[Buckskin86]

Penn State expects big impact from big British player Crawford
By Cory Giger,cgiger@altoonamirror.com
POSTED: July 12, 2009

Sophomore defensive end Jack Crawford has an intriguing background.

* He's British and moved to New Jersey in 2005 to play high school basketball.

* He also boxed and played soccer, cricket and rugby as a youth in his home country.

* He had never played football until he was a junior in high school but still was able to earn a scholarship to Penn State.

* He had never heard of Joe Paterno until the father of his host family pointed out the legendary coach during a game on TV.

* That host-family father, Steven D'Andrea, was a point guard on the St. Francis basketball team from 1977-80 and graduated from the Loretto school.
UNIVERSITY PARK - With all due respect to NFL first-round pick Aaron Maybin, even he wouldn't stack up against Jack Crawford in a contest of most impressive physical specimen.

As linebacker Jerome Hayes put it, the chiseled 6-foot-5, 265-pound Crawford "looks like a monster."

Anyone who saw Crawford work out Friday at Penn State's annual Lift for Life charity event surely took notice of his impressive physique. The sophomore defensive end is 30 pounds heavier than Maybin, a first-team All-American, was last season and is viewed by many to be the breakout player on the Nittany Lion defense this fall.

Those expectations are remarkable considering Crawford's past.

The 20-year-old from London, England, moved to the United States just four years ago to pursue a basketball career, and he had never played football until he was a high school junior three years ago.

Before then, Crawford had no idea who Joe Paterno was. He didn't even know what offsides meant or that there are four downs in a series.

He knew almost nothing about American football, short of what he had seen in a cheesy, glamorized Hollywood movie starring Jamie Foxx and Al Pacino.

"Until I watched 'Any Given Sunday' on TV, I didn't know anything about the sport," Crawford said.

That film, he added, taught Crawford "that there's a lot of money in football."

He will earn a bunch of that money someday, too - if he turns out to be anywhere near as good as his potential suggests.

"You can just imagine what he's going to be like once he gets a couple more years under his belt," PSU defensive tackle Devon Still said.

Penn State expects big impact from big British player Crawford - AltoonaMirror.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - The Altoona Mirror