Marshall University Athletics
MCGILL: Hall-bound Moss added to legacy on Marshall track team
8/4/2018 11:27:00 AM | Football, Track and Field, Word on the Herd
Herd football great broke records during only college meet
HerdZone.com
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Since Randy Moss was a young person running around the fields of eastern Kanawha County, it has seemed like he has been the main character in some kind of tall tale. His athletic feats, at times, seem unbelievable, if not for what he accomplished then for how naturally it came to him.
One of those tales unfolded during Moss' two years at Marshall University, where he shattered records and became a Heisman Trophy finalist. He'd finished his freshman season as a football player and helped the Thundering Herd to a perfect record and the 1996 I-AA national championship, and the school's track and field coach wondered if he could successfully recruit this 6-foot-5 human with an envious vertical jump and world class speed to participate in a meet with the school's track team.
Jeff Small, who is still Marshall's track and field coach, went to assistant Terry Winston and crafted a pitch.
"I told Terry to tell Randy that we wanted to expand on the legend of Randy Moss," Small said.
What happened next remains one of the most awe-inspiring achievements of Moss' decorated career, and one that captures his unique gifts as he prepares to slip into a gold jacket and be forever enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday night.
It was the Monday before the 1997 Southern Conference indoor track and field championships, and Marshall's team was in its final preparations to head to Johnson City, Tennessee, to compete. Moss, in between his freshman and sophomore seasons, showed up to his first track practice that February on a Monday. The team was scheduled to head south on Thursday morning, so there was not much time to get Moss meet ready.
"We didn't really teach him much at all," Small said. "We taught him some drills on Monday and we spent a little time in the blocks on Wednesday."
Small recalled telling Moss that the team bus would depart at 10 o'clock on Thursday morning, and he sat in his seat looking out of the window about 10 minutes before departure. That is when he saw Moss come around the corner of the Henderson Center and head toward the bus.
"The whole team was excited," Small said. "It felt like we were traveling with Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson or Carl Lewis."
On Friday, the first day of the two-day meet, Moss competed in the 55-meter run and 200-meter run. He set school records in both events.
"I'd say in the 55 he was dead last out of the blocks and probably caught everybody at 20 meters and by 40 meters he was 5 meters ahead," Small said. "It was really a fun time."
Then, on Saturday, Moss won both events again and eclipsed the school records he set the day before – 6.32 seconds in the 55 and 21.15 seconds in the 200. Marshall won its first indoor men's championship and Moss collected the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honor.
"It was incredible," Small said. "He hadn't run a track meet since like his sophomore year in high school, and to run that fast ... I would have loved to see him try it full time."
Moss qualified for the NCAA championships in the 200, but did not run. He never competed with the MU track team again, but had delivered on Small's recruiting pitch.
"He could have been the greatest 200 runner in the world," Small said. "I always said the fastest people in the world were NFL defensive backs, and we saw what he did to those guys."
Moss is the second Marshall football player to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, joining fellow West Virginian Frank "Gunner" Gatski, who played professionally in the 1940s and 50s and was inducted into the Hall in 1985. Moss caught 168 passes for 3,467 yards and a school record 53 touchdowns in 1996 and '97 at Marshall, while the Herd posted a 25-3 record, won a national title, a Mid-American Conference title and played in the Motor City Bowl.
Moss had 982 receptions for 15,292 yards and 156 touchdowns in the National Football League from 1998 to 2012. His career receiving yardage ranks fourth all-time, and he is second all-time in touchdown catches.
Moss was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame his first time on the ballot, the first receiver to accomplish that feat since Jerry Rice.
"Randy Moss is the best athlete I've ever been around in my 35 years of college football," said Mark Gale, the assistant athletic director for football operations at Marshall. "When you hear a track coach say that he could have been an Olympic 200-meter medalist, I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but that's pretty elite company."