Here’s a quick story about Dan Conley, the new linebackers coach for the Syracuse football team, who’s back on campus this season more than a decade after ending his six-year, injury-marred, fan-beloved career as a SU linebacker:

Before his first season in 1990, before he’d played a down for Syracuse, before he’d shredded his knees for Syracuse, Conley asked long-time equipment manager Kyle Fetterly if he could wear No. 44.

It wasn’t a big deal to him at the time. Tailback Mike Owens would graduate soon, and the number would be available. Conley wore 44 in high school. Why not now?

Fetterly put his arm around Conley.

‘Son,’ he said, ‘You don’t know much about Syracuse, do you?’

No, he didn’t. Conley wore 49 instead.

***

Eighteen years later, Dan Conley walked off the practice field, through two sets of double doors and into the lobby of the Iocolano-Petty Football Complex. He grabbed a seat on a dark blue leather couch, his back facing a wall lined with black and white photos of Syracuse’s football All-Americans.

Conley’s picture isn’t on this wall, but he came close. Close enough to understand what the players behind him meant to this program. He leaned forward on the couch as he spoke, talking about the No. 44 and Syracuse football, a pyramid to which each added their own slab of brick.

‘It’s not just about certain guys, but it’s about all the guys,’ he said. ‘Everybody who’s ever played here, in my opinion, they played for that number, that tradition.’

Now he coaches players who represent that tradition, laid low though it may be today.

He’s back at SU, hired this offseason to replace former defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Steve Russ, who left for Wake Forest. Head coach Greg Robinson took over the defense and bequeathed the linebackers to Conley.

Most football coaches played the game, but Conley still looks the part. He looks like a linebacker. Perhaps the muscles are sedated when they used to be supercharged, but they’re still there, the shoulders and trunk and quads and thighs all massive.

He coaches that way too, his players say. Like a linebacker. He teaches tips to remember schemes, how to fill up a gap quicker, how to play aggressive.

But he’s more than just an old linebacker. Conley insists that. He’s a coach now, a 12-year vet who worked his way back here. He coached at small schools: Canisius, West Virginia Tech, Iona, Wagner College. He performed tasks menial and monotonous: lining fields, washing jocks, making copies.

When Robinson brought him in to interview in February, Conley had spent the past three years as an assistant at Wagner on Staten Island. He’d settled down with his family. But Robinson wanted him. And Conley couldn’t say no.

‘The more time I spent with him, the more I really felt like he could really do a fine job for us coaching,’ Robinson said. ‘And when you take into consideration that he played here at Syracuse and overcame all the adversity that he had to overcome, I thought that it was a no-brainer.’

Conley inherited a linebacker core in flux. Senior Jake Flaherty returned as the starter in the middle, with junior Mike Stenclik backing him up. But former starters on the outside Vincenzo Giruzzi and Ben Maljovec are gone: Giruzzi converted to defensive end, Maljovec to tight end.

Starting in their place are sophomores Derrell Smith and Mike Mele. Mele is 6-foot, 218 pounds. Smith is a converted tailback. They are a work in progress, caught in a haze of missed tackles and blown assignments in last week’s, 30-10, season-opening loss to Northwestern.

But Conley’s demeanor keeps them loose, and his presence keeps them motivated, even after Saturday’s deflation.

‘Having Conley be this Syracuse legend and now he’s our coach, it’s just like, we just don’t want to let him down,’ Stenclik said. ‘So it’s sort of that whole pride issue. Syracuse Orange pride.’

Conley carries that with him. He talks about his memories of playing in the Carrier Dome, of trips to the Fiesta Bowl, of that time he missed former Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart on a speed option.

He was All-Big East twice and 11th all-time in tackles for the Orange. He set an SU freshman record for tackles (126) in 1990. He was the real deal, 6-foot-2, 250 pounds with a nose for the football, a fan favorite and a lock to play on Sundays.

Except his right knee just wouldn’t hold up.

He first ripped up the knee in 1991 and had surgery. Thus, the birth of a pattern: Conley would rip up his knees and then they’d be repaired. The injuries kept coming during his career – 15 total surgeries and four reconstructions at this point.

But because of all the injuries, the NCAA granted him a sixth year of eligibility He played nine games that season, none more memorable than Nov. 5 against Miami.

Doctors again operated on that right knee midway through the 1994 season. He came back a few weeks later against the Hurricanes with 18 tackles and an interception in a loss. But the game was more than that, a test of wills in which the Orange shut Miami out in the first half before collapsing in the second. It was his calling card, a testament to a body so fragile but so resilient, the Pittsburgh kid who’d given everything for his team. His fans would always have Miami.

But Conley wanted more. He kept pushing, his hopes set on the NFL. He earned a spot at the 1995 Hula Bowl, the postseason collegiate all-star game in Hawaii. He was captain of the North squad and persuaded the coach to let him play defensive end when the starter went down.

He was rushing the passer with a few minutes to go when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament. Of his left knee. He knew soon after that his career was over.

‘Somebody once told me it’s like being a rock star and being the lead singer of the band, and playing in front of 40,000, 50,000 people day in and day out,’ Conley said. ‘And all of a sudden, one day, it’s over. And everyone says, ‘Hey, nice job.’

‘But it’s over. What do you do afterwards?’

Conley didn’t know. He wasn’t ready. His focus had always been on football, on the next level, blinders slicing everything else out of his way.

He got a job at Tully’s on Erie Boulevard to kill time. He tried to latch on in the Canadian Football League, traveling to Saskatchewan. He lasted four practices. He was lost; he understood that much.

But then Conley caught a break.

George Mangicaro, the head football coach at Liverpool High School, needed another assistant for his junior varsity team. Conley needed a paycheck.

‘The very first day I was there, as little as I knew about the schemes,’ Conley said, ‘I knew that I could teach them linebacker skills.’

He coordinated the defense, another Syracuse grad named Gary Acchione ran the offense and the team had a winning season. Conley found his direction.

Then he caught another break. There was an open spot as a graduate assistant with SU, a chance for the big man on campus to be the low man on the totem pole. Conley didn’t hesitate. Two years later, he coached special teams and linebackers at Southern Connecticut State. He arrived at Wagner five years after that.

Three years later, Greg Robinson called and Dan Conley came back to Syracuse.

***

Here’s one more quick story about Conley:

Eighteen years after Conley, the player, asked to wear 44, Conley, the coach, stood before a group during spring practice.

‘How many of you guys know why Elmira, N.Y., is important to Syracuse?’ he asked.

The coach did. Ernie Davis – who helped make 44 into 44 – grew up in Elmira. About half the kids knew what Conley was talking about.

The other half?

They’ll learn, Dan Conley thought.

ramccull@syr.edu

Published on September 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm