Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L > > cruiting scene, he made an immediate impact. That's not an exaggeration. The very first time Haley handled the ball for Penn State – on a kickoff return to start the second half of its opener against UCF – he found a lane down the right sideline and sprinted 44 yards. The 5-foot-9, 189-pound speedster went on to play in 13 games, becoming a special teams standout and even drawing a starting as- signment at cornerback in Penn State's matchup with Boston College in the Pin- stripe Bowl. He finished his freshman season with 18 tackles, including 12 solo stops, and one of the year's biggest in- terceptions. This year, Haley was penciled in as an opening-day starter, but he suffered a leg injury in preseason camp and was forced to sit out the team's first two games. The wait tested his patience severely. "I would definitely say it was the hardest two weeks since I've been up here," he said. When he finally did get on the field against Rutgers, he made up for lost time, pulling down an interception in Penn State's 28-3 romp over the Scarlet Knights. It was a big moment, but hardly a surprising one given his penchant for being in the right place at the right time. "The ball just seems to like him," Franklin said. "The ball comes to him all the time, whether with fumble recoveries or interceptions." Plays like that, as well as the crucial third-quarter interception that he returned 30 yards for a touchdown against Temple last year, reflect the highly focused ap- proach he brings to all things, not just football. It's an approach that his parents helped instill. Carla had grown up in Po- tomac, Md., near Washington, D.C., the daughter of a college football coach. She took up track and went on to join Penn State's team, competing as a sprinter before an injury brought an end to her varsity athletic career. She met Leon Haley Jr. while attending med school at Pitt. Leon had grown up in Pittsburgh and did his undergraduate work at Brown before returning home to get his medical degree. They later married, eventually settling down in Atlanta, where Carla is a pedia- trician and Leon supervises the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital. The Haleys insisted that Grant show the same passion in the classroom that he brought to his athletics. They enrolled him at a private college-prep school, the Lovett School in northwestern Atlanta, and they encouraged the career-minded approach that he brought to his field of interest: broadcasting and media. "We tell our kids, you shouldn't do something as a career that you don't love doing," Carla said. "You don't take a job just to take a job. You find a career path that you really love. I can't imagine not going to work and taking care of patients. I've wanted to be a doctor since I was 12 years old. And that's what we tell them: Find something that really piques your interest and do it. That's where you should put your energy." Grant had energy to spare, and all the excess got channeled into sports. At Lovett, he lettered all four years in football and baseball, and two years in basketball and track. During his senior football season, he rushed for more than 1,500 yards and 27 touchdowns and added six interceptions as a cornerback, winning Georgia Class 2A Offensive Player of the Year recognition from the Associated Press. Haley an- nounced for Vanderbilt, and he remained firmly committed until he heard from a friend via Twitter that Franklin was in line to replace Bill O'Brien at Penn State. Suddenly, after more than a year of careful deliberation, his college plans were in lim- bo. Said Haley, "It was a shock." Within days of his appointment, Franklin called Haley to see if he had any interest in becoming a Nittany Lion. He did, but not without some hesitation. Vanderbilt, with its academic prestige, its proximity to the family's home and its much-im- proved football program, had been such a perfect fit. During her son's recruitment, Carla thought of it as "the best of all pos- sible worlds for us." Except for Franklin and his staff, all the factors that had made it enticing were still in place. But Carla also knew that her son wanted to play college football at the highest possible level, and after the shock wore off, the Haleys quickly warmed to the idea of Grant suiting up for the Nittany Lions. Carla wasn't just a Penn State graduate, after all, she was a fan. Years earlier, she'd chosen the school over Marquette because, all other things being equal, PSU's social life was centered around football, a sport that she loved. "I could not go to a school that didn't have good football," she said, laughing. Penn State, at the time, had great football. Carla was in the Superdome when the Nittany Lions won the national champi- onship in 1983, and in the years that fol- lowed, she amassed a trove of memorabilia – a scrapbook full of Penn State memories, a sweatshirt from the 1995 Rose Bowl, a blue-and-white license place and other Lion-themed knickknacks. Some of that passion couldn't help but rub off on Grant. "Growing up anywhere, I think you know about Penn State and the tradition of excellence they've always had," he said. "My mom always watched Penn State games. I remember watching the [2013] Penn State-Michigan game that went to a couple of overtimes. Seeing that was like, 'Wow, that's pretty crazy. It'd be pretty cool to play there.' " Presented with the chance to do just that, Haley seized it, and he had a plan for once he got there, too. He was deter- mined to make the most of his special teams responsibilities, because he knew they provided an opportunity for early playing time, and also because they offered him a chance to get accustomed to the speed of the college game. If he did well in the kicking game, he figured it would only help put him in position to see action on defense. And he did do well. His 32 kickoff returns for 659 return yards rank first and second, respectively, in the school's single-season record book. Haley also was right about special teams serving as a steppingstone to a bigger role on defense. He was a starter by the end of the season, and his performance was so convincing that Penn State was able to move veteran cornerback Jordan Lucas to safety to shore up one of the defense's bigger holes heading into the 2015 season. Cornerbacks coach Terry Smith has called Haley "clearly one of our better corners on the team."

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