When Kyle Brady was a senior at Cedar Cliff High in New Cumberland, Pa., he was all-world. He won the Bobby Dodd Award as the country's best high school lineman. He was an All-America. He could have played his college football anywhere.
"The calls were coming in from everywhere," Brady remembered. "They were coming from Michigan, Miami, Southern Cal, UCLA."
There also were a few calls from Happy Valley. And the coach there had a pitch that was hard to resist.
"Joe (Paterno) guaranteed me that if I came we'll either have an undefeated team or play for a national championship," Brady said. "I said, 'You guarantee it. Then I'm going to come.'
"This is why you come here to play football. It's taken a while and it's down to the wire, but, hopefully, this will be the one."
Brady is the fifth-year tight end for Penn State who plays like both a wide receiver and a tackle. He's 6-6, 260 pounds.
When he arrived in State College as the highest-profile recruit of the class of 1990, Brady was a kid with exceptional talent. But he was just a kid. Now, he's a man and the talent is unchanged.
Brady wishes he could get a camera, go back and film his life. He then could view all the changes from then until now.
"The way I talked was different, the way I said things, the relationships I was involved in as far as the opposite sex," said Brady, who would like to be able to edit that film.
Life is a constant editing process, but what's done is done. What's next is what matters.
Brady eventually discovered religion and discovered himself.
"It's a much happier feeling to wake up on a Sunday morning here at
college and go to church and be able to hear the birds singing instead of staying in bed until 2 in the afternoon with a hangover and things like that," Brady said. "That's what happens across 50 or 60 percent of this campus, or maybe even more."
It could be happening to Kyle Brady, but he looked in the mirror and changed the picture.
"Out of high school, you're just a kid and you don't know what to expect out of college," Brady said. "You think you know it all, but you really don't."
Brady was a self-confessed wild man in high school. His reputation preceded him to Penn State.
"They definitely had the impression I was a bad egg," Brady said. "When I first got here, Joe wouldn't let me room with a guy I wanted to. He roomed me with (former placekicker Craig) Fayak because he thought he would leave a good impression on me.
"He'd heard about me getting into fights and being a big partyer. I think they were a little worried about me at first. But that all changed."
Brady came in with quarterback Kerry Collins. They will leave together in the spring.
Ironically, Brady's final high school game was in the district championships against Wilson-West Lawn High, quarterbacked by Kerry Collins. Wilson-West Lawn won, 17-7.
"Kyle's done a lot of maturing since he's been here," Collins said. "I think he's at the point now where he knows what kind of person he wants to be and he knows what he wants to get done, not only on the football field, but in life."
It wasn't always so. Brady's parents were divorced when he was 12. There is no practice for that.
"It definitely was difficult," Brady said."There was nothing I could do or nothing I could say. They tried to shelter me from the whole thing. But you're not stupid. You know what's going on.
"It's a tough thing, even now. It still affects you in a lot of ways. But I better understand it now. Looking back, it made me stronger as a person. Now, I know when I get into a relationship, if I ever think about getting married one day, I'll know exactly what I won't do."
What Brady will be doing next year is playing in the NFL. He's a lock first-round draft pick.
Before he started growing, he saw himself playing that sport they don't play these days.
"Up 'til high school, I always dreamed about being a pro baseball player," Brady said. "I was a pitcher and a first baseman. I loved baseball. Didn't want to do anything else.
"If you had asked me when I was 12 years old, I would have wanted nothing more than to be a pitcher in the World Series or a first baseman hitting a home run. I sort of grew out of it, though."
Yes, he did.
Brady is the sixth blocker on what quite possibly is the best offensive line in the country. He also is the kind of target that a quarterback can't miss.
Going into Saturday's game at Indiana, he has caught 66 passes for 777 yards and eight touchdowns at Penn State. And it's not often he's the primary receiver. His blocking is frightening. If you are a defender, you do not want to be in his way.
Now, with just five games to go, Brady is on the team of his life, maybe the team of anybody's life.
"It's amazing, really," he said. "I never had the feeling like we have in the huddle this year. You go in there and you're completely confident. You don't even think about getting stopped. We just go in there and say, 'Let's do it again.' "
Penn State has done it to seven opponents so far, outscoring them, 352-124 - 227-45 in the first half. The Nittany Lions are averaging a nation's-best 50.3 points per game, 9.1 points better than the school record set in 1971.
Can Brady imagine that anybody is better?
"It would take a lot to beat us," Brady said. "Across the board, I can't imagine any team being as well-balanced."
As the scores and the victories have mounted, the stakes have risen. When Penn State was named No. 1 after beating Michigan Oct. 15, it really started to get wild.
"It's been pretty tough," Brady said after Penn State crushed Ohio State, 63-14, last Saturday. "This past week was really difficult. My nerves have been racked more than they've ever been these last couple of weeks.
"Everyone is trying to pull at you. I've been taking my phone off the hook at night when I come home. People told me they can't get through, but you can't sit there and talk to people on the phone all night. You've just got to have some free time once in a while. I think I'll get my number changed."
Who's calling anyway?
"Agents," he said. "All kinds of people that want to congratulate you. It's nice you have that kind of support . . . I'm thankful I'm in a position to get those kinds of calls, but it adds up after a while."
Win and people want to be near you. Win like Penn State has been winning and people just want you.
"It's very hard," Brady admitted. "It's something I never had to deal with. I dealt with high school recruiting, but that was a little bit different as far as the magnitude of it.
"The magnitude of this is just so great. You just really have to escape it once in a while. Walk away and relax. Remember who really cares about you and who's just there because of your football ability. You've got to wonder sometimes what people's motives are."
Brady chose Penn State so his family could see him play. And there was that guarantee. Now, five years have evaporated into five games.
"When you put in five years and you've got one month of regular-season football to play, you're definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel," Brady said.
In this case, the train is Penn State, its engine achored by Kyle Brady.
