Mountaineers lay pipeline to Tidewater

By Darrell Laurant | Tuesday, April 22, 2008 | ( 0 )

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Sometimes in college recruiting, where you're from can be as important as who you are.

West Virginia University's Chris Beatty is a case in point.

Beatty is the backfield coach at WVU, a position midway down the pecking order of assistant coaches. He became the all-time pass receiving leader at East Tennessee State, not exactly a football factory, and played professionally in the Canadian Football League.

In other words, the news that Chris Beatty was paying them a visit probably wouldn't mean much to too many high school football stars -- except in the Tidewater area of Virginia.

Tidewater once grew cotton and tobacco. Now, it grows football players. Think Lawrence Taylor. Bruce Smith. Kenny Easley. Al Toon. Ronald Curry. Michael Vick (OK, forget that). Plaxico Burress. Percy Harvin.

Think, also, of a dozen players who have cycled from the southeastern coast of Virginia through Virginia Tech to the NFL in recent years.

Except for a few of the highest profile prospects (Harvin, for instance, went to Florida), Tech has been fishing this teeming pond almost without competition for years.

Until now. Thanks in large part to Beatty, West Virginia has now received verbal commitments from three of the top four juniors in Virginia -- all from Tidewater -- and has its sights on No. 5. On Monday, Phoebus High School's two-way all-state lineman Dominik (Baby D) Davenport announced that he would join his quarterback teammate Tajh Boyd in Morgantown next year. Great Bridge wide receiver Logan Heastie is also reportedly close to committing to WVU.

It looks as if Frank Beamer may have something to worry about.

For while Chris Beatty may be unknown outside of Tidewater, his name opens doors from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach. As the coach at Landstown High in Virginia Beach, he won a state championship and went 40-2 in three years. He then took Hampton Institute into the Division I-AA playoffs. Nor does his ethnicity (Beatty is African American) hurt him in a place where a majority of the best players are black.

Tajh Boyd was certainly a catch for the Mountaineers, especially with Pat White graduating after this season. Boyd has drawn frequent comparisons with Tyrod Taylor, the Hampton product now playing quarterback at Virginia Tech, with the general consensus being that Boyd is the better pure passer. He also runs a 4.5 40, which puts him in the mold of those two-tool quarterbacks so coveted today.

As for Davenport, he has grown from 235 to 265 pounds over the past year with scant loss of quickness. He liked West Virginia, he said, because it saw him as a down lineman, where other schools wanted to move him to linebacker.

"All my life, I've played down," Davenport told the Newport News Daily Press, "and that's where I get my confidence."

Davenport's coach, Bill Dent, noted: "They (West Virginia) play that 3-5, where quickness is as important as size. (Davenport) will fit in well there."

And if so, Chris Beatty hopes, he'll spread the word.

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