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YSU QB Tanner Garry keeps things loose
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Before road games last fall, Youngstown State’s football players would warm up on the field to decide whether the spikes they were wearing were too long, too short or just right.
So YSU’s fourth-string quarterback — the one whose haircut makes him look like a villain from “The Da Vinci Code” and whose chances of lining up behind center last season hinged on a monkeypox outbreak — would kneel down in his holder position, run his fingers over the grass and tell Coach Eric Wolford, “I don’t like these spikes. I’ve got to go back in [the locker room] and change them.”
“Coach Wolf, he didn’t appreciate that on game day,” he said.
Meet junior Tanner Garry. The trick shot-throwing, rap-music-in-the-jeep-blaring, Todd Marinovich-looking answer to the spring doldrums. He’s the kind of guy who starts interviews by telling the TV cameraman, “My brother films weddings, so I know all about this.” and who, when asked what he brings to the Penguins, says, “Geez. I’m trying to think of anything that’s appropriate here.”
His teammate, second-string quarterback Ricky Davis, had the same problem. When asked about Garry, Davis paused and said, “I’ve got to keep this G.”
Wait. Do you mean G-rated, or G as in gangsta?
“Yeah, G-rated,” Davis said, laughing. “My fault.”
With Garry, it’s hard to know for sure. The Pittsburgh native takes the top off his 2008 Jeep whenever the weather goes above freezing — no easy task, since it’s a hard top with about 30 screws to remove — and blares rap music. When asked if it helps with the ladies, he said, “The ladies love the Jeep. It’s got me a couple, ‘You want to take a ride in the Jeep?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll take a ride in the Jeep.’ But I still don’t have a girlfriend, so that hasn’t worked out the best for me.”
Garry gained a little fame in high school for his five-minute trick shot video on YouTube, which featured a variety of crazy throws, from making a half-court shot with a football to hitting the hand dryer in the stadium bathroom (right after his friend washed his hands) to throwing a ball into a trash can from a moving merry-go-round (“When that ball was coming off my hand, it was curving a lot so I had to throw it 10 yards to the right to get it into the bucket”) to throwing a football off a crossbar so that it bounced up, then hitting the deflected ball with another ball.
“That video was probably 90 percent of the reason I went to college to play football and it was the reason Bowling Green was interested in me when I went there,” said Garry, who spent one season as a walk-on before transferring to YSU in 2013. “It’s done more good for me than bad.”
Still, Garry isn’t some quarterback sideshow. He threw for more than 2,000 yards as a senior at Fort Cherry (Pa.) High, advancing to the WPIAL Class quarterfinals. And he more than held his own against eventual national champion North Dakota State two years ago, when he was thrust into the game midway through the third quarter following injuries to starter Kurt Hess and backup Dante Nania.
“I remember Dante got hurt and I’d be lying if I said I was excited about that,” he said. “I got nervous. I like to believe I know what [offensive coordinator Shane] Montgomery is trying to do, but I was young. They called the first play in the huddle [from the sideline] and I just blanked out. I looked at the person who called the play — I think it was Kurt Hess — and I go, ‘What?’ And everybody in the huddle just deflates. They were like, ‘Here we go.’”
Instead, Garry hit wide receiver Andre Stubbs on a 15-yard out on the first play (“It was a bad ball, but Andre went up and got it”) and he calmed down, leading YSU on a 42-yard drive that ended in a blocked field goal from 44 yards out. On the next drive, he hit tight end Nate Adams for a 24-yard touchdown on fourth-and-2.
“That was unbelievable,” Garry said. “I get made fun of to this day for the celebration I did on that play. I did the high knees coming up to my shoulders, pointing to where I thought my parents were. That was one moment I can always say I had, even if I don’t ever play another down of football again.”
That’s unlikely, considering Garry is the holder on field goals and extra points. (He started to brag about his holding ability, then stopped and said, “No, that’s going to come back and haunt me at the wrong time.”) But he knows that with Hunter Wells entrenched as the starter and Davis ahead of him on the depth chart, he probably won’t be playing against North Dakota State again.
“It’s hard but you guys can tell, I’m clearly having as much fun as I can,” he said. “When I’m in, I try to keep it strictly business. But when I come out, I’m Hunter’s biggest fan and I’m Ricky’s biggest fan. I’ll do whatever it takes to help the team.”
Often, that means keeping things loose.
“He is loose,” YSU coach Bo Pelini said, smiling. “I have a lot of fun with him.”
And for at least a little longer, that’s not going to change. Garry is going to have fun, whether it’s with his hair (“I personally know for a fact that I look better with short hair”) or his role (“If I’m the holder right now, I’m gonna own it”) or his teammates.
“We all have fun — I just take it overboard sometimes,” he said. “I like making people laugh, so I just do what I can, I guess.”