proCanes.com is continuing our “Tracking
proCanes” feature with former All-American,
3-time national champion and NFL Pro Bowl offensive
tackle
Leon Searcy. Searcy played
primarily with the Pittsburgh Steelers and
Jacksonville Jaguars in an 11-year career spanning
between 1992 and 2002. He was drafted in the
first-round, 11th overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers
out of the University of Miami in the 1992 NFL Draft.
Searcy also spent one season with the Baltimore
Ravens in 2001 before signing with the Miami Dolphins
in 2002. In 2002 he was ultimately placed on the
injured reserved and he subsequently retired after
the 2002 season. From 2004 to 2006, Searcy was the
offensive line coach at Florida International
University. Searcy was a member of the 1987, 1989 and
1991 University of Miami National Championship teams
and was a first-team All-American in 1991. He also
played in Super Bowl XXX for the Pittsburgh Steelers
and in 2003 was inducted into the University of Miami
Sports Hall of Fame.
Part I: Where is Leon now? His days as a
Hurricane and more!
proCanes.com: So, what are you up to
these days Leon?
Leon Searcy: I’ve got a couple
of foundations that I run, actually two foundations,
one is called ProsToo . It’s a foundation where
we raise money for formers professional athletes that
may be struggling with life after football and we
point them in the right direction as far as getting
their disabilities. We look to find them
opportunities for worker’s compensation and
raise money to get them help. Each state varies and
you know, when you play in the NFL, you play in so
many different states but the main state right now is
California because there is no statute of limitations
in California. If you played out in California they
take a portion of your salary as a workman’s
fee and so the guys who played out there are eligible
for worker’s compensation. We’ve helped
about 200 guys. I have an attorney out there that I
work with and we fly them out there and we set them
up at the hotel and set them up with doctors out
there and they get a full body examination. Each part
of their body is evaluated and graded. The process
takes about two years before anything is finalized.
My main purpose for doing this, is for guys to get
medical help that they otherwise couldn’t
afford for the injuries they suffered while playing
because people don’t know that once you finish
playing ball in the NFL they only cover you for three
years. A lot of these guys have bad knees, shoulders,
back or hip problems. I try to get these guys help
for their medical and get them compensated for their
injuries.
My mom is the executive director of my other
foundation Stand Up For Kids. It is a nationwide
program that helps homeless kids. My mom runs it in
Orlando. There is a statistic out there that says
that one out of every 50 kids is homeless in America
and that is a lot of kids that don’t have food,
shelter, clothes or water to drink. So, my mom just
got involved with that right now, and I’m a
part of that. My dad has my foundation in
Jacksonville also, the Leon Searcy Jr. Foundation.
What we do is we feed people. We prepare baskets and
give food out to the homeless throughout the whole
year. What we’re trying to do now is build a
kitchen so we can feed people every day.
pC: Did you start the Leon Searcy Jr.
Foundation when you played in Jacksonville?
LS: Actually no, I started it when I
got drafted. I had told my parents when I got drafted
that I wanted to give back so I started that
foundation.
pC: So you coached at FIU for three years
right?
LS: Yea I coached for three years at
FIU from 2004 to 2007, you know Don Strock was our
head coach. I actually got fired by a Hurricane.
pC: By Mario [Cristobal]?
LS: By Mario, but you know I
understand it’s a business. You know one thing
I learned about college football is that you want
your guy. I played with Mario for three years at
Miami, but I wasn’t his guy. He wanted to bring
in his guy and he explained that to me and I
understood the nature of it and there are no hard
feelings, though I wish he hadn’t cut my
interview in half. I mean I had a five hour interview
with him and Mario was asking me questions he knew I
taught him. But it was all cool and it all worked out
for the better.
pC: Are you looking to get back into
coaching?
LS: I don’t know right now.
Someone has given me the opportunity in a Minor
League Football league called the United National
Gridiron League. It’s supposed to be Minor
League Football and they’re going to actually
play their games at FIU. I think the head
coach’s name is John Fox. They actually hired
me but they just haven’t gotten the league
kicked off yet.
pC: You’re from the DC area, when did
you start playing football? How did it all start?
