The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? All Big-Ten Tight End Tim Massaquoi Starting A New Chapter gested he'd be a tight end at the colle- giate level. The Pennsylvania prep all- state wide receiver had 195 pounds — 200 max — on his 6-5 frame, had put up big numbers at wideout against top-notch competition in a tal- ent-rich state and was being recruited by some of the nation's top schools as a receiver, so he was a bit taken aback with the assessment levied just before his senior season in high school. He might have been downright T im Massaquoi was only 17 years old the first time someone sug- BY CHRIS BALAS offended if it had been anyone but legendary Penn State head coach Joe Paterno doing the assessing. "I met him when my dad and I went up for one of my unofficial visits, and that was exactly what he said — 'Looking at you right now, you're not going to play receiver in college' — and I kind of took that as an insult," Massaquoi recalled with a laugh. "I didn't realize at the time that here's a man with like 60, 70 years of football experience looking at my body and saying, 'You're going to get bigger and change positions.'" Paterno's honesty wasn't a deal breaker. In reality, the Nittany Lions never really had a chance once Mas- saquoi made it to Ann Arbor and fell in love with the campus. Ohio State and PSU were nice, he recalled, but he found the vibe he was looking for at Michigan. Head coach Lloyd Carr, mean- Massaquoi finished his U-M career with 46 receptions for 489 yards and two touchdowns, and he earned first-team All-Big Ten honors in 2004 and second-team notice in 2005. PHOTO BY WOLVERINE PHOTO Or, Carr added, he could add some weight and play for four years. It was a no-brainer. "I saw how many guys there were while, made Massaquoi only one promise — that he'd get his first shot at receiver. However, that meant competing with Braylon Edwards, Steve Breaston and Jason Avant, to name a few — all of them future NFL talents — and waiting his turn. Massaquoi briefly saw the field as a true freshman before redshirting, but the offseason presented a diffi- cult proposition. "Coach Carr said, 'Look, you can play receiver. You're good enough, but you might have to sit and wait until your senior year,'" Massaquoi recalled. 86 THE WOLVERINE AUGUST 2012 in front of me, and I had already seen an immediate explosion of weight. The first year I gained about 25 pounds of muscle," Massaquoi re- called. "I felt like if I kept on working hard, my body was going to keep getting bigger. I said, 'You know what, I want to play.' That was the bottom line. I got a taste of running out on the field, and I wanted to play as early as possible. "I took it as a challenge and was excited about it." No matter whatever else has been said about Paterno in the aftermath of the recent scandal in Happy Val- ley, Massaquoi noted: "Joe definitely knew what he was talking about when it came to football." Paterno's coaching staff — and and make an early impact. His first season was shortened by a sports hernia for which he had surgery, and his last year — a 2005 season in which he played with a cast much of the season following a broken wrist suffered in two-a-days, and during which many of his teammates also played in pain — consisted of only nine games. He still caught 46 passes for 489 yards in his career, finishing as an All-Big Ten selection in 2004 and a second-team pick in 2005. His personal highlight came in several others around the country — continued to recruit Massaquoi through his senior year, hoping to change his mind. Massaquoi, though, was deter- mined to wear the winged helmet 2004, when he led all U-M receiv- ers with five catches for 60 yards in a critical, 16-14 victory at Purdue. He was so impressive that he drew extra attention from Michigan State defenders in Michigan's 45-37, triple- overtime thriller a week later. He still provided one of the key plays in the third overtime with a leaping, two- point conversion reception, a demon- stration of the athleticism that some believed made him a dark horse for a long professional career. The NFL, however, is a business, which Massaquoi found out quickly and was reminded of too often. The