifted weights. He studied. Today, the senior is Tech's starting fullback and one of its four captains. Lately, his buoyant GPA needs binoculars to see down to 2.0.
And his conversations with Hite have turned around 180 degrees.
"Coach Hite came to me [this year] and told me my situation: They're going to count on me," Swarm said. "I assured him they could count on me."
The key may have been Hite's blunt opinion three years ago. Swarm likes to hear "can't" the way some people enjoy the melody of fingernails on a chalkboard. The Falls Church native won two district wrestling championships even though, he said, football coaches urged him to wrestle just to stay in shape. When he was 12, his mother chided him that he couldn't cook.
"He made me a three-course dinner - spaghetti, candlelight - and he set the table," said Rose Reid, who remarried after a divorce when Joe was 4 years old and brother Billy, a former Tech defensive end, was almost 2.
One of Swarm's biggest disappointments at Tech came when Billy, a starter in 1992, quit the team in the spring. Joe had to work at Tech to earn what Billy had coming out of George Marshall High School - a scholarship - but said he put aside his feelings when he saw Billy's "heart wasn't in it."
"I didn't really understand, but I was trying to understand," Joe said.
Rose Reid had urged Billy to stick with it, much as she kept telling Joe that one day he would get to play. Joe Swarm said his Mom gives him some of his drive, calling her "the toughest person I know."
For about seven years beginning in 1980, Rose Reid said she supported the family of six on her income as a resident manager of an apartment complex after Bill Reid injured his back while working as a refrigeration/air-conditioning technician. Two insurance companies paid medical bills, but the Reids received no other compensation. Bill now works for the federal government.
"I knew we had a roof over our heads," said Rose Reid, who admitted her children weren't always dressed in the latest fashions. "I told them, `It doesn't matter. The kids will want to wear what you're wearing, because you're so good-looking.' "
With that kind of psychology in Swarm's background, it's little wonder he was able to marshal his mental energy when he needed to in 1990. As he added weight, going from 210 pounds as a freshman to 230 this year, the coaches started watching.
He ran eight times for 46 yards in the 1991 spring game, but didn't have a carry in four games during the '91 season. He averaged 6.2 yards on 19 carries in 1992 spring scrimmages, then averaged 6.7 yards on 21 carries during the '92 season as Mark Poindexter's backup.
And in the opener against Bowling Green on Saturday, Swarm had 75 yards on 13 carries - a 5.8-yard average.
His resume is dotted with healthy gains: a 19-yarder in the 1990 spring game, a 36-yard run last year against Miami, a 13-yarder against Bowling Green. This from a 5-foot-11, 230-pound fullback with 4.8-second speed in the 40-yard dash.
He gets a lot of yards with crafty cutbacks, taking advantage of defenders lured outside by Tech's repeated sweeps.
"I don't believe in that 4.8 speed," said Swarm, who was recruited by a mix of Division I-A and I-AA schools but didn't have many concrete scholarship offers. "I feel comfortable in pads and cleats, more comfortable than in walking shoes and a pair of shorts."
Swarm still messes with his own mind, telling himself and friends and family he won't get many carries and won't be running free each game day. That way, he says, a long gain or a heavy workload is sweeter, and supporters won't be disappointed if he's invisible.
His mother and stepfather, he said, have missed only one Tech game since the Swarms arrived in Blacksburg: the Oklahoma game in Norman, Okla., in 1991. Rose Reid said she ordered plane tickets, her first time doing so, and forgot to call back with her credit card number. When Bill went to pick them up, he got a blank stare. "It was like `The War of the Roses' in our house for a while," Swarm said.
They didn't miss much - Tech lost and Swarm didn't get the ball - but these days they're guaranteed some action. Hite says Tech has about five plays for the fullback, which he says is "plenty."
Swarm said he wants to maximize each carry because, he says almost bashfully, "I don't have many plays."
He's more than happy, he says, to "protect" tailback Dwayne Thomas. When Swarm does run, he said he feels the linemen "are happy to block because they know it's another blocker running behind them."
At times it's easy to forget that Swarm, after all he's been through, entered this season with only 21 carries. Trotting onto the field for the first time against Bowling Green, he said, he wondered if he should be nervous.
"No," Swarm said he decided. "I've sat up there [in the stands]. Nothing could be so bad as sitting up there watching and not being able to play."
by CNB