Knight and day

Marcus Knight has changed his thinking - and emerged as a force for the Wolverines

His is the kind of story you root for.

For a couple months there, Marcus Knight was a forgotten man. Actually, that's not even totally accurate, because there weren't very many people who knew who he was. He was just hanging around in the background, one of several Michigan receivers treading water but making no waves, while Tai Streets soaked up most of the headlines.

WARREN ZINN/Daily Marcus Knight brought this Tom Brady pass in for a gain of 51 yards. Knight hauled in four other passes during the afternoon and solidified his standing as one of the Wolverines' starting wide receivers.

And when it was announced last spring that Michigan had landed a pair of blue-chip wideout recruits for the fall of 1998, there was no reason for anyone to think about Marcus Knight. His was a name from the past. There were other names to learn. David Terrell. Marquise Walker. The receivers of the future.

And Terrell and Walker may indeed be the receivers of the future. But while the newspapers and the magazines focused on the incoming freshmen, Knight quietly decided that he wasn't going down without a fight. He decided to become one the receivers of the present.

So he worked on his game. Ran routes. Did sprints. Worked on his hands. Knight worked harder than he ever had before.

And, lo and behold, he won a starting spot.

"It's now or never," he says, explaining his mindset when he heard that a pair of freshmen were being groomed for the spot he thought should be his. "That's what I say to myself all the time. Now or never. I mean, this is my junior year.

"Opportunity only comes along every once in a while," he says. "Now that I've got an opportunity, I'm gonna do everything I can to take advantage of it."

And against Notre Dame, he took advantage of it. He busted out. Made five catches for 126 yards. To put that in perspective, Knight had caught 7 passes before last Saturday - in the past two years.

Suddenly, it seemed, he'd become a top-notch receiver. But although Michigan fans likely were surprised to see Knight's numbers last weekend, another man was expecting them. His coach.

Two weeks ago, before the start of the season, Lloyd Carr called Knight "the biggest surprise of the fall," saying the junior had worked himself into a position to compete for a starting spot. And that, in itself, was a surprise to many. But in the days leading up to the trip to South Bend, Carr - who calls Knight "an outstanding kid" - was convinced for good.

"He's finally becoming the receiver we always thought he could be," Carr says. "He's a guy that has excellent speed. Against Notre Dame, he made two outstanding catches that created big plays for us. He gives us - along with Tai Streets, and Diallo (Johnson) and the two young kids - another outstanding receiver."

Surely, Knight's season-opening performance took many fans by surprise. But to say that it came out of nowhere would be a disservice to Knight. And he's the first to acknowledge that it wasn't just a matter of waiting his turn. Rather, his emergence this fall is the result of a change in mentality and plenty of soul-searching. Simply put, it took more than wind sprints to go from sideline spectator to starting receiver.

"I'm from the South, and it was a difficult adjustment," Knight says of the transition from an Alabama high school to college life in Ann Arbor. "I had to stop worrying about the things I can't control, and concentrate on improving myself."

There were times, he admits, when the quick-fix solution - leaving - seemed more appealing than the long-term prospect - sticking it out.

"Of course, it was always in the back of my mind," Knight says of transferring. "Some people know right away that this is the place for them. It just took me a while to get comfortable. But I've made the adjustment well, and now I'm happy."

And now he's getting his chance. Instead of wondering whether he went to the wrong school, or dwelling on what might have been, Knight spent the first Saturday of this September on the field - catching passes and throwing blocks.

Knight may be new to the spotlight, but you'd never know it by listening to him talk. He sounds like an old pro.

"Believe it or not, Marcus Knight has been waiting to do this for a long time," Marcus Knight says in the third-person, a telltale sign of an athlete who knows how to throw clichés to the press while still sounding cool at the same time. "It's just that things weren't working out the way I'd have liked."

Things are working out a little bit better these days.

09-09-98