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Cornerback Lee sets tone with knockout
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Midway through the second quarter of Saturday’s Red-White spring game, Youngstown State’s best player, junior RB Jamaine Cook, broke through the middle of the starting defense and seemed poised to cruise to a 59-yard, game-changing touchdown run.
Then, inside the 20, senior cornerback Josh Lee caught up to Cook, grabbed him and punched the ball out, forcing a fumble that was recovered by sophomore cornerback Donald D’Alesio at the 13.
“It looks like a great run,” Penguins coach Eric Wolford said, “and all the sudden the other team’s got the ball.”
It was the biggest play on the biggest day Lee has had for awhile, setting the tone for the White team’s surprising 24-14 victory.
Lee was the classic “jack of all trades, master of none” player when he was recruited as an “athlete” — aka “we’ll find a place for him somewhere” — out of Freedom High in Florida in 2007.
He redshirted his first year, played running back his second year, played backup receiver the next two years and seemed destined to finish his career watching from the sidelines.
So, he met with the coaching staff in offseason, they brought up moving to DB and Lee figured, “What do I have to lose?”
“It was on me,” said Lee, who played running back and defensive back in high school. “They were like, ‘What do you want to do?’
“I said, ‘I’ll play defense for you.’”
Lee finished with six tackles and broke up three passes Saturday in his best performance of the team’s 15 spring sessions.
“He did some good things today, which was encouraging,” Wolford said. “We had a little run there around practice 10 or 11 where we kind of felt like there was a drop-off and we sat down and talked to him a little bit and he’s obviously stepped up.”
Lee isn’t guaranteed a starting spot — D’Alesio and last year’s starter, injured senior Randy Louis, are penciled in as first teamers — but it looks like after five years, he’s found a home.
“I did what I had to do on the field today,” he said. “I don’t feel empty. I feel full all inside. I’m happy.”