LAKELAND — Every Pee Wee football practice in the pouring rain was for this moment. Every sweat-soaked summer day of high school two-a-days was for this moment. Every sore bone on every Sunday morning after those Southeastern Conference beatings was for this moment.
The moment came Thursday evening with a phone call from western Pennsylvania. Maurkice Pouncey didn’t recognize the phone number, but that’s a good thing. The voice at the other end of the call, however, was familiar.
“This is Mike Tomlin. How are you doing, Maurkice?” the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach asked.
“Oh, hey coach, what’s up?” Maurkice said with a smile. “I’m doing pretty good. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing well,” Tomlin replied. “You ready to come up to camp and get to work?”
“Hell yeah! I can’t wait, coach. I can’t wait,” Pouncey continued.
Pouncey, the 18th overall pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 75th NFL Draft Thursday night, repeated this conversation three times with three different coaches. He was holding the crowd around him in a hush, but the whispers got louder and the cameras zoomed in to record the moment. His mom, Lisa Webster, cried.
The ESPN producer in his living room focused the camera, and Maurkice confirmed his selection by the Steelers. He took out his big silver chain, which says “M.O.B (Man of Business) Est. 1989.”
The crowd around him erupted Thursday night. His mom hugged and kissed him, and for the first time in their lives, Maurkice kissed his twin brother Mike, who elected to stay in school for his senior season and to earn his Florida degree.
“We’ve definitely never done that before,” Mike said later, “and some people were making fun of me for it. But I loved every bit of it.”
Maurkice Pouncey grabbed an old Hines Ward jersey, threw it around his neck and lead the party to the front lawn. He had made it to the National Football League. Now it was time to celebrate the moment.
***
Moments earlier, a moth flew through the open door of the Pouncey’s living room. It flew over the ESPN camera crew and around the living room, over the Pouncey brothers, their parents, their great-grandmother and all the little kids on the carpeted floor.
It flew past the window A/C unit, reading 60 degrees, but lost the battle to the nearly 100 people packed into the Pouncey’s humble home. Maurkice hasn’t been selected yet, and the tension in the room was thick.
Maurkice was holding the remote and tapping his toes. Mike watched the draft intently, listening to ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper pontificate about the latest pick. But Maurkice stared straight through the TV. He can’t control anything now, and that’s hard. In football, he could focus on the snap, then the block, then the next play. He could control how he performed at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis and at Florida’s Pro Day, but now he just had to wait.
This moth, he decided, will not ruin his moment. Mike and Maurkice simultaneously swat it out of the air and onto the ground.
Two kids pick it up and weave through the 20 people you have to pass to get to the kitchen to throw the moth away. In the kitchen, there are 20 more people, plus four trays of macaroni and cheese, two trays of ribs and enough barbecue sauce and beverages to run a restaurant for the evening.
The Pounceys invited 60 people over to the house, and from the looks of the crowd, everyone brought a guest. There’s the ESPN camera crew, and there’s a local news crew from Tampa. There are some reporters from the Lakeland Ledger. And there, in the back standing on a chair, is Florida safety Ahmad Black.
They are all here to see their hometown hero, Maurkice Pouncey, become a top pick in the NFL Draft. They all notice the tension, too.
“Man, I was expecting to go to St. Louis, No. 1 overall,” Maurkice joked, cutting the tension. The room relaxed.
The picks passed by slowly. Maurkice expected that he would go anytime after the 11th pick, which originally belonged to Denver but which the Broncos traded to San Francisco. He thinks that they like him, but secretly, he and Mike have been praying that the Steelers will select him. San Francisco doesn’t pick Maurkice, and neither do the Chargers, or the Eagles, who trade into the 13th slot.
At pick 14, it’s still too early to expect a center to be drafted, but Maurkice doesn’t think about that. He just thought that he could see himself as a Seahawk. On the seat next to him, his mom is praying, “Dear Jesus, do not send my baby to the West Coast.”
The Giants and the Titans are up next at 15 and 16, but Maurkice doesn’t have a great feeling about them. The 49ers are on the clock now at pick 17, and Maurkice gets a phone call. He hushes the room. His mom says another prayer: “Not the West Coast.”
The 49ers are picking an offensive lineman but it isn’t Maurkice. They take a guard from Idaho, Mike Iupati.
The man on the phone is Mike Tomlin.
***
Maurkice Pouncey led the sea of people out of his house and onto the front lawn to celebrate. He received 50 texts in the two minutes after he is drafted, and he walks past all the people who love him and are telling him so.
He walked past his great grandmother, Ruth Barr. The 81-year-old still cleans houses to earn a living. He looked her in the eyes and said, “No more cleaning, Grandma.”
Next, Pouncey walked toward Ahmad Black, who played with the Pounceys at Lakeland High School and joined them at Florida and gives him a big hug. He never is too far away from his mom, who is still crying.
“That was tough,” his mother said. “It feels like it took forever. It’s been a long ride, and I’ve sacrificed a lot—working weekends and everything to put these boys in football. It’s wonderful to be here now.”
Maurkice Pouncey is now in a place people rarely go, a place where he can taste the fruits of his life’s work.
“I’m just so happy right now,” he said. “I don’t even have the words to describe it. I’m a Pittsburgh Steeler.”
Outside, there are more phone calls and friends waiting. On Friday, Maurkice Pouncey will hop a plane for Pittsburgh, where his new team and the media will be waiting. He is ready for this.
Photo Gallery: Maurkice Pouncey Draft Day, 4/22/10 (click here to view photos by Tim Darby)