Raheem Brock

Both Temple and Pittsburgh entered the 2001 football season expecting to take a step forward after promising campaigns last year. But when they meet today in a Big East Conference game at Veterans Stadium, the Owls and the Panthers will be searching for a way to salvage their seasons. Temple, which finished 4-7 in 2000, is 2-4 overall and 1-2 in the conference. Pittsburgh is 1-5 and 0-3. Last fall, the Panthers were 7-5 and lost to Iowa State in the Insight.com Bowl. "I thought we had a chance if everybody played up to their level, but unfortunately, that hasn't happened," Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris said, addressing the possibility that his team had the potential to play in a more prestigious bowl game.

Brian Westbrook was at his parents' home in Maryland, thrilled to be drafted in the third round. Raheem Brock was at his parents' home in Philadelphia, disappointed to drop all the way to the seventh round. Both players were excited to be taken by the Eagles. "Philly is my second home now," said Westbrook, the record-breaking running back from Villanova. "I've been here for five years. The Eagles let me know they wanted me to be here. And they run the West Coast offense here, so they throw the ball to the running back a lot. " As for Brock, he rattled off a list of 10 names when asked who his favorite Eagles were when he was growing up. "I still have Randall Cunningham hanging over my bed," said Brock, a defensive end from Temple.

The Indianapolis Colts have the second-ranked pass defense in the NFL, so logic suggests the Eagles will stick with their recent approach and keep on running the ball. Right? Well, maybe not. Those league rankings are based purely on yardage. The Colts haven't given up a lot of passing yards, especially lately, because opponents have gotten big leads against them. "It's partly an offshoot of that, I would think," Eagles offensive coordinator Brad Childress said. "If you get behind, people are going to run the ball to run out the clock.

For all his size and talent, Raheem Brock still is described by his football coach at Dobbins Tech as a "sleeping giant. " Yet it's not as if nobody in the city has heard of him. "To tell you the truth, teams tend to avoid him," coach Doug Macauley said in describing how opposing offenses have been formulating their game plans lately. Of course, when the opponents are on defense, the 6-foot-3, 240-pound senior tight end/linebacker/punter is impossible to avoid. He comes at them in so many ways, from so many angles, and with so much power.

Raheem Brock and Terah DeLarge were ninth graders and inseparable friends when they went out for the Dobbins Tech football team. They were fearless, bowing their heads and thrusting their bodies forward like battering rams into the wall of offensive linemen. Smashing forward, tumbling to the ground, picking their bruised-numbed bodies up on defense only to hammer others down, they played so well they moved up to varsity after only two days on the junior varsity. At the end of their freshman year, 1993, they hoisted the Public League championship trophy above their heads in one of those tearfully victorious moments that makes a person feel invincible.

Those college football coaches attempting to recruit Raheem Brock are hereby advised to break out their best material. Come with a tired, old pitch and, hey, it's going to fall on ears that might as well be packed with wax. Brock, a 6-4, 250-pound stud, is a tight end, linebacker and punter for coach Doug Macauley at Murrell Dobbins Tech and one of the city's top Division I-A football prospects. He values his time. And at night, he does more than watch TV or listen to music.

In the NFL, one player's misfortune is another's opportunity. Defensive end Daryl Whittington didn't get any invitations to training camp last summer after finishing his college career at Missouri. He spent the last year working out, convinced that he was at least as good an NFL prospect as his brother Bernard, who plays for the Cincinnati Bengals. When he didn't get a call before the current training camps began opening, Whittington began to wonder whether he'd ever get a chance.

All of the Eagles' rookies will be eligible to report to training camp tonight, although it took a strange turn of events for the team to accomplish that goal. After signing second-round pick Sheldon Brown to a five-year, $3.15 million contract, the Eagles renounced the rights to seventh-round pick Raheem Brock. In other words, the Eagles released the former Temple defensive end without ever signing him to a contract. "The Eagles didn't manage their rookie pool right and now they're missing out on a good player," agent George Mavrikes said.

INDIANAPOLIS - At the moment, Gary Brackett and Raheem Brock are thinking about the New York Jets and envisioning another trip to a Super Bowl in Miami. A second NFL title is within the grasp of each man, both of whom have squashed long odds to become vital parts of an underrated Indianapolis Colts defense. Six weeks from now, the focus could be on life after the Colts for each man. Brackett, 29, is in the final season of a four-year deal, and the middle linebacker who grew up an Eagles fan in Glassboro didn't deny that the idea of playing for his hometown team has crossed his mind.

Raheem Brock grew up in Germantown, rooting for the Eagles of Reggie White, Clyde Simmons and Randall Cunningham. And even after 8 years with the Indianapolis Colts - including a stretch of 72 consecutive starts at one point - and a Super Bowl ring, Brock's Philly ties still run deep. Brock, who attended Murrell Dobbins Tech and Temple, opened a national chicken-wing franchise store near the Temple campus last spring and he continues to return to the area to help build his Brock's Kids Foundation.