PHOTO COURTESY OF CHARLES WAINWRIGHT
Justin Pugh, a graduate of Council Rock South High School, is pictured competing at Syracuse University. He was recently drafted to play professionally in New York.
By Mike Gibson
For the Wire
In what may go down as one of the greatest sports videos of the year, Justin Pugh is shown at his Bucks County home taking a phone call from the New York Giants, who tell him he is a first-round NFL draft pick.
As soon as Pugh hangs up, he is mobbed and tackled by eight life-long friends, all of them going crazy.
It’s pure joy all around, and the moment is captured forever by good friend Kevin Brooks, standing behind the video camera.
CBS put the footage on its website and at least one local TV station, 6ABC, ran with it. If you haven’t seen it, click here and fast forward to the 1:55 time stamp. Everything else before that is just a prelude.
“They were my best friends,” Pugh said. “Corey Radel, Mike Perkiss, Jake Lerner, Jason Laderman, Jarred Dorfman, Harrison Green, Andrew Leace, Jake Shear and the guy standing behind the camera, Kevin Brooks.
“We go way back. They were my best friends from high school, but also a lot of them were also friends from Rolling Hills Elementary School and Holland Middle School.”
So the living room at Pugh’s home on Doris Avenue in Holland was the perfect studio for Brooks’ camera, not Radio City Music Hall in New York, where the draft was shown live on both the NFL Network and ESPN.
“I didn’t go to New York for the NFL draft,” Pugh said. “I wasn’t invited. Even if I was, I wouldn’t have gone anyway. I didn’t want to be one of those guys like (West Virginia quarterback) Geno Smith, sitting around and waiting to get drafted.
“More important, I would not have had a chance to share it with my family and friends and I think I made the right decision.”
It was one of many good decisions Pugh has made since coming onto the scene as an outstanding football player at Council Rock South High School.
“He came to us as a ninth grader,” said South head coach Vince Bedesem. “Your eyes perk up any time you see someone that big that young. He was 6-foot-1, with a 200-pound frame as a ninth grader.
“We were going back and forth about whether we wanted to bring him up [to the varsity], but we decided to let him play with the ninth graders and, as a sophomore, he just made leaps and bounds and started for us on the offensive line,” he added. “He just made another leap going into his junior year and he ended up starting on both the offensive and defensive lines for us.”
That terrific junior year led to interest from Syracuse, which was the only FBS (Football Sub-Division) team to offer him a scholarship. Villanova was among a group of FCS (Football Championship Series) schools to offer him.
Temple, whose head coach was Al Golden at the time, never got involved even though Golden had a good reputation for knowing Southeastern Pennsylvania talent.
“Temple would have definitely been in my top two, had they recruited me,” Pugh said. “Did Al Golden know who I was? He does now. ”
So does every college football coach who is now kicking himself over missing on a first-round talent.
“Greg Robinson was the Syracuse head coach at the time, but the recruiter was a guy named Phil Earley, who really did his homework,” Bedesem explained. “He knew my dad (Villanova, Delaware Valley, Bishop Egan and Archbishop Wood head coach Dick Bedesem), so we had a good rapport.
“A lot of good college recruiting is due diligence and Earley did that, and Justin committed early in the process, going into his senior year. Boston College got involved late and wanted him as a defensive player.”
Earley is now a current tight ends’ coach at Fresno State, but he also recruited Ryan Nassib to play quarterback at Syracuse.
Ironically, the Giants drafted Nassib, who played for Malvern Prep, in the fourth round.
On the phone with Pugh telling him he was drafted was another Syracuse grad, Giants’ head coach Tom Coughlin.
“He’s real smart and he’s technically sound,” Coughlin said during a recent press conference. “The best thing about him is that he’s versatile. When you talk about pass protection, run blocking, combo blocking, he can do all of those things and do them all equally well. He’s a great kid but, when he gets on the field, he’s competitive, he’s nasty and he likes the game.”
At least Pugh and coach will have something to talk about.
“That’s great the way things worked out,” Pugh said. “It’s going to be great playing with Ryan again and I was telling coach Coughlin before I hung up the phone that we could talk about Syracuse when we get together.”
That’s when all heck broke loose at his home in Holland on draft night.
“I wanted to be home that night because I wanted to stick with the people who stuck by me,” Pugh said. “We have eight guys in our core group of friends and we all have the number 8 tattooed. We call ourselves the crew.
“We all went our separate ways yet we stuck together. Those guys are like my brothers. They are my brothers.”
And now, they are all stars in one of the best celebratory sports moments ever.
