Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 10, 1994 TAG: 9412140060
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Even though he's part of the nation's best Division III defense, unbeaten Albion won't have to worry about blocking DeMarino.
That's because he won't play. He won't even be in uniform, and he isn't hurt, except perhaps emotionally.
In a different way, DeMarino will be part of today's standing room only crowd.
He will be on the Washington & Jefferson sideline, just as he has in the Presidents' previous 11 playoff games in DeMarino's four years as a cornerback.
In those seasons, DeMarino estimates he's been on the field for only 20 plays, eight this season. He played at the end of three blowout games. On the depth chart for a 114-man roster, DeMarino is near the bottom, and the NCAA allows only 48 players to dress in the playoffs.
The point is that DeMarino is on the roster. And he hasn't missed a practice in four years. He could have gone to a less-successful program where he could have played. Or, he could have quit.
``It would have been too easy to quit,'' DeMarino said. ``I think playing football is going to help me in life. ''
Not playing may help him more. Maybe he's rosy-cheeked because he's so full of football fire that hasn't flickered, or maybe it's because his future seems so bright.
An environmental biology major, DeMarino easily dissects what's around him. He's trying to soak in every second of his last weekend as a football player.
``This is the biggest game of my life,'' he said. ``Being in the championship game, playing in December, it gives you that extra time, those extra days and minutes. That's important to me.''
DeMarino went to W&J because he liked the academics and he loved the football. He wanted to be part of a winning team after playing at Serra Catholic High in suburban Pittsburgh.
``We were 3-37 my four years,'' DeMarino said. ``I was a nose guard.''
The W&J roster says DeMarino is 5 feet 7. It lies. ``I'm 5-5,'' he said. He weighs only about 100 pounds more than the Gagliardi Trophy. And about that transition from nose guard to cornerback?
``I've played football for 15 years starting in midget ball,'' he said. ``I've played quarterback, both running back positions, linebacker, defensive end, safety, cornerback, everywhere except center and offensive guard and tackle.''
He's played, but he hasn't played. On Wednesday, when the Presidents had their last practice in full pads before busing to Salem, it struck DeMarino that he would be taking off his uniform for the last time.
He did it slowly.
``It was like taking off part of my body,'' he said. ``It's like part of your life is over, like you have been somewhere and loved it, and you can never go back.''
On a campus where 18.7 percent of the male students play football, he's hardly a big man. However, John Luckhardt uses adjectives to describe DeMarino that coaches usually reserve for All-Americans - adding ``irascible.''
DeMarino also does work-study for the W&J public information office. There, most of his sentences begin or end with sir or ma'am. When football comes first, he apologizes.
``My goal four years ago was to play four years of college football, and I've done that,'' DeMarino said. ``I love the game, but it hasn't always been easy. Last year was the hardest, when I was a junior.
``That's when if you're going to play, you play. It suddenly hit me that my chances of playing weren't going to be very good. That was weird, especially after playing so much in high school.''
DeMarino isn't just what Division III football or the Stagg Bowl experience is about. His story is the real bottom line on college football, not the $840,000 West Virginia might promise in tickets for a Carquest Bowl bid or the $6.65 million per-team payoff for the Rose Bowl.
``We are supposed to teach players to become better people,'' Luckhardt said. ``We are a classroom. All we are is an outdoor laboratory.''
Teaching DeMarino couldn't have been too tough. He gives to the game more than he takes. The only thing he asks is whether his own career could somehow have been have been different, and whether the Presidents will win his last game.
DeMarino wants to go to Alaska after graduation to do research and work in his field of study. What he'd like more is to go onto the Salem Stadium field today. ``The key to life is wanting to go after something,'' he said.
The Stagg Bowl is where DeMarino wanted to put the punctuation mark on his football career.
``This is the most important game of my life,'' he said.
And he won't play. But if the Presidents win today, maybe they should let DeMarino carry the trophy off the field.
Or, maybe they should carry him.
by CNB