KENT, Ohio — Thinking he had a legitimate chance at walking on to the Kent State football team in the winter of 2009, Norman Wolfe simply walked into the football offices and introduced himself.
This happens often, and often it leads nowhere. Given the amount of classroom work and paperwork that Wolfe would have to do to even get started — not to mention that he looked more like a ball boy than a future contributor — the odds were really long in this particular case.
Such improbable success stories have become a trend at Kent State. On Friday night, the No. 17 Golden Flashes play for their first Mid-American Conference title in 40 years and possibly for a spot in a BCS bowl. Norman Wolfe, per usual, will start at cornerback.
If it weren't for Kent State's human highlight reel on the offensive side of the ball, Dri Archer, Wolfe — who's generously listed at 5-foot-7, 165 pounds — would be the smallest player on the field by a mile. As is, he'll settle for the title of Kent State's most grateful player in a locker room full of them.
The Golden Flashes roster is full of guys who were told by other programs that they weren't big enough or weren't good enough. The truth, in lots of cases, is they weren't. Kent State's 11-1 mark is especially remarkable because it's the school's first winning season since 2001. Through constant coaching changes and roster turnover, Kent State has too often been the place where football careers go to die.
Wolfe has made the most of the chance to keep his going.
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He started football at age 7 playing for the South Rangers, consistently the top peewee program in the Akron city limits. By the time Wolfe starred at Buchtel High, he was following in the footsteps of cousins, neighbors and friends who had made Buchtel a football factory and a frequent stop for college recruiters from across the Midwest.
But when longtime Buchtel coach Claude Brown went to jail on sex-related charges before Wolfe's senior year, Wolfe said a lot of college coaches quit coming.
"A lot of schools stopped contacting me, stopped being interested," Wolfe said. "I'd call them, but they wouldn't call back except Coach (Larry) McDaniel."
McDaniel, an assistant at Kent State from 2003-10, kept his eye on Wolfe, but he could do only so much. Wolfe admits many coaches stopped calling, too, "after they saw my grades." Even though McDaniel stayed in touch, there's only so much he could do.
As high school came to an end, Wolfe was not only without a scholarship offer but also without a high school diploma. He passed the right classes but hadn't passed the Ohio Graduation Test, the latest in what he said was a long battle with tests.
"I always did my homework," he said. "I never tested well. I never took school seriously. Doing my homework was doing just enough to get by. Where I'm from, sports is what you think is going to take you where you want to go. Then high school was ending and there I was not graduating and wondering what I was going to do next."
In the weeks after his classmates at Buchtel graduated, Wolfe went across town for summer tutoring at Kenmore High School. By the end of the summer, he passed the OGT and officially became a high school graduate.
He spent that fall "working and working out," and he paid his own way to Kent State for the winter semester. He was told he'd need good grades and good workouts with the football team to even have a chance to stick it out, and he delivered both. Wolfe got a 3.0 in his first five college classes — "I never had a 3.0 in my life, not even in elementary school," he said — and went through spring practice at the bottom of the cornerback depth chart.
"I was on the fourth team in the spring," he said, breaking into a chuckle. "I was on the fourth team behind the second guy on the fourth team."
Wolfe did enough to get asked to come back, and through the summer and the following season, guys on the first, second and third teams either got injured or left school. He played in 11 games, getting picked on by opposing quarterbacks and receivers in more than a couple.
He kept coming back. By the time his second spring practice came in early 2010, he had earned a full scholarship.
"It was a long road," he said. "I didn't understand what the coaches meant with different coverages and stuff. At Buchtel, there were no coverages, it was man-to-man, cover the guy in front of you. No safety help, no nothing, get the job done.
"Now we were playing zone, making calls and I (was) lost. But I tried to stay focused. I asked questions. I just kept believing."
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The words those folks in and around the program associate with Wolfe are "tough" and "reliable." When defensive coordinator and cornerbacks coach Jon Heacock needs somebody to jump to the front of a line, he knows Wolfe will be coming. When Heacock thinks about where Wolfe has been, he beams with pride.
