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Kevin Ogletree celebrates a play with Will Barker at the Gator Bowl |
Even in his seventies, Lawrence Rossianno walked from Belmont Park to the Little League field to watch his grandson play. He wouldn’t miss it. The truth is it brought pride and joy to his heart to see Kevin Ogletree perform on an athletic field. Every single time.
Ogletree, now without his grandmother and grandfather for nearly two years, still speaks with great respect and reverence toward Lawrence and Patricia Rossianno, the paternal grandparents who helped raised him as a child. They are a part of who he is. And of who he wants to be.
“He was my biggest fan. My grandfather was the man. He enjoyed it just as much as I did being out there. I couldn’t talk to him without talking about football. Even in Little League, he was at every baseball game. He would walk from the racetrack to my Little League baseball field,” Ogletree said. “When the game started, he would be there every day. He was loyal. He was the man.”
The feelings run deep. Ogletree is measured in his tone, but there are still emotions that sometimes tug on his young heart strings. “Absolutely” he thinks about them. They raised him under their roof in Queens, New York. Helped teach him right from wrong. Guided him. He says Patricia Rossianno was “one of the golden ones.” Lawrence Rossianno’s image is tattooed on his skin, a gentle tribute and everlasting reminder of the path already walked and the road ahead.
It also keeps his grandfather on the field with him. Ogletree knows he’s still watching, still filled with pride and joy.
“He was somebody I grew up seeing every day. It was a big shock. How close he was to me, I can’t really explain it in words,” Ogletree said. “He was somebody I played for when I went out there, somebody I was always thinking about when I was on the field. It was ‘I’ve got to do this for him. I know he loves watching me, I don’t want to let him down.'”
Ogletree isn’t making a habit of letting anyone down. He works hard at practice and in the classroom. In fact, he is finishing his undergraduate degree in sociology this semester and will graduate in December, one semester ahead of his class.
Tom Pugh, Ogletree’s high school football coach at Holy Cross, isn’t surprised by that. He says Ogletree’s grandparents kept him in line and that included keeping his grades well away from the borderline. That degree will be another symbol of pride and joy for the family.
“He knows. He’s going to get a diploma. He went there with that in mind. He wasn’t going down there and let’s see how it goes,” Pugh said. “He was focused on football and everything, but he still knew he wanted to get that diploma and he’s going to get that. That was a big part of his grandmother’s and grandfather’s [influence].”
The King of Queens
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Kevin Ogletree caught 19 touchdown passes his senior year at Holy Cross. |
Good grades and graduating are nothing new to the Virginia wide receiver. At Holy Cross High School in New York, Ogletree was the classic achiever. Honor roll student, three-sport star, and genuinely well-liked. Yet, hard-working and humble.
In Pugh’s 36 years of coaching at Holy Cross, Ogletree is one of just four players to start in both football and basketball because most athletes there only excel at one sport. Just four. The hoops team is full of year-round AAU stars – take McDonald’s All-American and Virginia freshman Sylven Landesberg for example – that are among the best players in the city and beyond. All Ogletree did was average more than 20 points a game in the elite New York City Catholic League.
“Kevin was an outstanding player. Clearly his athletic ability both in basketball and football stood out and was really more than most of the athletes in that league could handle,” said Virginia coach Al Groh, who played in the same football league when he was at Chaminade High School. “A couple of games I remember watching on tape, he had three or four long catches, a punt return, and really stood out. He was a top basketball player in that New York City Catholic League, one of the best basketball leagues in the country.”
“He is a very intelligent young man. He always was. He always got the high scores; he was an A-, B+ student every semester. He was on the honor roll and that was part of who he was,” Pugh said. “His grades were always there and he played smart. I don’t know how to describe that, but he played smart; he used his mind as an athlete to his advantage.”
Ogletree’s impressive prep career ended with a senior season that stands as one of the greatest in New York state history. Coach Pugh remembers that Ogletree broke the receptions record of John Mackey, a Pro Football Hall of Famer that also had his jersey retired at Syracuse. Ogletree finished with 19 touchdown catches, which fell one short of the state record. In all, he had 1,170 yards and those 19 scores to set league marks. He was named The Daily News and Newsday Player of the Year.
Ogletree also helped lead his team to the conference championship with a fractured wrist. In the title game, he scored three touchdowns. That included one on a 65-yard interception return that Pugh still remembers. He didn’t catch the ball on the run in the flats, but intercepted it in the middle of the field and then “ran through the whole team” – Moore Catholic was driving late in the half for a score that would have given it a large lead instead of the 14-12 halftime advantage it eventually enjoyed. Later, Pugh said the star receiver caught a ball in a crowd of five or six people to keep a key drive going. Simply put, “he was unbelievable that day” Pugh says.
