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Friday, August 21, 1998
Ex-Army tech now plays at Texas Tech
By Jimmy Burch
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
LUBBOCK, Texas - Like the rest of his Texas Tech teammates,
Zeno McCoy begins each day by slipping into shoulder pads before
rush-hour traffic reaches its road-rage-inducing zenith in most
large cities.
Unlike the majority of the Red Raiders, he has no qualms about
starting two-a-day football sessions at 7:55 a.m.
"It's nice to sleep in for a change," said McCoy,
22, who has spent the past three years answering to a 5 a.m. bugle
as an E-4 communications specialist in the U.S. Army.
That changed this summer, when McCoy finished his hitch at
Fort Lewis, Wash., and resurrected a college football career that
got off to a rocky start when the Plainview native enrolled at
Texas A&M for the spring semester in January 1995.
A lack of money and a dorm-room altercation with teammates
over McCoy's missing personal items convinced the defensive end
that he was better-suited for Army life than Aggieland. A midterm
enrollee who never signed a letter of intent, he left A&M
before taking part in an official practice or posting a grade
in any class.
Subsequent trips to boot camp, South Korea, Thailand, Guam
and his home base outside Tacoma, Wash., taught McCoy additional
lessons. He partied hard, McCoy said, but he also matured.
"It makes you want to do something else with your life
when you're standing out there in the rain in a muddy foxhole,"
said McCoy, who installed fiber-optic cable, telephone lines and
computer systems during his Army stint.
McCoy estimates the trade could earn him between $40,000 and
$50,000 per year in a civilian setting. But the 6-foot-5, 220-pounder
grew tired of shimmying up telephone poles and installing cable
wires.
So he has landed at Tech, along with his wife, Clarissa, and
daughter, Zurri, 2, to prepare for a career as an art teacher
or football coach. Along the way, he hopes to display the same
type of pass-rushing skills he showed at Plainview, where McCoy
recorded 13 sacks as a junior and 10 as a senior in 1994.
For the first time in four years, McCoy is expected to take
part in contact drills this week when he returns from Fort Hood,
where he spent yesterday finalizing his Army discharge. Thus far,
coach Spike Dykes said he has been impressed with McCoy, who will
be classified as a freshman and is eligible to be redshirted under
NCAA rules.
"Because of his position, his skills haven't diminished
like they would have if he'd been an offensive lineman, quarterback
or running back," Dykes said. "He doesn't have to depend
on timing what he does in conjunction with a lot of other people.
That will help him get on the field quicker. So far, he doesn't
look like he's missed a lick."
How much McCoy will play on a team that boasts an All-America
candidate at one defensive end (Montae Reagor) and has two proven
veterans (Taurus Rucker, Devin Lemons) available at the other
spot remains to be seen. But Dykes said he "wouldn't count
him out" as a contributor in 1998. That is McCoy's goal.
"I'm not anticipating too much because I'm just getting
back into it," McCoy said. "But I want to get in there
and make something happen, to contribute in some way my first
year. I'm excited to be back. Plus, the food is a lot better than
what I'm used to."
McCoy's perspective on quality cuisine might be skewed by his
overseas experiences. While in Korea, for example, he tasted dog
meat.
"It was all right. It's considered a delicacy over there,"
McCoy said.
Yet he balked at trying the rice.
"They fertilize their fields with human feces," McCoy
said. "You see big piles of it ... and wonder if you really
want to eat their rice."
Drinking Korean liquor, which is fermented with a touch of
formaldehyde, was another story, however. McCoy rated it as the
best in the Far East, ahead of Thailand's beer, because it does
not induce hangovers.
"You just get a slow, sluggish feeling. But your head
gets kind of hot," McCoy said.
Thailand, by contrast, had the most intriguing entertainment
opportunities. A favorite haunt: the cobra pit, where snake charmers
attempt to control the venomous reptiles in one-on-one settings.
"They scoot around on their knees with a cane and catch
them by the back of the head. It's crazy," McCoy said. "I'm
there with my buddies and we figure, 'This guy is going to get
bit and we can laugh about it.' But it never happened."
Just like McCoy's initial college football experience at A&M,
from an NCAA eligibility standpoint, never existed. The defensive
end never took part in an official practice before he withdrew
from school and entered the Army. Looking back, McCoy said he
harbors no ill will toward A&M coaches and questions his emotional
readiness, at 18, to play college football.
"I liked the coaching staff. But I ran out of money. And
I got into a scuffle with teammates," McCoy said of his A&M
experience, during which no charges were filed from his dorm-room
altercation. "Instead of doing something that could put me
in jail, I decided to go into the Army. I wanted to make some
money and do my own thing.
"I always planned on coming back to college football,
but I really don't think I was ready for it the first time. Now,
I've got a better fix on life, and I've got the discipline to
handle it."
(c) 1998, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Visit the Star-Telegram on the World Wide Web: www.star-telegram.com.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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