Orlando Sentinel
Which side of Percy Harvin will show up for UF this fall?
Dave Curtis | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted July 2, 2006
The history maker?
First athlete in 69 years to win five gold medals at Virginia's track and field state championships, but first in at least six to be suspended from all Virginia High School League athletic competition.
The football phenom?
Scored 65 touchdowns in his past two seasons, but missed parts of each year for suspensions connected to unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
The prized pupil?
A 3.0 student with a penchant for helping teachers in and out of the classroom, but earned a two-day suspension as a junior for an altercation with his school's wrestling coach.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- One October night, in the fourth quarter of another Landstown High rout, wide receiver Percy Harvin felt himself thrown to the ground.
He heard the First Colonial High defenders talking trash, and he felt their spit hit his face. He popped up angry and shouting, saw three pairs of arms in front of him and threw his own arms into the fray.
A minute later, he was on the sideline, ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct for the second time in as many seasons. "He's a punk," some in the stands yelled.
Similar taunts came from crowds throughout the year. All the while, those who knew him best wondered what kind of boy he had become.
One spring day, a month after he signed with Florida as one of the nation's top-ranked recruits, Harvin stood in his government teacher's backyard. Sharon McLaughlin, a recent widow, wanted to return to gardening, a passion she had shared with her husband.
She needed strong hands to move earth and jump-start her planting. So Harvin worked in the garden, wielding a spade and bringing joy. "He's an angel," McLaughlin whispered on the phone in May.
Similar stories would come from the folks at Landstown High throughout the year. All the while, those who knew Harvin best wondered what kind of boy he had become.
Welcome to the duality of William Percy Harvin III, who starts classes at Florida on Monday morning and plans to start playing for the Gators on Sept. 2 against Southern Miss.
Harvin, a Parade magazine national player-of-the-year finalist, possesses the speed and athleticism ideal for Florida Coach Urban Meyer's spread offense. He could contribute as a receiver and return man this season, and the thought of him teaming with quarterback Tim Tebow for the rest of the decade makes UF fans think national title.
"That's our goal," Harvin said. "That's the kind of stuff we talk about when we get together."
There's a problem side to the star player. For every Harvin highlight, on and off the field, there are Harvin high jinks. His dozens of touchdowns are obscured by a handful of meltdowns. For each framed newspaper report extolling his skills and character, there's a clipping in the archives questioning his conduct.
The result of the contradictions? In eight months, Harvin went from one of Virginia's most decorated athletes to one of its most disgraced.
"People try to provoke him," said Dwight Robinson, Landstown's basketball coach and a football assistant. "When Percy's frustrated, he reacts. He needs to learn how to control that."
Temper, as much as talent, has crafted the resume Harvin carries with him to Gainesville. In his final two years at Landstown, he participated in four school-related altercations; all earned him a suspension. In February, that record prompted the Virginia High School League -- the group that oversees prep athletics in the state -- to ban Harvin from all interscholastic competition for the rest of his high-school career.
Trouble started during the football season opener his junior year in 2004, when Harvin drew two unsportsmanlike penalties, the second for dunking a ball through the goalposts after a touchdown. The two infractions carried an automatic one-game suspension.
That winter, Landstown officials suspended Harvin from two days of classes after he hit teacher/wrestling coach John Sendzik during a spat in the cafeteria. Harvin said the incident came during a game in which students try to playfully steal each other's lunches.
"He was reaching over me, trying to get my sandwich, and I swung around and got him," he said. "It was nothing. It got blown out of proportion."
April 2005 brought Harvin's lone brush with the law: a misdemeanor assault charge for his role in a street fight. Details of the incident remain unclear, but a firearm -- not carried by Harvin -- was believed to be involved. Charges were brought against three other males, but they were dropped for Harvin and another man.
Then came the First Colonial game. A report filed by officials said Harvin struck a ref and called him a homosexual slur. That earned him a one-game suspension, which Landstown Principal Brian Baxter doubled.
"He could have handled it differently," said Tom Anderson, a Landstown football assistant and the school's track coach. "But those incidents were in the heat of the game. I mean, somebody spit on him."
A late-January basketball game turned out to be Harvin's final high-school athletic event. During a dead-ball situation in the second half of an already-chippy game, Harvin and Green Run's Joe Jones traded verbal barbs, then shoves. Referees separated the pair, then declared the game over with time remaining on the clock.
Sitting in a Landstown classroom in March, Harvin listens to a list of the incidents. He bobs his head a bit and his arms tense every few seconds, causing the wild cat tattoo on his right arm to appear to flinch.
Harvin speaks slowly at first, then quickens his pace, almost as if he is gaining confidence in his words as he goes.
"It's something the coaches talk to me about," Harvin said. "'Coach Rob' and 'Coach A' [Anderson] have helped me understand what I need to do better. I've made some mistakes. But I don't have a problem with my temper."
