PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Football players going from high school to college, you will notice a difference. The guys are indeed bigger, stronger, faster and there are more playing at a high level. Then there is that player who stands above the rest, when Fan Morning Show host Dorin Dickerson went to Pitt, that player was Darrelle Revis who will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.
It was 2006 when Dickerson arrived on Pitt’s campus turning down the biggest names in college football to stay home, he formed a relationship with Revis. The star corner attended Dickerson’s graduation party and had talked to him about what it was like to be a WPIAL/hometown kid at Pitt.
Then there was that first college practice.
“We created this bond when I was younger and first got to Pitt,” Dickerson recalled on the Fan Morning Show. “I’ll never forget when I first saw him in action. He was not just on another level compared to every other athlete, but something took over him every time he put the helmet on. He just turned into a different player. I always thought I need to get myself to that level.”
“You can tell when someone has the ability or the stature or has the brains to be a good player. Darrelle Revis, what I could tell, was that he was going to be the best. He was going to be great. Just by the way he carried himself on the field. When he was on the field, it’s like he put a mask on, like he was Michael Myers. He turned into a different person.”
Dickerson said Revis had that ‘it’ factor. He was a straight talker, but not a good listener. By that he meant he was so focused on the field he wouldn’t even notice you were there. Dickerson said you would try to talk to him and Revis didn’t hear anything because he was in a zone. To use another movie reference, he said Revis was ‘The Terminator’.
“Every time he stepped foot on the field, he was like ‘I am the best’,” Dickerson said on 93.7 The Fan. “I don’t care who is in front of me, but I will take you out.”
“You knew it too. The person across from him knew it too, you were not going to win. He carried that from high school to college to the NFL. He did it every single day and did it the right way.”
Revis is not a talker. He didn’t want the spotlight off the field, rarely did interviews and didn’t need to explain to others how good he was. He just wanted to be the best.
“I’m very fortunate to be a person to be around that,” Dickerson said. “Not many people get to be around somebody that is great at what they do. I don’t care if it’s football, business, broadcasting. You have to treasure and remember those moments of why people have an influence on you.”
Dickerson said he owes part of his six-year NFL career and being a Pitt All-American to Revis. He learned from how the fellow Pitt star handled himself. What you needed to do to get to the next level.
Revis becomes the third player from Aliquippa High School to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame joining Pitt’s Mike Ditka and Ty Law Saturday. He’s the 10th from the University of Pittsburgh and certainly will be joined by at least two more (Larry Fitzgerald, Aaron Donald) and potential one other (LeSean McCoy) who wore the blue and gold.