"First of all, he had to do a bunch of extra schoolwork and do it well to get a fourth year of eligibility because he didn't qualify out of high school," Heacock said. "He's a great example, in that regard, and he's not only going to get a degree in December, but he's going to help a lot of people in the next part of his life."
Heacock doesn't recall Wolfe's name popping up on any recruiting list at FCS program Youngstown State, where Heacock was head coach from 2001-09. In a little less than two years on the same team and in the same meeting rooms, Heacock has become a fan and an admirer.
"I know he's a great father," Heacock said. "He's been a leader. He's been a prime example for young players and a big reason we've been so successful this year."
Wolfe's daughter, Milan, is a year old. Fellow defensive back Darius Polk is her godfather and Wolfe's best friend.
"Norman is an outstanding man," Polk said. "He never quit. And ask any coach, he never complained. He's been through injuries, family stuff, walking on, all the losing. Not once did he ever lower his head or complain. No matter what it's been, he's kept his eyes on the prize and a smile on his face. He has the biggest heart. He's the toughest guy on the team.
"I love that guy."
Wolfe had five interceptions as a sophomore and three last year, when a broken foot shortened his season. This season, he broke his right arm taking on a lineman at Kentucky in September, and he refused to come out of the game. He missed more than a month of action but returned while still wearing a cast.
His most recent interception came at Bowling Green on Nov. 17, the win that clinched the MAC East title and a trip to Detroit for Friday's showdown with Northern Illinois. On the field after the game, Wolfe was surprised by a large hand grasping his right shoulder.
It was McDaniel, now an assistant at Bowling Green.
"Good luck in the MAC championship game," McDaniel told Wolfe. "I'm proud of you."
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Wolfe doesn't name an opposing receiver or his size among his greatest battles. Instead, he points to his struggles with test-taking and the steep hill behind Lane Field in Akron.
Up that hill he'd run "a million times" with the South Rangers, at the time just hoping to be the next great South Ranger like LeBron James or former Ohio Mr. Football and Northwestern star Tyrell Sutton. He ran it during high school, and he was still running it last summer when he came home, as a reminder of how far he has come.
Asked who will be happiest when the name Norman Wolfe flashes on the screen during the national broadcast of the MAC championship game, he paused for 10 or 15 seconds.
"Everybody," was his answer. "This is for everybody who ever played for South Rangers, everybody at Buchtel, everybody I ever played against, everybody who ever helped me. I saw this happening, I really did.
"It was dark when I was seeing it, but I saw it. I want to say I believed it."
Wolfe's official Kent State biography lists his parents, Norman and Shirley Wolfe, and two siblings. Wolfe said he lived with his parents, has a sister he has never met and considers "20 people . . . who always had each other" as his family. He lived with his grandmother in the summers, he said, and is the only male in his family who's not over 6 feet tall.
"My grandmother showed me toughness," Wolfe said. "She's the littlest lady I know, but she'll take down anybody."
If anybody's going to cry seeing him play in Kent State's biggest football game since the 1972 Tangerine Bowl, Wolfe guessed that his mother might. They don't talk often, he said, "but she prays for me. And she always tell me to drink more milk because I get hurt too much."
Wolfe never liked playing defense before he got to Kent State because offensive players "got all the touchdowns and all the attention." Polk said he remembers teammates actually laughing the first time they met Wolfe and he told them he was joining the team and playing cornerback.
"All my life, I've been the smallest guy," Wolfe said. "I had to scuffle. You have to be tough, there's no way around it."
Once too shy to ask for help or even directly thank those who had helped him at the beginning of his journey, Wolfe is now known to drop in to various offices of various people who work around the program and thank them — for the 20th or 25th time — for their help.
Next month, he'll graduate with a degree in sports administration with minors in business and coaching.
"This dream," Wolfe said, "it's amazing."
