McGlynn learned to beat adversity

By Joe Scalzo

He was unable to play as a junior at Fitch but stayed with the team and matured.

When Mike McGlynn thinks back on his final two years of football at Fitch High School, he sees how a young kid with a lot of potential made the most of a rotten situation. He sees how it molded his character, how it developed his love for the game, how he used a low point to reach the highest point.

Of course, at the time, McGlynn didn’t know any of this. All he knew was he couldn’t play.

“Sitting out, it really hurt me,” said McGlynn. “But I think it definitely helped me. You see that the game can be taken away from you quick.”

McGlynn started every game at center his sophomore year at Fitch — coach Carl Pelini took after his mentor, Don Bucci, by placing his best lineman at center — and was penciled in to be a dominant two-way starter the next two seasons for a program on the rise. Then things hit a snafu. McGlynn dropped a class he shouldn’t have, the credits didn’t add up and he was forced to sit out his junior season.

McGlynn could have pouted or, worse yet, quit. Instead, he stayed. He practiced hard. He attended team meetings. He encouraged his teammates.

“A lot of times, when you have a student-athlete with that much talent, they’re not too willing to do those types of things,” said Neal Kopp, an assistant under Pelini who took over the program after McGlynn’s senior year. “I think that speaks pretty well to his character and it shows how he made a big step in his own maturity process.

“I think he realized first and foremost it doesn’t matter how much athletic ability you have or how much talent you have or how many schools are looking at you, if you don’t do the equally important work in the classroom, all that stuff is nothing.”

McGlynn’s work on the scout team did more than just help his teammates get ready for their opponents — it helped continue his development and set an example for the younger players to follow.

“That class was real close and I think it was easy for him to stick around,” said then-assistant Chris Inglis, a former YSU player who grew close to McGlynn. “I think he realized he had the ability to go on and play in college and he didn’t want to completely lose a year.”

Scouts weren’t scared off by the missed season, figuring (correctively) that an athletic lineman who stood 6-foot-5 and weighed 310 pounds could recover from a missed season. McGlynn verbally committed to Pitt the next July — Inglis was irritated he didn’t wait until after he had attended Ohio State’s summer camp in case Jim Tressel wanted to offer him a scholarship —and the big left tackle seemed poised for a terrific senior season.

For 3 1/2 weeks, he had one. Then, against GlenOak in the fourth week, McGlynn fractured his right fibula, ending his season. Making matters worse, his mom had just lost her health insurance, meaning he wouldn’t be able to rehab the injury.

Then an athletic trainer named Don Sherwood stepped in.

“Without him, I don’t know where I’d be,” said McGlynn. “He helped rehab me and got me back where I needed to be. I was 335 pounds and I didn’t have any way of rehabbing it myself.

“He got me ready for my career at Pitt. We’re best friends now. He’s like a brother.”

Like he did before, McGlynn stayed with the team, attending meetings, offering advice and encouragement, emerging as a team leader.

“He did all the intangible things, the things you do when nobody’s looking,” Kopp said. “It really set the tone of the kids who ended up playing the next two years.

“They saw a kid who’s a big-time prospect still doing everything he could.”

The rehab went well and McGlynn arrived at Pitt with a hunger to play football and a desire to earn, not inherit, a starting spot. He redshirted his freshman year, then locked down the starting right tackle job midway through his first season. Once he got it, he kept it, starting 45 games at tackle and two more at right guard for the Panthers over his four-year career. McGlynn didn’t start thinking about the NFL until after his sophomore season when his best friend on the team, tackle Charles Spencer, was drafted by the Houston Texans in the third round.

“At that point, I was like, ‘He’s a good player and I’m right up there with him,’ ” said McGlynn. “I had a junior and senior season left and it made me hungry. Making the NFL became a goal of mine.”

At times, McGlynn’s future seemed brighter than Pitt’s. After five straight bowl appearances under Walt Harris, including a Fiesta Bowl berth at the end of McGlynn’s freshman year, Pitt hired former Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt, who went 16-19 over McGlynn’s final three seasons, missing the postseason each time. The low point came in 2005 when Pitt was upset by Ohio in Athens.

“That was just ridiculous,” McGlynn said.

McGlynn refused to let losing — or injuries — affect his performance, becoming one of the team’s most consistent players, both on the field and off it. The highlight came last August when he earned his degree in criminal justice.

“Mike matured a lot and getting that degree really showed it,” said Inglis.

And after three mediocre seasons, the Panthers finally found something to celebrate when McGlynn helped Pitt upset its rival, No. 2-ranked West Virginia, in the final game of the regular season.

“That was definitely the way to go out,” he said. “I know we should have won more games and we had the talent to win more. I don’t know what the reason was, but you can’t blame anybody.

“I just tried to go out there and play hard.”

Over the past few months, McGlynn has performed well in the Senior Bowl and at the NFL Combine, worked out with respected trainer Tom Shaw in Florida to improve his performance times, interviewed with several NFL teams and visited his old school, giving an inspirational talk to some Austintown middle school students. In the midst of all this, he managed to find time to marry his high school sweetheart, Megan Repasky, in January. Repasky will graduate with her master’s degree from Duquesne in a few weeks and they plan to start a new life in a new city.

Where will that be? Who knows? McGlynn only has plans through the weekend. He’ll be back in Austintown for the draft, where he projects as a mid-round pick.

“It should be a good time,” he said. “We’ll see how it all works out.”

scalzo@vindy.com