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SDSU Lineman Walked Different Route to Gridiron
By Tom Shanahan, San Diego Union-Tribune
Nov. 10, 1999 San Diego State's Chester Pitts could start at offensive tackle next year, but unlike most promising college players his path wasn't a straight line from high school star to scholarship athlete to the starting lineup. Pitts, a 6-foot-4, 290-pound sophomore, is a walk-on player. No school offered him room, tuition and books for the simple reason he didn't play high school football. He's paying for his education, working a part-time job while chasing the dream of playing college football. He's not a football blue-blood with a full-ride scholarship. "I don't feel sorry for myself," Pitts said. "I love what I get to do. I get to wake up every day and have a full day. At the end of the day, I'm tired, but I feel good. Everybody tells me to keep working hard and good things will come." Pitts practices, lifts weights and attends meetings with his teammates. But as a walk-on athlete, he is forbidden by NCAA rules from sitting down to eat a meal with them at the team training table. He heads home to eat and then to work. "Sometimes I complain about all this," said third-year starting guard Andrew Kline, meaning the end of a long day of classes and practice. "And then I think about Chester. Nobody goes through more than him." Pitts works 20 hours a week during the season bagging groceries as a courtesy clerk at Ralphs on Montezuma Road. He works eight-hour shifts on Sunday and Monday and a four-hour shift after practice on Thursday. In the offseason, he works 30-hour weeks. Walk-on players who earn contributing roles on the team are feel-good stories, and every college football team has one. But Pitts' story is more unusual than most. The high school he attended, California Academy for Math and Science, didn't have a football team. His mother, LaVerne, wanted him to focus on the academics at the small magnet school on the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus. Pitts, an electrical engineering major, was so naive about college football that when he first knocked on the door of the Aztecs football office in 1997 the team had already been practicing for nearly a month. He weighed more than 300 pounds, but he told tight ends coach Ulima Afoa he wanted to play tight end. Afoa told him to come back in the spring when the Aztecs would begin conditioning drills. "I was terrible when I came out in the spring," Pitts said. "I was this big, old puff ball." But before Pitts was sent on his way, offensive line coach Damon Baldwin told head coach Ted Tollner he thought he saw signs of athletic footwork in that unshaped body. "He'd get sick and barf after running sprints, but he kept coming back every morning," Baldwin said. "If a kid is willing to stick it out, you can't give up on him. He had the footwork, and once he started to get in shape, you could see his athleticism coming out." Pitts was on the scout team last season and has been a backup tackle on the traveling squad for a team with two games remaining -- Nov. 20 at UNLV and Nov. 27 against Wyoming at home. Pitts got in 30 snaps in the win at Kansas when starter Mike Houghton injured his ankle. "He did a great job," Baldwin said. "He is the one guy in our group I'm most excited about next year. He could be a two-year starter for us at left tackle. He's as athletic a lineman as we've got. The only thing he is missing is upper-body strength. Weight training will determine how well he does." Kline, who along with center Mike Malano is expected to be in an NFL camp next summer, says, "He has the most athletic body of all us (offensive linemen). He just needs to get some strength and learn the mental aspect." But that's the rub for a walk-on who works. He needs time in the weight room, but there's not much time left in his day. Pitts' first year on the team, his academics suffered. He was on academic probation -- he says a five-unit calculus class did him in -- and had to take two summer classes to clear up his grades for the '99 season. A maze of NCAA scholarship rules and Title IX gender-equity laws complicates a coach's decision to award a walk-on a scholarship. If SDSU awards a walk-on a scholarship in his first two years with the team, the NCAA counts the scholarship against the Aztecs' 25-member recruiting class. But after two years, it counts against the Aztecs' total of 85 on the roster at one time. "We never promise anyone a scholarship," Tollner said. "But if they end up developing into a starter or a significant role, then we'll consider it." As a Cal State school, gender equity impacts SDSU more than other colleges in the nation. SDSU must balance its men's and women's scholarships throughout the athletic department because of the CAL-NOW agreement. "The NCAA allows 85 (scholarships) and 20 (walk-ons) for a total of 105 before school starts, but after school starts the total is unlimited," Tollner said. "That's why the Nebraskas of the world have 150. We've never had more than 105." As Pitts earned his place on the team, he says the ribbing he took for his job made him feel he was one of the guys. A coach will call out for water or something, and a player will holler, "Chester, what aisle is that on?" But one of the two-a-day sessions in August is when he really felt accepted. The day started with Baldwin encouraging Pitts to be aggressive. During a drill, Pitts took on Kabeer Gbajabiamila, Scottie Nicholson and the Aztecs' other talented defensive linemen. Tempers flared and Pitts quickly found himself at the bottom of a pile.
"That was the day I knew I was part of the team," Pitts said. "It was a fight, but it was no big deal. It was fun. All of the O-linemen were there in no time. They had my back. I could feel the support from my teammates. That's what keeps me coming back."
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