Friday, September 03, 2010
Fleming honors Suggs, St. Clair
The two ex-Colonels sports standouts lead a class of 10 inductees into the school's HOF.
The Roanoke Times
File 1999 Former Virginia All-American center John St. Clair, currently with the Cleveland Browns, has played for four NFL teams.
varsity.roanoke.com
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Lee Suggs and John St. Clair headline the 10-member class of inductees tonight into the inaugural William Fleming High School athletic hall of fame.
Only one problem.
They are still working on their resumes.
Neither Suggs nor St. Clair will be on hand for the 6:30 p.m. ceremony prior to Fleming's game against E.C. Glass, but not by choice.
Suggs is busy preparing for the season opener at Oberlin (Ohio) College, where he is in his third season as an assistant coach with the Division III program.
A few miles east on Interstate 80, St. Clair will be getting ready for his 11th season in the NFL and his second with the Cleveland Browns.
Both former Fleming stars said they will be at the school's new on-campus stadium in spirit.
"For Fleming to do this, it's not only great for the people being inducted, it's great for the school," St. Clair said. "Fleming has always been a good school for a long time. To have a new school and a new stadium and to honor us with this hall of fame induction, it's really nice."
Suggs agreed.
"It's big. I'm going to be in that thing as long as Fleming is a school," he said. "It's really important. It's never going anywhere. I really feel honored to be going in that first class with all the great people I'm going in with."
Suggs and St. Clair are among Timesland's all-time best players.
A running back with outstanding speed, Suggs led Fleming to the 1997 Group AAA Division 5 championship game, rushing for 2,918 yards and 30 touchdowns as a senior.
He overcame a torn ACL in the first game of his junior year to set the career touchdown record at Virginia Tech, where he was the Big East Conference offensive player of the year in 2000. He played four seasons in the NFL before injuries curtailed his career with the Miami Dolphins in 2006.
Now 30, Suggs is on the other side of the whistle.
"It's the closest thing next to playing," Suggs said. I still get to interact with the players and go through the same preparations. I just don't get to go out on the field."
Suggs said his coaching style is somewhere in between the reserved style of his college coach Frank Beamer and the more intense style of his high school coach, George "Killer" Miller.
"I'm probably more Frank Beamer, but I can get some Killer Miller too if the situation calls for it," Suggs said.
Suggs, who spent three seasons with the Browns after being the team's fourth-round draft choice in 2003, said he wants no part of NFL coaching.
"There's no job security up there," he said. "You hop around from year to year. I'm not interested in that. I'm looking to move up, potentially to Division I."
St. Clair, who played tight end and defensive tackle at Fleming, was an All-American center at Virginia, winning the ACC's Jacobs Trophy in 1999 emblematic of the league's top offensive lineman.
St. Louis chose St. Clair in the third round of the 2000 NFL draft, and he earned a Super Bowl ring from Super Bowl XXXVI although he did not play in the Rams' loss to New England.
He was a starter for the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, and has started 30 NFL games in the last two years.
The 6-foot-6, 330-pound St. Clair has been in Roanoke all week on a leave of absence from the Browns because his mother has been hospitalized. He plans to return today to Cleveland, where the Browns wrapped up their preseason Thursday night.
He hopes to be in the starting lineup for the Sept. 12 season opener at Tampa Bay.
"I started the first two preseason games at right tackle," St. Clair said. "I've been away for a week and a half. I've missed two games. We'll see when I get back."
St. Clair is in the second year of a three-year contract in the $9-10 million range. Every year could be his last.
"We'll see how it goes," he said. "I'm 33. It's my 11th year. It's a tough game. All you can do is take it one year at a time."
Miller, a former football and wrestling head coach at Fleming, also is among tonight's 10-member hall of fame class. He is thankful to have had the chance to coach athletes like Suggs and St. Clair.
"They were not just good ballplayers, but they were excellent young men and students," Miller said. "They are truly men of class and character. Neither one of those young men ever bragged or boasted. They just came to play."
St. Clair knows tonight will be special for the school and Fleming community.
"It was always like a family," St. Clair said. "It still is. I have a tremendous amount of respect for all the coaches and teachers. that helped me. I leaned at lot on them when I was in school."
St. Clair did some teaching too.
"When I was a freshman John was senior I used to look up to him," Suggs said. "When he went college, he was pretty much the model I tried to follow."