LS: I started playing football really
young. I never played organized football. I just
played on street corners, sandlots, in the street. I
just loved to play football and I was really active.
These were the days before video games and all this
other stuff. Kids played outside. Your parents would
punish you by saying you couldn’t go outside.
Those were the days. I would play basketball,
football anything outside. I could never make the
grade to play organized football because I was too
big for my age. Like this one time, me and my friends
are walking to the field for football and as soon as
I walked onto the field the coach sent me home
because they didn’t believe I was nine years
old. I was too tall and too big. I cried all the way
home. You know, you walk in there with your friends
and everybody else is playing but they send you home.
So, I remember my mom putting me in the car and
driving back to the football field and she storms in
front of the coach and asks him: ‘are you the
one that sent my son home?’ and he said
‘yes.’ And my mom says: ‘I want you
to remember this name: Leon Searcy. I want you to
remember it.’ I know why she did that. I know
why she did it that day.
pC: Have you ever spoken to the coach since?
LS: I have never spoken to him since
that day.
pC: When did you start playing organized
football then?
LS: I didn’t play organized
football till my senior year in high school. A lot of
it had to with the fact that my mom is a
schoolteacher and has been in education for over 45
years. She set my academic standards real high. I
couldn’t play ball until I had a 3.5 [GPA].
That was a little high, but I understand what she was
doing. Although she wanted me to play football she
knew that if I wanted to take it to the next level
that she had to set the standards high. So I
didn’t play sports until my senior year. So
just imagine now, I am 6’4” 305lbs, the
biggest kid in school, and I’m not playing
ball. First of all, forget the ladies, the ladies are
out, you’re not going to be very popular
because you aren’t playing ball and
they’re going to wonder what’s wrong with
you. So I had to endure that my sophomore and junior
year. I went out to the Jamboree going into my senior
year and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the contact of
hitting other people. I gravitated right to it. My
high school football coach sees me dunking the
basketball one day and he comes up to me and asks me
if I was new at the school. I told him I was going to
be a senior next year. And he said: ‘You are
going to be a senior and you have never played
football before?’ And I said no I have never
played before. He said: ‘why don’t you
come out and let me train you in the summer and
we’ll get you ready for the season.’ Most
kids in the summer wanted to party and hang out with
their friends. I had a 3.75 GPA and I was in summer
school training with my head coach. We’re doing
drills, weight training, suicides, lifting weights
everything. Going into my senior season I had some
good games. My first two letters that I got were from
Florida A&M and South Carolina State. By the end
of the season I had Michigan, Notre, Dame, LSU,
Florida, Florida State, and Miami.
pC: Who you recruited you out of Miami?
LS: Don Soldinger. The funny thing
about it is, is that he came to my school to look at
another player. He came to look at a defensive tackle
and a linebacker. He wasn’t even considering
me. The funny thing that happened was he was sitting
at the stadium watching us do drills, and the guy he
was looking at was guy I ran over in the drills, the
linebacker and I didn’t do it just one time, I
did it like three times in the drill. So Don
Soldinger asked ‘Who is that?’ My coach
said, ‘oh that’s Leon Searcy he has never
played football before’ and Soldinger said,
‘that kid could play at Miami, let me talk to
him.’ That’s how it all started.
pC: Why Miami, were you a fan of them
growing up?
LS: Absolutely. You know I
didn’t watch much college football growing up
but I remember Don Soldinger playing a tape of the
1986 team. The whole pageantry of how they played
football just excited me. Michael Irvin, Jerome
Brown, Stubbs, I mean just every aspect. I said
that’s where’s I want to be. I just felt
that the pageantry and the way they played football
was exciting. I knew that’s where I wanted to
be.
pC: On your recruiting visit to Miami, what
do you remember? Who toured you around?
LS: I believe it was Melvin Bratton.
