tool name
closeOf the various tattoos that cover Andrew Quarless’ long arms and broad chest, his favorite is the one that shows a pair of hands catching a football and contains the biblical verse Luke 12:48:
CDT photo/Nabil K. Mark
Penn State senior Andrew Quarless, who has battled through off-the-field troubles throughout his career, is proving that he is the player he was earlier in his career. Quarless is second on the team with 16 receptions for 153 yards heading into today’s game against Eastern Illinois.
“To whom much is given, from much is required.”
Penn State’s senior tight end believes he has been divinely granted considerable athletic talents — few opponents who have tried to cover the 6-foot-5, 250-pounder in the open field would disagree — and that it is his responsibility to make the most of them.
Through the first five games of his final season at Penn State, the Uniondale, N.Y., native, who has 16 catches for 153 yards, is delivering on the promise he showed in 2006, when he emerged as a reliable target and big-play threat shortly after his 18th birthday.
Quarless was an offensive coordinator’s dream — a big, fast player with great hands who could line up as a tight end or as a wide receiver, creating mismatches wherever he went. His blocking needed some work, but the Nittany Lions figured that would come with time. What neither they nor Quarless realized was that the young man had some growing up to do before the player could realize his full potential. Quarless’ father, Duncan, had realized it. He had wanted his son to take a redshirt season.
“In my opinion it was too great a risk for his athletic gifts to take too great a preeminence over his cognitive development and his spiritual development,” said Duncan, who is a professor of chemistry at SUNY College at Old Westbury.
Looking back, Quarless believes his father’s initial concerns were well-founded. Duncan continually stressed to his three sons — Duncan, Andrew and Travis — the importance of staying “humble but hungry.”
“Things came real fast for me, and maybe I wasn’t too humble in his eyes,” Quarless said. “I was having a lot of fun, and being on a big stage like that, getting a lot of attention, and I kind of lost track of the humble part.”
During the next two years, Quarless received a citation for underage drinking and was charged with driving under the influence on another occasion. He was held out of practice and one game last September when police found marijuana in the apartment he shared with then-teammates Maurice Evans, Abe Koroma and A.J. Wallace, though Quarless did not receive the three-game suspension that befell Evans and Koroma.
Quarless fell behind Mickey Shuler on the depth chart, and he caught just two passes — both in the Rose Bowl loss to USC — over the Nittany Lions’ final seven games. During the offseason, he rededicated himself to his conditioning and, more importantly, cut alcohol out of his life.
“It’s something I felt I had to do, for my team, my family, for this program. Something I really felt I had to sacrifice,” said Quarless, who turned 21 on Monday. “That part of me was only getting me into trouble and making this program, and my family, look bad.
“It’s not really that important to me. I have other things in my life that are more important. I don’t know when I’m going to drink again.”
His father has seen other changes, too.
“He’s gone through a maturation process that has led me to see it a bit more clearly than I do before,” Duncan said. “I do think he has always had a certain discipline and accepted a certain responsibility to develop the gifts that he possesses.”
Quarless’ relationship with Penn State head coach Joe Paterno, who publicly bemoaned his player’s poor decision-making and privately would get so frustrated with him that, Quarless says, “he wouldn’t even speak to me,” has come a long way.
“We went through some tough times,” Quarless said. “Now, me and him can joke around and really talk to each other. It’s a really good feeling.”
Teammates still tease Quarless about his two most memorable run-ins — of the literal variety — with Paterno. The nation saw the second one, when Quarless caught a short third-down pass near the sideline in the 2006 game against Wisconsin and was tackled out-of-bounds by Badgers linebacker DeAndre Levy. The two bowled over Paterno, resulting in a broken left leg and ligament damage to the coach’s left knee, which relegated Paterno to the press box for most of the remainder of the season.
Quarless had also bowled over Paterno a few weeks earlier in practice, knocking the coach’s trademark glasses off his head when Paterno didn’t stay deep enough on a long pass play.
“He kind of joked around a couple times,” Quarless said. “Told me, ‘Stay away from me on the sideline.’”
This season, Quarless has been almost everywhere but on the sideline for the Nittany Lions. He’s lined up as a tight end, as a slot receiver, even as an outside receiver in four-wide sets. His 16 receptions are five shy of his career high and five more than he had all of last season.
“Whatever they need me to do,” he said. “If they need me to split out, they need me to block, I’m happy to do it.”
Another sign of how far Quarless has come is a duty he has assigned himself — serving as a mentor to Penn State’s young tight ends, including Andrew Szczerba and Mark Wedderburn.
“I’m on them as much as the coaches are,” he said. “It could be small stuff, like not running a route to a certain depth. I’m really trying to pick apart their game like I pick apart my game.
“That definitely was me (as a young player). That’s why I can’t be on them too much,” he said. “They’re going to make their mistakes, and they’re going to learn. But if I can get on them now and make them understand how important the fundamentals are early in their career, it’s only going to make them better.”
First, they’ll have to watch Quarless and Shuler. With 25 catches over his final seven (most likely eight, if Penn State reaches a bowl) games, Quarless would break Ted Kwalick’s 41-year-old school record for career receptions by a tight end. He is more than likely to be the first Penn State tight end taken in the draft since Matt Kranchick (sixth round) in 2004 and hopes to have his name called much earlier.
“I’ve seen the last couple tight ends to have been picked in high rounds, and I think it’s just a more versatile type of player,” he said. “Going into the draft, I want to be the strongest, the fastest and the quickest. That’s my goal. Just show them the type of athlete I am. I believe I can do that.”
Duncan, who laughed when he admitted he wanted Andrew to stick to Little League baseball when he first took an interest in putting on pads, isn’t as concerned with what awaits his son in the future as with what kind of son that future brings.
“I told them that I don’t really care about the fame and fortune aspect of their development,” Duncan said. “What I want to see is that they develop to be men of God, to be able to walk as they ought to in this life, be it the NFL or any other endeavor in the future.”
He is proud of how Andrew has handled the troubles he faced at Penn State.
“The easiest thing to do in some of the situations that he’s faced is to run,” Duncan said. “And running isn’t really manifest humility. I think manifest humility is dealing with whatever are the repercussions of any actions that are resulting in discomfort.”
Another way to stay humble? Whenever Quarless looks in the mirror, his tattoos — his favorite and the one across his chest that reads “Blessed” — keep his focus where he wants it to be.
“They’re reminders of what I stand for and what I’m about,” he said.
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