Thursday, February 09, 2006
Blue-chipper hangs it up
Randy King
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Being one of the nation's highest-ranked high school recruits doesn't automatically guarantee success at the major college football level.
Want proof? Just ask Tripp Carroll. He'll tell you.
Coming out of Jacksonville's Thomas Jackson High School in 2002, Carroll was basically all-everything. He was rated as high as sixth in the country among centers and guards by noted recruiting analyst Tom Lemming on ESPN.com. SuperPrep had him as the nation's No. 13 offensive linemen. PrepStar listed him as the 15th-best O-linemen in the country. Carroll was so highly coveted that he basically had his choice of offers from nearly every major college program in the nation.
In fact, aside from running back Kevin Jones, Carroll may be the highest-rated recruit to ever sign with Virginia Tech.
So what. All those rankings, ratings, accolades and All-America honors mean absolutely nothing now because Lloyd Gilbert "Tripp" Carroll has played his last down of football at Tech, or for that matter, anywhere else.
Such a perfect player for so long in a game he loved, Carroll never could have envisioned that his Tech career could have turned out so imperfect. Finally, it got to a point where he simply couldn't take it any longer. So the 6-foot-3, 300-pound lineman walked into Frank Beamer's office a couple weeks ago and announced he was done with two years of eligiblity left on his scholarship.
"My heart just wasn't into it anymore," Carroll said, speaking via telephone Wednesday. "I had gotten to the point where I just couldn't push myself anymore because of the fact I had lost the love of the game ... my will to play the game.
"I think it would be unfair to my teammates to come back with the attitude of not enjoying the game. It would be hard for me to do that to the team. I care so much about the Hokies that I couldn't have done it. My heart is a Hokie ... I love the Hokies. I've been around the game my whole life, my father [Gil] was a coach, and just got to this level and it wasn't working out for me playing really well. And it just continually over time beat the love of the game out of me, I guess."
Carroll's story at Tech reads more like that of a walk-on than of a blue-chip, five-star recruit. As a redshirt freshman in 2004, he played only 32 offensive snaps, with 23 of those coming against Lane Stadium punching bag, Florida A&M. This past season, the big fellow got only 13 snaps despite being part of a desperately thin O-line. His biggest contribution was snapping on field goals and extra-point attempts.
"There's no way, no way I ever thought this would happen," Carroll said. "In camp last August I had the most reps of anybody [on the O-line] and then going into the season I never played at all. And that was really a big deal to me. I just wasn't good enough. And that was the thing, that's where it is. You've got to be able to see things in life. There are some good players in this world and you've got to realize sometimes that people are better than you at things."
Carroll's plight wasn't helped by physical problems he encountered. He developed compartment syndrome in the lower part of each of his legs, forcing him to undergo surgery twice. It was his left leg in the spring of 2004. Last spring, the same condition struck his right leg. In layman's terms, the condition constricts the flow of blood and oxygen to the lower extremities.
"I had never had injury problems before in my life, so I never really knew how to handle fighting through an injury," he said. "The condition would cause my toes to turn blue, I would have no feeling in my legs. It's not something that's very common. Eddie Royal [Tech wide receiver] had it. It just felt like I had a shin splint around my whole leg every step I would take. I just couldn't do it.
"I don't feel the effects now ... just two nice, big scars [from surgery] and that's about it."
Missing time, though, kept Carroll from developing to a point where he could compete for a starting job. He kept getting jumped on the depth chart by younger and able-bodied players.
"I had multiple adversities to overcome and it made it a tough battle for me," Carroll said. "It was a never-ending thing it felt like. I never got a break."
In the end, the accumulation of the injuries, surgeries, missed practice time, being buried on the depth chart and not being good enough killed Carroll's desire.
"It's such a demanding sport," he said. "I have such respect for everybody who plays this game. The time commitment and everything that went along with it ... to be in my position, I just wasn't excited about it. I wasn't motivated. And that's just unfair to my teammates, the fans, and everything because I'm a Hokie and I would hate to bring the Hokies down."
A couple weeks after Tech's Gator Bowl victory over Louisville, Carroll returned to Blacksburg for the second semester of classes. He talked with Jake Grove, his former Tech roommate who had just finished his second season with the Oakland Raiders. Then he went to see Beamer.
"I told Coach how I was feeling and what I was thinking about doing, and he was very supportive of it, which was surprising to me," Carroll said. "It made me feel good the way things went. I thought I would struggle in my decision, but I've had nothing but positive come out of it.
"I put a whole lot of thought into my decision. The hardest thing about my decision is I'm not a quitter I've done. I've worked my tail off in everything.
"I just hope folks understand. I don't want to feel like I've let anyone down. As much as people get so into things, it's your life and one life to live. And if you're miserable at something it just brings everything down ... my lifestyle ... I had gained weight ... I wasn't necessarily depressed, I was just down."
The upside is Carroll will graduate after this semester in 3 1/2 years. He has his eyes set on a career in the financial planning world. He said his college career should be a lesson for all hot-shot recruits coming out of high school who feel like the football world is automatically going to be theirs at the next level.
"It doesn't happen automatically at all," said Carroll, who said he loves his life at Tech and the devout Hokie backers. "People develop at different levels. You can recruit a kid who is a good player in high school and he has peaked out. Or you can recruit a kid who is a good player in high school and is on the uprise.
"People just get so much stronger and faster at college. There are a lot of changes when you get to college. People don't realize the difference.
"Sometimes in life things just don't work out the way you want them to. I just hope folks understand that."