You know, I wasn’t a little young, I was a lot
young. You know, I didn’t go out much, but
Melvin Bratton is taking me out to Inferno all these
other clubs. You know, I’m a green kid, I had
never seen that. I knew I could never tell my mom
about where we went. She would have never let me come
here if I did but I loved every bit of it. He took me
to the Beach to all the hot spots.
The one thing that stood out that he said, was
‘if you come to the University of Miami, if
you’re not coming here to be the best,
don’t come.’ That’s what he said.
He said ‘if you’re not coming here to be
the best, don’t come because you’ll be
back home in six months because they will run you out
of here.’ He said ‘there is so much
talent on that field that if you don’t compete
it will show and you will not play.’ You know
Coach Soldinger told me that too. I am sitting there
on signing day, and signing day was a lot different
than it is now with all the show. My signing day was
in a closet-like room with three chairs and table my
dad to my left and Don Soldinger to my right. I am
sitting there with the papers and Don Soldinger and
before I signed the pieces of paper he said:
‘when you come to the University of Miami, if
you don’t come here to be the best, you
won’t play and you’ll just be a five-year
backup. Before you sign that piece of paper know what
you’re committing to.’ I wasn’t
worried about that though because I knew I was going
to compete, so I signed and was off and running.
pC: Was there another school that was close
in the running?
LS: Yea there was one school. Florida
State, but Florida State kind of did themselves in.
It was between Miami and Florida State, but Florida
State was actually the reason why I went to Miami. I
went [on a recruiting visit] to Miami first and then
Florida State second. I talked to Bobby Bowden and
then that evening when the hostess was taking me out
I see Deion Sanders, I see Sammy Smith. I see all
these guys. They were in the room having a good time
and we sit down and we start talking. We start
talking football and they start talking about Miami
and how they can’t beat Miami and this and
that. I said, wait a minute, all these guys are
talking about is how great Miami is and how they
can’t beat Miami. I said to myself I am in the
wrong place. I’m going to spend five years of
my life, just like these guys right here, talking
about how I can’t beat Miami? When I left and I
went back home and my parents asked me what I was
going to do, I told them I’m going to Miami. It
was like they were already defeated before they even
stepped onto the field. In the off-season! I said no,
I’m not going to a place like that. I’m
not going to a place where they don’t have a
tradition of winning and they don’t want to win
and they feel like Miami is their obstacle and they
can’t overcome it. They answered it for me.
I’m going to Miami.
pC: What was the toughest thing playing at
Miami? Was it the competition?
LS: Absolutely. Absolutely. The best
thing Jimmy Johnson ever did at the University of
Miami when he was there, was you never felt
comfortable with your position. He kept the grind on
you so hard. My first year at the University of Miami
he [Jimmy Johnson] got all the freshman together and
he said: ‘look, I want you to look to your left
and I want you to look to your right because one of
you all is not going to be here because when we
counted those scholarships someone will have to
go.’ He kept the ax on us. I did not feel
comfortable with my starting spot until my senior
year and I was an All-American by then. He never let
up. He constantly kept the ax grinding on you. I
remember when we played Arkansas. He is from there
and we were beating Arkansas 31 to nothing going into
the fourth quarter and he told us on the sideline:
‘if they score a touchdown I am going to run
the hell out of you all.’ He meant it, I guess
they didn’t offer him a job or something like
that and he meant it.
We played Florida State and they had that rap tape
and they were preseason number one and we had just
won the National Title the year before and that rap
tape just pissed him off. He kicked every coach out
and you know he was a psychology major so he knew how
to get in your head because he scared the hell out of
me but now I understand what he was doing. He kicked
all the coaches out, all the administrators out of
the room and locked the door and dimmed the lights.
He sat in the front and took that VCR tape and popped
it in and when we saw that tape, we were fuming.
Jimmy Johnson after the tape said ‘hey guys,
that’s what they think about you. They’re
the number one team in the country. They are coming
into our house.’ I mean I felt sorry for them
[Florida State], I mean I always felt sorry for them
but we beat them 31-0. But that’s what he did.
