Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 21, 1993 TAG: 9310210098
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
If words had calories, Antonio Banks' stony physique would be squishy.
He's eaten platefuls of rebuttals over the years, stuffing his righteous backtalk to ranting coaches back down where it came from. He knows why.
"If I let my attitude take over, I probably wouldn't be here now," said Virginia Tech's starting free safety.
By all accounts, this is a solemn, studious, conscientious 20-year-old freshman, serious about schoolwork, mature for his age. He also plays a high-adrenaline, how-macho-can-you-be sport that occasionally brings coach and player face to face at high decibels.
Sort of like Banks and his position coach, Tech defensive coordinator Phil Elmassian, whose commotions show up on weather-service radar. Banks retreats into his storm cellar, as he has since he was growing up in Newport News.
"I just look at it as being a joke," he said of coaches' vitriol. "You look through them, not at them. I know they want to get eye contact and all that. It's insulting a person's manhood. You're tampering with a bomb, trying to make it explode."
Banks, however, wets his fuse and gets the point - especially from Elmassian. The Warwick High School graduate came back from reconstructive knee surgery in his senior year to become a starter at Tech, despite playing cornerback in spring practice and free safety for three weeks in the fall.
Banks grimly denies it, but he generally has performed well for the Hokies, making several big-gain saving tackles and intercepting a team-high three passes, tying him with three others for the Big East lead.
That's a fraction of the story. Banks, as Tech's defensive quarterback, makes "strength" calls, orienting the defense toward pass or run. As a freshman. On a team that went 2-8-1 the previous season.
"What he has done at that position," Elmassian said, "I've been just absolutely almost shocked. I don't think any freshman I've ever coached has ever adapted as well as he has to that."
Part of that is Banks' ability to pick out the pearls in what he calls Elmassian's "fussing."
"They know what to listen to, the ones that learn," Elmassian said. "The ones that don't, don't. That's why I do it. There's pressure back there. You've got to learn to play with pressure."
After Nov. 2, 1991, when Banks tore knee ligaments on a kick return for Warwick, he wondered whether he'd play at all. Recruiters, including Elmassian for Syracuse and others for schools such as Clemson and Tennessee, dropped him.
Those colleges still entertaining him did so mostly because he was good friends with Hampton High's Sean Hamlet, one of the state's best players and at present a backup defensive back at Florida State. The pair visited Tech together, and Banks remembers feeling he had to convince Tech he wanted to play there, not the other way around.
"He had two healthy legs, and I only had one," Banks said.
Tech thought differently. Former Hokie defensive back coach Keith Jones was recruiting both players and remembers "it was kind of a touch-and-go thing with us, too." But Jones said Tech got a positive report from the surgeon who repaired Banks' knee and decided to offer Banks a scholarship regardless of where Hamlet went.
Tech told him he should enroll in January 1993 so he wouldn't waste his redshirt year in '92. He finished spring practice tied for a starting cornerback spot, then during the summer worked at least as hard.
From spring to fall testing, his bench press went from 310 pounds to 350; squat from 350 to 425; and vertical jump from 36 to 39 1/2 inches, best on the team now that P.J. Preston is gone. All that, and Preston, at 5 feet 10 and 180 pounds, has been clocked at 4.43 seconds in the 40-yard dash.
When he arrived in Blacksburg he struck people with his introverted, confident manner. Tech rover Stacey Henley said it took him until after Tech's season opener Sept. 5 to feel like he had gotten to know Banks.
"No one gets to me personally," Banks said. "Where I come from, you can never trust no one. Someone's always trying to hurt you."
Banks said he's best known by Tech cornerback Tyronne Drakeford; his other relationships, he said, "are more or less conversation."
Henley said he worried how Banks would adjust when he moved from cornerback to free safety before preseason practice in August, and said Banks "surprised me with his leadership ability. I feel very confident when he's back there."
Banks, however, points out a missed defensive call against West Virginia that allowed a 55-yard completion, and raps himself for poor fundamentals and lack of maturity on the field. Mention that he's playing well - he's Tech's sixth-leading tackler and his five pass break-ups are second to Henley's seven - and he looks down and shakes his head.
"Up until the Temple game, I thought I was playing pretty good," he said. "After the Temple game I think my playing abilities have regressed a lot. I was playing more like I was still in high school. I didn't take it seriously."
Well, OK, but Banks has established himself as a solid hitter.
"I don't consider myself as a good hitter," he said firmly. "I lead too much with my head. You know it can cause a spinal injury."
Ask Banks what he does do well on the field, and he talks about motivating his teammates. Technically speaking, he says, "I've got a hell of a long way to go."
His stern approach to the game mirrors that of Elmassian, to whom frivolity is impermissible. Although Banks barely can bear being yelled at, he and Elmassian obviously have some common ground.
As a mid-week interview ended, Banks cut off the farewell handshake by saying he wanted to comment on Tech's defense in general. What followed was not a feel-good pat on the head for his teammates.
More like Banks is tired of self-congratulation, and scared that the Hokies lost their focus against Temple.
"We haven't really played a solid defensive effort since the Pitt game. If we want to be Big East contenders, we have to put our eyeglasses on and go out there and do the job - stop being hypocrites and do it," he said, borrowing Elmassian's "eyeglasses" line about taking a look at oneself.
"All this celebration, [talking about] smash-mouth football," Banks said with distaste. "Just make the play, go back to the huddle and line up again."
by CNB