Former Forest Park RB Makell commits to Temple
The way he looked at it, Xavier Makell's senior season was going to punch his ticket to a Division I football scholarship.
Through four games in the fall of 2008, the Forest Park running back had rushed for more than 750 yards and 13 touchdowns, and in the first half of the fifth game, against Poly, he had 90 yards and another score.
Then came the second half kickoff.
Returning the kick, Makell was stepping out of bounds when he noticed the man holding the down marker in his path. Makell tried to leap over the stick, but in doing so, he tweaked his right knee.
He stayed in the game but shortly thereafter "felt a pop." With an torn anterior cruciate ligament, Makell's season was over, and his path to that D-I scholarship was about to get tougher.
After spending the previous two years at Alfred State, a junior college in Western New York, Makell has committed to play at Temple.
"I felt like my senior year was my big chance to get a Division I scholarship," Makell reflected Tuesday. "I never even knew about the junior college option."
Makell missed some school after his injury, and his grades dropped, leaving the junior college route his best option.
The 5-foot-8, 191-pound player rushed for more than 1,200 yards in his two years at Alfred, despite missing time with a left knee injury last fall.
He was sold on Temple by the Owls' new coaching and senior wide receiver Rod Streater, a former Alfred teammate.
Makell committed July 15 and made his first visit to the Philadelphia campus Monday.
He plans to redshirt this season and will have two more years of eligibility after that.
Makell -- who played in a similar spread offense at Alfred -- said he's been told his prospective role at Temple will include lots of pass-catching out of the backfield and from the slot. He compared it to that of Percy Harvin with Florida, which is the same role recent Mount St. Joseph graduate Samuel Benjamin's said he was recruited to play at Temple.
That might lead to some competition between the two Baltimore-area players in coming years. But after battling through injuries and working his way up through the junior college ranks, Makell doesn't seem like he's going to let anything like that faze him.
"[Going through the knee injury] taught me to stay positive," Makell said. "Of course I could have quit when I tore my ACL. Fortunately I can be one of those people who get to sign a Division I letter of intent. A lot of people want to do that, and not everyone gets the chance to. It's a blessing."
Headshot photo by Baltimore Sun photographer Jed Kirschbaum. Action photo by Baltimore Sun photographer David Hobby.
