Pitt’s Panthers — a new kind of San Francisco treat

As the steel industry continues to decline, Pittsburgh has scrambled to find a quality product… As the steel industry continues to decline, Pittsburgh has scrambled to find a quality product to export.

Maybe they should try football players. They’d have at least one solid buyer.

With the addition of Daven Holly to training camp this year, the San Francisco 49ers now have four players with strong ties to the Pittsburgh area. Holly, a University of Cincinnati graduate who hails from just outside of Pittsburgh, joins fellow cornerback Shawntae Spencer, running back Kevan Barlow and punter Andy Lee, all graduates of Pitt. The presence of so many area players has helped the players’ transition from college to the NFL.

“Coming into camp is tough, period,” Spencer said. “When you have somebody you know, it makes it a lot easier.”

Lee agreed that having acquaintances already in camp is a big boost for a player.

“We don’t necessarily hang out away from the field,” he said, “but [we will] while we’re in the locker room, while we’re lifting.”

Even that little bit of contact with a familiar face helps, as the game changes awfully quickly when one steps from the NCAA onto the NFL playing field.

“The biggest difference would be just the speed of the rushers,” Lee said. “There’s a lot more pressure.”

For Spencer, the most dramatic change isn’t the speed of the opponents, or how good the opposing quarterbacks and wide receivers are.

“You get a paycheck now,” he said. “In college, you get a scholarship, and you’re guaranteed to be there for four or five years. Here? There’s no guarantee.”

To make matters even tougher, Spencer found out the hard way that there’s no breather after earning a spot in camp.

“My first play in preseason was against the Raiders,” he recalled. “I lined up across from Jerry Rice.”

Welcome to the NFL, kid.

It’s a lot for rookies to bear, and the treatment they receive from the league’s elder members doesn’t help the situation.

“As a rookie, veterans don’t talk to you too much,” Spencer laughed. With that in mind, he has tried his hardest to help Holly, whom he knows not just from their high school days, but from college as well.

“I didn’t play against him because we were in different classifications, but we knew each other in high school,” Spencer said. “His roommate [at Cincinnati] was a good friend of mine.”

Holly, who went to Clairton High School in western Pennsylvania, said that Pitt was a possibility for college, but ultimately not the school he wanted to attend.

“Pitt was an option,” he acknowledged, “but Cincinnati was the best fit for me.”

He admitted that the presence of a Pittsburgh-area teammate, especially one he knows as well as Spencer (who went to nearby Woodland Hills), has been helpful.

“Being that close growing up helps my transition off the field,” he said. “It also makes a difference on the field. We’re from the same area, so there’s definitely a chemistry there.”

None of the quartet ever played against each other during their high school days, as Barlow, a Pittsburgh native, played in a different league from Spencer and Holly, and Lee hails from South Carolina. Thus, no rivalry ever developed between any of them that could have carried over to college. But some competition could arise between Holly and all of the former Panthers in seasons to come, as Cincinnati and Pitt plan to start a rivalry this year. Cincinnati’s arrival in the Big East has prompted the two schools to create a new trophy to fight for in what will now be known as the River City Rivalry. Holly thinks the idea could have some merit.

“They need something to spark the conference,” he said of the Big East, a perennial power in basketball, but traditionally a weak football conference. “Maybe it can get to the point of Miami (Ohio) and Cincinnati. They have one of the oldest rivalries.”

Rivalries are just one of the things that remind the players, who all graduated within the past five years, that their college days aren’t all that far in the past. Despite having a full season under his belt, Spencer still remembers many college games vividly, like the Virginia Tech game from his senior year.

“It came down to the wire,” he said, recounting his favorite college memory. “We were on the six-yard line, and handed it off to Lou Polite, one of my good friends. He got hit at the five, and we were thinking, ‘Game’s over.’ But man, somehow he got into the end zone!” That score proved to be the difference, as Pitt won 31-28.

Additionally, Spencer and Lee get a dose of college twice a year when San Francisco — a member of the NFC West — plays former Pitt standout Larry Fitzgerald and the Arizona Cardinals.

“It’s fun,” Spencer said of covering on his old teammate. “I played against him a lot in practice, in one-on-one, team drills. Everybody knows he catches the ball pretty well. But I know a lot of his moves.”

“It’s the same thing for him, though,” Spencer continued, laughing. “He knows some of my moves.”

College memories are still vivid for Holly, as well, and he is also quick to admit that he was a die-hard Steelers fan growing up in the Pittsburgh area. But he spoke for all of the players when he said that their focus can no longer linger on past experiences and loyalties, but should concentrate on the present and the future.

“It’s all 49ers now.”