Solid upbringing helped Revis succeed

ALIQUIPPA, Pa.

It was just a random moment in the middle of a game that Aliquippa High's football team was dominating on its way to a 12-0 record this past season. Coach Mike Zmijanac turned to look behind him and saw a group of about a dozen younger kids who had lost interest in the game on the field and were busy playing their own game.

Turning to an assistant, Zmijanac said, "That's why we win.''

One of those little kids not so long ago was Darrelle Revis. He's big-time now at 25, an All-Pro cornerback with the Jets with a $46-million contract who is returning to his home area Sunday to play the region's beloved Steelers for the AFC championship at Pittsburgh's Heinz Field.

But growing up in Aliquippa, Revis was just one of many gifted athletes the area has spawned. Some of them you've heard of, going all the way back to Mike Ditka in the '50s, "Pistol Pete'' Maravich in the '60s, Sean Gilbert in the '80s and Ty Law in the early '90s. But more of them never made it out of a former steel mill town that has fallen on hard economic times as the population has dwindled to about 11,000 folks, who cling to athletics as a source of local pride.

"We graduated 32 boys last year,'' Zmijanac said. "Athletics have kept this town together. It's a tough place. I call it a suburban inner city. In places like this, athletics mean everything. It's a way to keep kids off the streets. It's the centerpiece of the community.

"We lose kids to the streets, but hopefully we can save some. We have a saying: 'Look right, play right, act right, and the people of the community will support you.' ''

Revis turned out to be one of the kids who got it right. It didn't come without a struggle, but he was fortunate to grow up with the strongest support of all from his mother, Diana Gilbert, and her big brothers, Sean, who starred at Pitt and became an All-Pro defensive lineman for the Washington Redskins, and Mark, who played basketball at Duquesne University.

Revis' mother, who became Diana Askew last month with her marriage to her husband, David, recently recalled her early life as a single parent in Aliquippa. Her extended family shared her grandmother's 13-room house. It was purchased when her grandfather worked in the steel mill and her grandmother was a nurse, and it is located halfway up a steep hill overlooking the town.

"Darrelle grew up in the house while Sean and Mark were playing sports and getting popular,'' Askew said. "I think that's where he got his work ethic. He was right under them all the time.

"Sean would run up that hill in the middle of the night to build his speed up. Darrelle would sit on the step. I'd say, 'What are you doing out here?' Then I'd see Sean at the bottom of the hill, and he'd run up the hill and touch Darrelle on the head and he'd keep going all the way up and back down and come right back up. Darrelle was sitting there watching him until he finished. Now that I look back at it, it's like all of that was being put in him.''

Askew did all she could to support the oldest of her three children, including daughter DeAudra, now 22, and son Terry, 21. She recalls Darrelle dribbling a basketball at the age of 3 and how she had to keep returning to the Dollar Store to buy another plastic basketball hoop because he broke one after another. She also bought him a Steelers uniform at the age of 5.

She moved with Darrelle for a year to Memphis, where he went to a free basketball clinic run by former NBA star Todd Day. Eight-year-old Darrelle was crying and didn't want to get out of the car because most of the other kids were taller and he worried he wasn't good enough. He came home beaming with the MVP trophy.

Back in Aliquippa later, he was playing midget football when a coach told Askew she had something special in Darrelle. But basketball was his game, and that was all he played in junior high while attending a nearby Christian school.

When Revis enrolled at Aliquippa High for his sophomore year, Zmijanac, who coached both football and basketball, was surprised to see him turn up for football practice. Having coached him in summer league basketball, he knew Revis was terrific in that sport, but it quickly became apparent he was just as good in football.

"It was pretty obvious he was a defensive back,'' Zmijanac said. "He started right away as a sophomore. Offensively, he was basically a receiver, but I used him different places to get him the ball. He was a backup quarterback, and he won a game for us at Beaver High when he threw two long TD passes.''

When Revis moved to Aliquippa High, Askew worried about the influences he might encounter. The school itself is state of the art and has managed to avoid problems with guns and limit drug problems, but Askew was familiar with the temptations of the streets and worked hard to steer her kids in the right direction.

"If he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be and I heard about it, I would just get in my car, and if I didn't have a car, I would walk,'' Askew said. "I would get him and talk to him.''

When Darrelle was in high school, she heard that he left a party where kids were smoking marijuana. "He didn't do that stuff,'' Askew said. "I had already established in him, 'You are not a follower. You are a leader.' He said, 'I left out of there because I don't want to do that, and I know I can make a decision to walk away.' It set him apart from everybody.''

Revis set himself far apart on the playing fields. The Quips were 36-4 in his three seasons, and he climaxed his senior year by scoring all five touchdowns in a 32-27 victory over Northern Lehigh for the Pennsylvania AA championship, including an 89-yard kickoff return, a 69-yard return of a blocked field goal and three rushing touchdowns, the last a 64-yarder with four minutes left to win the game.

Two nights later, Revis scored 35 points as the basketball team beat archrival Beaver Falls, 86-82, in overtime.

As great as Revis was, Zmijanac said NFL greatness hardly was guaranteed back then. "I've seen lots of guys who could really play,'' Zmijanac said. "Some make it big-time and some get sidelined. The truth is you have to be focused and good, and you have to be lucky, too.

"Sean was a tremendous influence, and I know his mother, who was one of my students. Darrelle didn't have a chance to get out of line. They're all bright people. They knew what could happen and they weren't going to let it happen. Someone taught him well.

"Things are tough here, but the spirit is still alive. That's our attitude, and Darrelle is a great ambassador for Aliquippa.''