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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Enhancing A Legacy: Scott Britton Feature
November 09, 2009 | Football
(originally printed in the Oct. 31 Princeton Athletic News)
Scott Britton saw a play he thought he could make. It wasn't shocking; he made an all-too-brief career out of seeing and making plays.
This one came in the second quarter of the second Ivy League game of Princeton's season. The play, a seven-yard pass towards the Tiger sideline, would be made by fellow co-captain Wilson Cates, who forced a turnover with a fumble-causing hit.
The Princeton sideline erupted, knowing it was in scoring position against the defending Ivy League champion.
Britton did not. He knew his career had just ended.
That career began not too far away, at Council Rock North High School in Bucks County, Pa. Britton, a football-in-his-blood all-state standout at both linebacker and running back, became a highly sought recruit at both positions.
Two people, neither of whom is employed by Princeton, ended up serving as key recruiters for the school he would ultimately choose as his college destination. One was his mother, Nancy, who first visited the Princeton admissions office during Scott's freshman year of high school.
The other was Matt Verbit, the strong-armed quarterback who took his brilliant career at Council Rock and became one of the top passers ever at Princeton. Britton never played with Verbit, but like many in that area, he followed his progress through brilliant careers in both football and basketball
“When I saw he came here, it opened my eyes to the caliber of football played at Princeton,” Britton said. “I've always aspired to be the best at everything, including academics. There is something about going to the No. 1 school in the country that gives you the sense that you have done the best you can do.”
Many schools favored Britton as a running back. Princeton, which has turned out some of the Ivy League's finest linebackers, never even considered him on the offensive side of the ball.
“We thought he was a fit at linebacker,” said head coach Roger Hughes, who has recruited several All-Ivy players at the position over the last decade. “We also had a need there. I am so proud of how he matured both on and off the field. He was playing his best football when he got hurt.”
Britton was one of very few freshmen who was seeing the field during Princeton's 2006 Ivy League championship season. He was on special teams and in goal-line and selected blitz packages, and he was experiencing the most exciting Tiger season in more than a decade.
Britton's high school career had been so well-publicized that a member of the Bucks County Courier Times actually came to the home Harvard game that season — the first one between the two historic rivals when both were at least 5-0 since 1922 — just to write about him.
The story wasn't a happy one. One on kickoff, he suffered a non-contact tear of his right ACL, an injury that ended his season and caused him nine months of grueling rehab. For a player who was as unaccustomed to injury as he was accustomed to leading defenses, it was a brutal slap of adversity.
“I had never been seriously injured in my life,” he said. “Coming in as a freshman to the No. 1 school in the country is already a huge adjustment. You feel like you're on cloud nine when you're one of the few guys in the class getting playing time and you're doing well in school. Then you tear your ACL, and it was really tough for me.”
Fortunately, tough was never a problem for Britton.
“I coped with it because I've always been a very self-motivated person, and watching the guys on the field and knowing it could have been me just fueled me,” he said. “I never skipped one repetition for nine months because I never wanted to look back once and say I could have done more. I was so motivated to get back on the field.”
Not only could Britton find motivation in the weight room, but he also found it in the meeting room. Those who never played the game may not realize the hours upon hours that players spend there, going over film and breaking down opponents.
Position coach Don Dobes credits Britton with watching as much film as any linebacker he could remember, which means he had plenty of time to look at the pictures of former All-Ivy linebackers Justin Stull and David Patterson on the wall.
Both wore the same number: 43.
“When I was getting recruited and came to games, I saw Justin Stull everywhere,” Britton remembered. “And when I got here, I saw Dave Patterson on film and heard about him. They were both captains, great linebackers who played the game the way it is supposed to be played. I wanted to challenge myself by picking that number and trying to honor that tradition.”
Dobes was impressed by the move.
“It says that I'm going to challenge myself to be in that mold and show people how good I can be, and I'm going to work to be that player,” said the veteran position coach. “I knew early on that he had that special ingredient of having the energy and enthusiasm that allowed him to rally the other guys. I didn't know he would turn out to be as good as he was, but I knew from the start that he could make the others around him better. The game, and being good at it, was very important to him.”
Although he felt he never regained the same speed he had early in his freshman year, Britton's dedication to rehab landed him back on the field for his sophomore season. He made 26 tackles that season, but his work in another offseason landed him a starting role as an inside linebacker for his junior season.
Besides being a premier run stopper, Britton was an emotional leader both on and off the field. A new tradition in the Princeton locker room following wins has one player — always a linebacker, so far — who leads a “Who's House?” cheer. (You have to see it to understand it, but it gets a huge response from the locker room)
After beating Dartmouth in 2007, senior Tim Boardman got up on the table and pulled Britton with him. He “passed the torch” in leading the cheer to a player who had never started a game. The move said all you need to know about what his teammates thought about him.
“I think it's a neat tradition, and something I think I'll pass down at the end of the year,” said Britton, who smiled when asked if he knew who was next in line. “Yeah, I know.”
He also knew he could be a leader when he became a starter, and he got the job done throughout his junior season. He ranked eighth in the Ivy League that season with 81 tackles, including 11 apiece against both Columbia and Brown, and he earned All-Ivy honorable mention. He had begun to form a dynamic partnership with fellow inside linebacker Steven Cody, another All-Ivy pick last season.
“I felt confident with him next to me,” Cody said. “He brought a lot of energy to the field. He would talk the talk on the field, but he always backed it up.”
The respect that Cody and his teammates shared for Britton was evident when they named him a captain for the 2009 season, an honor that meant a tremendous amount to him. His already-impressive work ethic found a new level over the summer, as he got himself in his best physical shape with a summer of hard lifting on campus.
That work paid off through four and a half games, as he was once ranked fourth nationally in tackles and had been named the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week after a 16-tackle, including 2.5 for loss, one-sack performance against nationally ranked Colgate. His work in that game nearly led a dramatic upset, but instead, it left Britton searching for new answers.
“[Early-season losses] motivated me more,” he said. “There were still a lot of plays out there that I could be making. It propelled me more to do even more than I was doing before.”
Unfortunately, nobody will know just how much of a physical impact Britton would have had on the remainder of the Ivy League season. When his left ACL went on a slight hit timed at the perfectly wrong moment in Providence, he knew immediately that his career was finished, and he was emotional on the sideline.
“I knew it immediately,” Britton said. “I wasn't in tears because I was in pain. I was in tears because my football career was over, and I was never going to get to play the game I loved again. My team is in the biggest game of the year, and I couldn't be out there again. That crushed me.
“After the game, I did a lot of reflecting,” he added. “I have been so blessed to have the gifts that I've had to play football. To have the career I have had, to be a captain. I've been so blessed. It's a tough break, but in the overall scheme of things, I have to look at all the positive things that happened.”
Those kinds of comments inspire as much pride out of Dobes as any big hit he ever made.
“I talk to the linebackers all the time about the sledgehammer of life, and that we never know when the sledgehammer is going to hit us and throw us for a loop,” Dobes said. “It's at that point that you find out what you're all about. The only way you can prepare for it is to be the best and do the best that you can every moment, every minute of the day. I think he has really taken that to heart.”
He has taken his entire career to heart, and it will be that heart that he hopes he can impart on his teammates the rest of the way.
His final career numbers won't match the greatest in Princeton history, but that shouldn't matter. Britton once chose a number with every intention of honoring its legacy.
Instead, he built on it.
by Craig Sachson