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lege Football Hall of Famer, a 2020 selection who is set to be inducted in December. His credentials are as glittery as you would expect. During his four seasons at Virginia, Poindexter made 342 tackles, the most ever by a defensive back in the Atlantic Coast Conference, intercepted 12 passes to rank fifth in school history and became only the second Cavaliers player to twice win first- team All-America notice. Known for his fero- cious hitting, he earned comparisons to Ronnie Lott. That's about as high a compliment as any- one can pay to a safety. And like Lott, Poindexter reached the NFL and soon found himself on a Super Bowl team. He was a member of the Baltimore Ravens when they beat the New York Giants, 34-7, in Super Bowl XXXV. But that's where the comparisons end. Poindex- ter played in only 10 games as a pro, primarily be- cause of a knee injury he suffered against North Carolina State late in his final college season. He could have declared for the draft following his junior year; the Cavaliers' coach at the time, George Welsh, had even tried to talk him into leaving, convinced that he would be a high draft pick. But Poindexter was enjoying his college ex- perience so much that he wanted to come back. Up until the injury, that was looking like a good decision. Poindexter had put together another All-America-caliber season and was seemingly well-positioned heading into the draft. But after tearing his ACL and two other knee ligaments, he was forced to miss the Cavaliers' pro day, as well as the NFL Scouting Combine. He was drafted in the seventh round but didn't play as a rookie in 1999 and was restricted to special teams during the Ravens' Super Bowl run the following season. It's now been more than 20 years since he saw his playing career cut short, and as Poindexter looks back, that fateful decision to come back to Virginia for one more season still looks to him like a good one. While it may have contributed to the premature end of his playing days, he was able to transition more quickly into coaching than would otherwise have been the case. What's more, the injury has enabled him to serve as an example to players of the need to prepare for the next phase of their lives. In his College Football Hall of Fame bio, Poindexter explains that he "can touch more people by the way I handled the injury." "I don't regret going back to school," he says. "It led me into coaching, and I'm the poster child for telling kids to get their degree because injuries can happen. I tell [players], if I didn't get my degree, I wouldn't be able to be here today coaching you." He's going to get to tell that story a lot in the years to come, and his success as a co-defensive coordinator at Penn State will be determined by how well the message resonates with recruits and their parents. A native of Lynchburg, Va., he is ex- pected to take the lead in recruiting the Virginia- Maryland-Washington, D.C., region for Penn State. That's long been a critical area, and it's only likely to grow in importance in the years to come as the program looks increasingly to the Mid-Atlantic region and the South in search of elite talent. It's also likely to become a more contentious area. In addition to battling the usual ACC pow- ers – Clemson, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and of course his alma mater – Poindexter will have to contend with Mike Locksley's resurgent Maryland program. If the Terrapins' success this past year was no mirage – they finished 20th in the Rivals.com team rankings – Penn State's challenge is only going to get bigger. Poindexter knows the area and surely has the kind of connections that are going to open a lot of doors. He's also going to be wearing a logo that gets people's attention, more so than in his two previous coaching stops at Purdue and Con- necticut. But now he's going to be chasing the kind of four- and five-star prospects who could play wherever they want. His success is going to be measured by whether he can out-recruit some of the best programs in the country. This is where Poindexter's resume figures to come in handy. Head coaches might not need to dazzle anyone with stories of their glory days; they're the CEOs, the big-picture thinkers. It's the position coaches who do the hands-on, day- to-day work that makes players better, and Poindexter's history, both as one of the best ever to play the game at the college level and as a coach with nearly two decades of Power Five ex- perience, should give him the credibility he needs to make persuasive recruiting pitches. Reflecting on those playing days, Poindexter said recently that one of the best things his coaches at Virginia did was to give him the free- dom he needed to fully realize his potential. "Once they saw who I was as a player, they let me be me," he said. "They let my talents flow and they never put me in a box." Penn State is going to give him that same oppor- tunity as a coach and recruiter. If it goes anything like his playing career, he's going to be a hit. ■ >>

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