Blasts from the Past

I didn't know Kevan Smith was no longer on the football team. Somewhere in all the talk about quarterbacks, I have to admit he hadn't crossed my mind lately.

So when this story surfaced about him playing baseball, I was a little surprised:

Kevan Smith was facing a big decision.

Should he remain with the Pitt football team or try his hand at baseball?

He felt he was capable of performing at a high level in both sports. But after some intense soul-searching and a nudge from Pitt football coach Dave Wannstedt, Smith opted to move on and try his luck with the Panthers' baseball team.

So far, it's worked out well for the former Seneca Valley multi-sport star, who came to the Big East school on a football scholarship and played quarterback mainly in a backup role during his first two seasons.

"I wanted to play both, and I told coach Wannstedt I'd do anything to remain on my football scholarship," Smith said. "I said I'd play special teams and long-snapper, anything he wanted. I was hoping he'd go along with it, but he told me I had to make a decision."

I'm a little surprised that Wannstedt wouldn't let him do anything necessary to stick with the team, but not terribly. Glad to hear he's sticking around in athletics.

And in other news, former coach Walt Harris says he's ready to get back into coaching again after taking the offensive coordinator job at California (PA):

"I never let the game go," said Harris, a former head coach at Pitt who coached from 1997-2004 and was formally introduced Monday morning as the new offensive coordinator at Division II California University of Pennsylvania. "I probably was not a lot of fun to live with on football weekends. I liked to be in front of the TV from noon until midnight and maybe later if the West Coast games were on. I always loved the game of football. There were a lot of things I learned from watching other people."

I heard an interview with Walt the other day and no matter your feelings about him, he lifted Pitt from the depths of some pretty bad teams and got Pitt to immediate respectability.