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Princeton University Athletics
`Manning' The Line
October 09, 2003 | Football
Oct. 9, 2003
To all of the boys at Abington Heights High School who took an interest in Casey Manning, sorry.
"I really don't think the word 'intimidating' does Kev justice," says Casey, the youngest sister of Princeton senior Kevin Manning. "When we were in high school, I pretty much think that every one of my guy friends who had interest in me feared for their lives. Now he isn't quite so protective of me, but all through high school and the beginning of college, he was quite over-protective."
Admittedly, he's gotten better.
"I was completely overprotective," he admits. "I don't think she dated much in high school, because when she did, my brother Ken and I would wait at the door. Ken's not as big, but he's pretty intimidating."
Ken wasn't as big, but somebody who would go on to Cornell to play defensive line for a year was probably not exactly small. Still, he didn't measure up to younger brother Kevin, the anchor of the 2003 Tiger offensive line. And while Kevin might not be as protective of his younger sister as he once was, he certainly hasn't lost a bit of overprotectiveness for the Princeton quarterbacks. It's a difficult and dangerous position that demands a surplus of toughness and a lack of fear. It's an individual battle and a team concept all rolled into one, and it rarely provides any sort of notoriety. Basically, if you do your job, everybody cheers for the running back or quarterback who just made the big play. If you don't do your job, the fingers start pointing at you.
For many, it's an unwanted thankless position.
For Manning, it's pretty much status quo.
Hard, thankless work has never been foreign to any of the six Manning children, and certainly not to parents Paul and Jean. The family lives on a dairy farm in Dalton, Pa., and the work ethic that is developed on that farm has led the Manning children to tremendous achievements.
Of course, the ice cream from that farm is also pretty good too (Kevin's favorite is the chocolate). But for now, we'll focus on the kids.
When Kevin was six years old, his brothers Brian and Ken were already milking cows. Naturally, when the big brothers are doing something, you want to do it too, and this was no exception. Thus began his time of working on the family farm.
"We'd deliver milk, ice cream, help bottle the milk, do fieldwork like chopping and square baling. Square baling is hard manual labor. You're unloading a wagon with 120 bales of hay. You'll go through 500-600 bales, starting at 10-11 in the morning and ending at 9-10 at night."
While having six children helped, each also had to take care of schoolwork, as well as any sports they participated in. It left quite a bit of work for the parents. Jean used to make the ice cream, and now she handles all the bookkeeping for the company. As for the father, well, there is no limit to what he has done.
"I can never do what my dad has done," he said. "I know it was harder for him growing up than for me. His first 20 years or so, he was working 16-hour days seven days a week. After hearing about that, I try never to complain around him. The last vacation they went on was 28-29 years ago. They went to Hawaii for their honeymoon, and that was about five years after they were married."
So work ethic at the head of the family is certainly not in question, but that doesn't always translate to the children.
In this case it did.
Six children, six Ivy League educations. Kevin is a senior at Princeton, and older sister Traci graduated from Harvard. Michelle, Brian and Ken each graduated from Cornell, and Casey is currently a junior on the women's basketball team at Cornell.
"We were all individually motivated, but my parents were strict about school," Kevin says. "I don't think it was their intention to send all of us to Ivy League schools, but it worked out. Once my sister [Michelle] went to Cornell, it showed us that we can do it."
And they all did it, along with every other chore it took to help run a family dairy farm.
"On weekdays, between school and practice, you might only help out a little at the end," Manning says. "My dad would try to end his day around 7-8:00, around when we would get home. On weekends, we would work.
"I was obviously able to study enough into get to the No. 1 school."
Besides his academic accomplishments, Manning succeeded on the field as well, helping lead Abington Heights to four consecutive near-perfect seasons. He was an all-state lineman and the regional offensive player of the year, and that doesn't even factor in his wrestling accomplishments.
Basically, the kid could get the job done, and it was just a matter of what school would be able to lure him.
"I never really thought of going to Princeton before they talked to me," he says. "I wasn't really sure I wanted to go to Cornell. I feel like I had already been there for a couple of years, as often as I had gone up there to visit."
After speaking with members of the Princeton coaching staff, he made the decision to further both his education and his football career at Old Nassau. Manning was ready to join the squad in 1999, but fate had other ideas. A few days before preseason, Manning broke his foot on a conditioning exercise. It was a disappointing pill to swallow at the time, but he knew that it could be beneficial in the long run. He had one more year to condition himself physically, and he also had an extra year of maturity on the rest of his teammates.
By the time his first preseason started in 2000, Manning understood what real hard work was all about. He was waking up at 3 a.m. and working until 7 p.m. seven days a week. Ask him what's more difficult, being a dairy farmer or an offensive lineman, and he won't hesitate in saying the former.
When Manning first arrived at Princeton, he wasn't the only newcomer to the program. Head coach Roger Hughes had been hired in the offseason. To some, a coaching transition could make a player rethink his decision to attend that university, but that was never the case with Manning.
"I had dealt with that some in the recruiting process," he says. "I never thought of not coming to Princeton."
That was fortified more after Manning met both Hughes and offensive line coach Stan Clayton. Manning knew his head coach would bring enthusiasm and work ethic to the team, and like the four senior offensive linemen that graduated from Princeton last season, Manning swears by Clayton.
"With Coach Clayton," he says, "I don't think I could have gotten a better coach anywhere at any school."
While Manning wasn't foreign to hard work and real dedication, there were some other aspects of the Clayton's coaching that Manning struggled with.
"The toughest part was getting used to his physical play," Manning says. "In high school, you're taught to help the guy up, shake his hand, things like that. You're not taught to be really physical, the way Coach Clayton wants. I still don't think I'm as physical as he wants me to be."
Manning wasn't unlike other freshmen when he arrived. He had a brilliant high school career, and assumed the transition would be little trouble.
"I was like most freshmen," he said. "I did well in high school football, and I thought I could come here and play, but then I realized that that was the case for everybody here." While his freshman year didn't produce much in terms of playing time, especially considering current Seattle Seahawk Dennis Norman was in front of him on the depth chart, it wouldn't be long before it would be his turn. He earned the starting role at left tackle as a sophomore and has held on to it ever since.
While the physical demands for an offensive lineman are great, people often underestimate the mental preparation that must go into every game.
"I'll watch about an hour of film per day," he says. "I feel like I can tell what blitzes and stunts the defense will run before they do them."
He also watches his own film, both from the previous game and practices. Clayton watches with him. If you thought Roeper and Ebert were critical film-watchers, you need to sit with these two. Still, the ability to catch and correct mistakes has helped Manning to become the clear leader of the 2003 offensive line.
"He has worked hard for three years here," Hughes says. "His success is a product of his own work ethic."
And now it is that same type of work ethic that Manning is trying to instill on his younger teammates. With such a high number of underclassmen playing key minutes for Princeton, it's very easy to point towards the next couple of seasons and predict success then.
Manning is not afforded that option.
"You want to remind everybody that this is the last year for the seniors," Manning says. "Talking about next year is unacceptable. You have to take it game-by-game now." And that is what Manning will do, just the same as he took his work on the dairy farm day-by-day or his work in the classroom day-by-day. Manning, like his five siblings, all of whom are very close, grew up in an environment that stresses hard work. Each sibling has also enjoyed the fruits of that labor, and Manning still expects a couple of fruits to be there for him at the end of the 2003 football season.
By then, he will be done over-protecting quarterbacks. For those of you looking for a date with his younger sister, pray he doesn't go back to over-protecting her.
'Cause he's even bigger now.