But he didn’t score the game-winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter. No, on third-and-goal from the two, sophomore Kevin Williams carried the ball in for the go-ahead score … with Kevin Ogletree as confident as anyone that he’d get the job done.
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Virginia fans can check out Dylan Butler’s championship game story from the TimesLedger Newspapers here. |
“I looked at Kevin because he had played tailback a little bit during the year at different times, especially catching the ball out of the backfield and I said ‘Kevin, you go to tailback and let’s blast the tackle and let’s take it in.’ And he looked at me in front of the team and said ‘No coach, give it to Kevin Williams. He’ll get it in. He’s having a day.’ I thought that was so typical of him,” Pugh said. “Yeah, Kevin Ogletree caught the two-point conversion but it was amazing, just that kind of team awareness for everybody. It was a really great moment. That tells you a lot about him. Most people would take the glory. … I was very proud of him at that point.”
Dylan Butler was covering that game for TimesLedger Newspapers and still remembers the performance. He believes it was as impressive as any he’s covered at that level. Butler wrote of “Ogletree’s heroics”, which included three touchdowns and a two-point conversion as Holy Cross scored 21 straight points in the final quarter to win. In the rain.
“He was unbelievable. And they knew it too. They had tape and they scout. Everyone knows he would be the guy and yet he still did it. It’s one thing to come out of nowhere and surprise people, but everyone knew he was getting the ball. Even if it was just a quick slant or something like that, he would still break a tackle and then run for 80-yard touchdowns,” Butler said. “What makes [his success] even more special is that he’s just a great kid. Very, very humble. Very personable. Especially around here, he was everything, he was the man and yet he didn’t carry himself in that way.”
Dream Big
The days of that 2004 championship game are long gone. Ogletree hasn’t played in a football game since 2006’s season-ending loss at Virginia Tech; he tore an anterior cruciate ligament in spring practice for the following season and missed the entire 2007 campaign after surgery. He’s no longer dwelling on the injury – “I’m ready to put all of that behind me and just go out there and play for my teammates and try to win” he says – and a year lost.
Ogletree wouldn’t necessarily call it a blessing in disguise, but he’s clearly hungry and eager to get back into game action.
“It was another hurdle I had to get over. Injuries are part of the game. It was unfortunate for the time being, but I got something out of it too. I had to rehab and I had to do these things to get back to where I was; it wasn’t just going to come back by itself,” Ogletree said. “It taught me some work ethic, taught me how to deal with something like that. I’ve never been injured, never had a serious injury like that before. It was a little step back and it made me realize that if I wanted something, if I wanted to play football and be what I think I can be, I had to work a little bit.”
Groh says the knee is a non-issue. Offensive coordinator Mike Groh said that Ogletree and Cedric Peerman , who missed the last half of the 2007 season with a foot injury, have looked strong in the preseason and perhaps better than before. The elder Groh is impressed with the skills Ogletree possesses.
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As a sophomore, Kevin Ogletree had 52 catches, the ninth best season in UVa history. |
“He’s got real good quickness and kind of ballistic speed. He can hit it, hit another gear in a hurry,” Groh said. “That’s what separating receivers can do – they can hit another gear in a hurry.”
Separating receivers also make plays. Ogletree’s return brings that explosive, downfield element back to the passing game that was sorely missing last season, though the team still found a way to win nine games. He is stronger, particularly in the upper body, than ever before. At 6’2″, 189 pounds, the junior looks like a big-time college receiver. In open practices, his cuts are decisive and explosive. Everything he does has a purpose.
There’s also no question that he is the consummate team first guy. He’ll block downfield, run complementary routes when called upon, and do all the little things receivers don’t get credit for. Rest assured he will do the things receivers are known for too – catch the football. The last time he put on that Virginia uniform for a full season, he hauled in 52 catches (9th best season all-time at UVa) for 4 touchdowns and 582 yards, an average of 11.2 yards per catch.
As unassuming as those back in Queens say, Ogletree won’t boast about those numbers and he hasn’t discussed statistics and personal goals when asked in the preseason. It’s all about the team and winning games. He won’t even tell you he has 4.3 speed, a little nugget that former lacrosse player Will Barrow let slip last spring.
Ogletree wants to work hard, play hard, and succeed. And do it the right way. The way Lawrence and Patricia Rossianno would want.
“I mean I have dreams. It’s been on mind since I was younger. I’ve got some things going for me right now. I’m about to graduate from college, which is big. My grandmother always said that was important, getting an education, getting one’s degree. That means a lot to me. That’s exciting,” Ogletree said. “As far as football, like I said I dream big. I want to be as good as I can be but I know it’s not just going to be handed to me. Every day I go out to practice to be however good I want to be. The day I forget that is probably the day I’ll be on the wrong path. I just keep that in my head, work hard, and get rewarded.”
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