In early February, on the weekend that followed the Green Run game, Robinson, LHS Athletic Director Dave Siock and Linda Harvin, Percy's mother, decided to end Harvin's basketball season, citing safety concerns. Soon, though, the VHSL made that decision moot, handing down the first full-scale participation ban in at least six years.
Upon hearing the news, Percy Harvin cried.
The reasons for the suspension remain unclear. Harvin and his family say they never were told why such a ruling came down. Contacted last week, school and league officials deferred to each other for an explanation.
"The school knows why [he was suspended]," VHSL assistant director Tom Zimorski said. "I would rather that information come from them.
Said Baxter: "I don't know why [he was suspended]. That was their decision, not a Landstown decision."
Baxter, though, said the decision worked out for the best. He has counseled Harvin, trying to help him understand the importance of self-control.
"Percy is a good kid who's extremely competitive," Baxter said. "He got caught up a little in the media hype and having his name in the newspaper all the time. He's better prepared for what he's going to face because of his experiences."
The VHSL's decision ended Harvin's adventures as a high-school athlete. But the move also kept him from placing a proper cap on an illustrious schoolboy career.
As a junior, he leaped into the national elite with a remarkable fall-to-spring run. His 32 touchdowns helped Landstown win a state football title. Four scores came in the state final, where he accounted for 292 yards of offense and intercepted three passes.
"You flip on the tape and watch three plays," Meyer said. "And [you] go on to the next one thinking he's as good a football player and athlete as there is in America."
That winter, Harvin led the basketball team to the state final, where the Eagles lost despite his game-high 27 points. And last June, Harvin won five gold medals at the state outdoor track meet, a feat last accomplished in 1936. He won the long jump, the triple jump and the 100- and 200-meter finals, and was part of the winning 4 x 100 relay team.
The success led to issues Harvin never figured he would face. He and his coaches say he became a target for opposing players' cheap shots, which started during a summer football passing league and continued through the winter. Elbows, shoves and punches would follow every play, with Landstown coaches claiming whistles and penalty flags only came when Harvin retaliated.
"Just a lot of unnecessary shots," he said. "Get hit in the head, hit late, hit when I was out of bounds. They never seemed to call it until we did something."
The school, though, entered 2005 with a knack for retaliating often. The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reported that the 2004 state-champion Eagles committed twice as many unsportsmanlike conduct penalties as any team in the region.
Midway through the 2005 football season, the VHSL issued a sportsmanship warning against Landstown, which carried the implicit threat of banishment from competition.
Harvin, his friends and coaches say, became the face of those problems. Many suspect the punishments he faced were directed as much at his school as at him.
"It's not fair," said Siock, the Landstown AD who played basketball at Syracuse from 1989-93. "No 17-year-old should have to deal with what he went through."
"Everybody has an opinion by what they've read or what they heard," said Landstown wide receiver Damon McDaniel, headed for Florida State. "He's not like what they think. He's been a great teammate."
McLaughlin, the government teacher who bonded with Harvin in summer school a year ago, said reports of Harvin's problems nearly brought her to tears. He's a good boy, she said, who attends church services with Anderson and volunteers in soup kitchens and senior-citizen centers.
Most major-college football coaches seemed to agree, keeping Harvin high on their wish lists. By mid-fall, Florida and USC had emerged as the favorites to land him, with the Gators prevailing when Harvin announced Dec. 19.
"They just seemed more interested from Day One," Linda Harvin said of Florida. "The whole time, they were on the same page as us."
Before Harvin signed, Meyer needed more comfort with the player's history. On his visit to Landstown, he talked with a few of the school's female employees about Harvin's behavior. Convinced by their responses and his own chats with Harvin, Meyer said he doesn't worry about potential problems. That stance didn't change with the VHSL's permanent suspension, which came less than a week after National Signing Day.
"It's one of the educated guesses you take in recruiting," Meyer said. "He realizes he's made some mistakes, but we think he's going to do fine with us. I feel good about this one."
Harvin's senior season, with more than 1,800 yards and 33 touchdowns, boosted the coaches' confidence more. And his progress this spring without organized sports impressed, too. Under the tutelage of Terri Burnham, his aunt and a professional bodybuilder, Harvin rose at 4:45 a.m. four days per week to lift at Flex Gym and run hills at Mount Trashmore Park.
Harvin said he chose UF in part for the immediate opportunity to play. He hopes at least to be a regular return man by September and spends afternoon visualizing turning a Southern Miss kick into a touchdown.
"I'm ready to get down there," Harvin said in May. "I can't wait to play college football and put the [expletive] here behind me. I look at it like a new beginning."
The new beginning begins Monday morning in a UF lecture hall. Meanwhile, everyone waits, wondering what kind of man Percy Harvin will become.
Dave Curtis can be reached at [email protected].
