THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 7, 1994 TAG: 9412070675
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 134 lines
Vince Pishioneri remembers the day he dropped off his 6-year-old son Mike for Pee Wee flag football tryouts.
Proud papa had reservations. His son was one of the smallest of the bunch. Could he compete or would he get pushed around?
``He was real tiny,'' Vince Pishioneri said. ``I figured when I went back to pick him up that he might be sitting off to the side playing in the dirt.
``When I went to pick him up, he was out in the middle of the field with some other players throwing spirals all over the place. The coach told me Mike was going to be their starting quarterback.''
Since then, nothing about Mike Pishioneri has shocked dad.
So when dad first heard his son had once again risen to the top - Pishioneri has been named the Abe Goldblatt Award winner as The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star Player of the Year in football - he was more happy than surprised.
``His team was good, and that always helps,'' Vince Pishioneri said.
So was Mike, and that really helped.
During the regular season, the 5-10, 185-pound senior running back rushed for 1,216 yards and scored an area-high 22 touchdowns, all on the ground. He also caught seven passes for 106 yards.
Pishioneri was a major reason why Kempsville won the Beach District championship, finishing the season 9-1 and going unbeaten at the Beach.
He did much of his damage with a broken bone in his left wrist. He broke the bone in the sixth game of the regular season, but refused to tell anyone until the season ended. He'll spend the next three months in a cast, which will keep him from seeking a second district wrestling championship.
It could be a blessing in disguise. With no reason to cut weight - he had intended to drop to at least 160 - Pishioneri can maintain his football bulk for college recruiters to see. And there's much to see beyond Pishioneri's on-field exploits.
He ranks 21st in a class of 477 with a 3.66 grade-point average and scored 1,300 on the Scholastic Assessment Test. He scored more points on the SAT than he rushed for yards as a senior.
``That's not saying much,'' Pishioneri said with a grin. ``A lot of guys score higher on their SAT than they run for. I just happened to run for more yards than a lot of other guys.''
Pishioneri was probably more shocked about his being named player of the year than his parents, pointing out that Kempsville has several great running backs who did not receive the honor - such as D.J. Dozier and Tony DeSue.
``I didn't really think I had a shot at it,'' Pishioneri said. ``I didn't think it would all come together like it did. A lot of it's timing. I came in at the right time. DeSue had just left.''
Pishioneri stepped into a starting role as a sophomore and ran for 739 yards and three touchdowns. As a junior, he rushed for 886 yards and a Beach District-best 14 touchdowns.
For his regular-season career, Pishioneri finished with 2,841 yards and 39 touchdowns.
Pishioneri recalls the first few practices under then first-year head coach John Bowles and figures the aspect of his game that pushed him to the forefront was his willingness to lower his shoulder and grind out a few yards.
``I was taught early on that east-west is not the way to go,'' Pishioneri said. ``It's north-south. I don't try to bounce to the outside all the time and outrun people.''
Pishioneri isn't blessed with incredible speed. But he's not slow by any means. At last year's Beach Showcase, a high-school combine where recruiters watch players go through their paces, Pishioneri ran the 40-yard dash in 4.55 seconds.
``There aren't many backs I can compare myself with,'' Pishioneri said. ``I'm not big, and I don't have breakaway speed. I just get through the hole and make 'em miss.
``And there's a difference between raw speed and football speed. It's a game of angles. You can look a lot quicker than you really are.''
There was a time when Pishioneri's mother wished he'd run to the outside.
``People always ask me if I worry when he gets hit,'' Patty Pishioneri said. ``When he was playing city league (youth) football, the parents were much closer to the field. We actually stood along the sidelines and could hear those really hard hits, when every piece of padding exploded.
``The men would be going, `Ooooh!' and I'd just lose it. I was always looking to see if he'd get up.''
She overcame her fear of injury and has been in her son's corner throughout.
``Although he's a great student, I've always loved to watch him play football,'' she said. ``I don't get to go and see him do his math. Football's my chance to see him do something and to cheer for him.''
She never cheered as hard as when Pishioneri had his night to remember, rushing 38 times for 172 yards and two touchdowns in Kempsville's 21-20 victory over Green Run to lock up the Beach District title.
She hopes her son plays close to home next year, close enough that she and her husband can make the weekend road trip to watch.
But the recruiters are getting a late start. Air Force Academy has shown a great deal of interest. And most of the Ivy League schools, Yale and Princeton in particular, have called. Pishioneri says he doesn't have to play for a Division I-A football factory, hinting that a Division I-AA program with a great academic background might be more to his liking.
``I just want to play football,'' Mike Pishioneri said. ``And I'm not worried about playing for a top-25 school.''
Pishioneri's days as a Pee Wee quarterback seem far away, but he can still throw a football. He attempted four halfback option passes this season, completing three for 158 yards. Two, both to Marcus Garrett, went for touchdowns of 53 and 80 yards.
Pishioneri figures the handful of pass attempts didn't hurt his cause when it came to player of the year selection.
``I threw some passes, we ran a couple trick plays, I played for a winner and everybody around me made me a better player,'' Pishioneri said. ``At midseason when I was listed as a player of the year candidate, I thought I was more of an afterthought on the newspaper's part. But now, I don't think anybody deserved it more.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Mike Pishioneri rushed for 1,216 yards and scored an area-high 22
touchdowns this season, all on the ground.
Graphic
ABE GOLDBLATT AWARD
Starting today, The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star will
honor its high school football players of the year with the Abe
Goldblatt Award.
Goldblatt, who died last month, began working for the newspapers
63 years ago as a correspondent covering high school football.
``Football was Abe's favorite sport, and he had a wonderful
memory for classic games and great players,'' sports editor Chic
Riebel said. ``He was always talking about Ace Parker's heroics or a
Granby-Maury game he saw 40 years ago.
``But he didn't live in the past. He was as versed talking about
today's players as yesterday's. We felt this would be a worthwhile
way to honor Abe and all he gave to the game.''
- Rich Radford
by CNB