I’m not going to say he was a hell of coach but
he was great at taking people and putting them in the
right positions of power to get things done.
We’re talking about Soldinger, Art Kehoe, Gary
Stevens, Butch Davis. Tubberville and Orgeron were
GAs [Graduate Assistants] when I was there, I mean he
put a hell of a staff together and we worked. This
was before the NCAA had all those rules and I mean we
worked. There were times when if he didn’t like
a drill he would start the whole practice over, I
mean it was crazy, it was totally crazy. Our
conditioning test would be 15 x 110s and these could
make or break your career. The only reason Cortez
Kennedy started his last year at the University of
Miami was because Jimmie Jones failed the 15 x110
test. He always had the test on the hottest day. If
it was cool or breezy he wouldn’t do it.
pC: You won two titles when at Miami, what
was one of your favorite memories?
LS: Actually I won three titles
because I won one my freshman year. Just winning, I
mean my favorite memory was probably how we prepared
for games on Saturday. At the University of Miami we
said we outworked everybody else. You know when I got
to the pros I was already taught on how practice
would work and how to study film. You know, at the
next level, I was ready. Just the winning and the
camaraderie was probably the best memory.
pC: Does one win or one game stand out?
LS: The one game that really stands
out that we won in 1989 when Notre Dame came in the
number one team in the country and we were like
number seven. Just the whole thought of how they
stole the title away from us the year before with the
fumble. I remember how it was that evening. We
don’t like Florida State but we really
don’t like Notre Dame. I don’t know what
it is. I mean there was the whole “Catholic
versus Convicts,” the whole “Good versus
Evil” that was created. We really didn’t
like them because they were the total opposite of
what was presumed. We always presumed Notre Dame to
be a bunch of choir boys, stuffed collars with ties
walking to class with a halo over their heads. We
were depicted as the guys with gold chains on and our
guys weren’t’ really like that. So, we
just despised them so much we wanted to stick it to
them. This was the last game of the rivalry, and I
just remember walking into the stadium and the
electric feeling. I was just amazed of how much
energy we would exert on the bus, in the locker room,
in warm-ups before the game. I mean I couldn’t
believe how we could then just go out and play.
pC: You went up some big-time defensive
tackles in your day, who would you say was the
toughest to up against in practice?
LS: Easily Cortez [Kennedy] and
Russell [Maryland]. Absolutely those two. They were
immovable objects in practice. You know, I did an
interview on the radio about two weeks ago and
Russell was on the show. I told him that a lot of our
offensive success had to do with our demise in
practice. I told Russell that the offense might have
won 18 practices in five years against the defense
because our defense was that good. I mean, they were
so good that when we played other teams come Saturday
it was easy for us. We would go up against Russell,
Cortez, Michael Barrow, Darrin Smith, Jesse all of
these guys and we had a good secondary. You’re
not going to see that kind of talent on one team back
then. Russell and Cortez were easily the toughest
guys to go up against.
pC: Who was one leader during your years that
really stood out? An emotional leader?
LS: We had so many. Everybody on the
team was vocal. I mean we took classes in trash
talking. Everybody in there was vocal. Who was the
emotional leader? I don’t know. It’s
difficult to say. We turned to each other. Everybody
cared enough about the program that they spoke up
when they thought things weren’t going right or
we weren’t practicing right or getting it done
in the weight room or in class. Everybody spoke up.
Russell was the type of guy that when he said
something, because he was so quiet, everybody took
notice.
pC: Who was your best friend during your
years?
LS: Because I was an offensive
lineman, usually guys I hung out with were offensive
lineman. There was no one in particular. We usually
hung in groups like that.
pC: Do you keep in contact with a lot former
guys?
LS: Not as many as I would like to but
I talk to Hurley Brown a lot, Horace Copeland,
Russell two weeks ago, Calvin Harris actually called
me yesterday. It would be nice to catch up with some
of the old guys.
Come back tomorrow and
read Part II of our interview with Leon Searcy and
see what he has to say about the differences between
Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson, the current state
of the Hurricanes, Drew Rosenhaus and more!
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