For so long, nothing under the helmet mattered. The helmet protected him. Football protected him.

Forget everything else. Cecil Howard could throw — 55 yards sometimes. Maybe 60 if he got some air behind it. He could run too. And nothing beyond that could possibly interfere. Right?

Billed as one of the nation’s most physically-gifted prep quarterbacks, Howard signed with Syracuse two years ago. He’d finish his senior year of high school in McKeesport, Pa. He’d take a redshirt year at Syracuse, learn the system. He’d assume the starting job a year later and never look back. That was the plan.

It didn’t work. Today, Howard is in Boston, enrolled at Northeastern after a summer that saw him transfer from Syracuse, enroll at Youngstown State and then transfer again six days later.

It’s almost unfathomable, Howard now thinks, that football could have suddenly abandoned him at the most inopportune time. But somehow it did.

Somehow, the boy whose mother had placed little football figurines on every birthday cake he’d blown at since he turned 2 … the adolescent who depended on football for refuge from the unseen pitfalls of a rough neighborhood … the man who would now get a college education for nothing more than his strong arm and quick legs no longer loved football.

Howard never felt more alone.

He had to get out of Syracuse. He had to. He had to find football — wherever it went. Youngstown State? Duquesne? Northeastern? Howard would search all of those places.

And even if he does rediscover football, will it ever be the same? Will he still be protected? Will he still be able to stare down the future and know that, within time, football can get him there?

‘The whole time I was in Syracuse,’ Howard said, ‘I didn’t go to one party. I never went out. I never really left my apartment except to go to practice. I was just depressed; I’d just sit around my apartment and watch TV.

‘During the year, I just had a bad feeling about things. I was always down on myself the whole year. I just thought it was a feeling that all freshmen had, but it never went away. I just couldn’t find my fit. I was going to stay there and tough it out, but I wondered why I should stay there for four years and be unhappy when I could go somewhere else and be happier.’

On Aug. 12, Howard could stand it no longer. He’d given Syracuse a year’s chance — perhaps not enough, he confessed — but the pain in waiting any longer became unbearable. The torment didn’t necessarily have a cause, either, which was perhaps the worst part.

After a season of silence, Howard explained his feelings to the SU coaching staff during spring practices. A group that included head coach Paul Pasqualoni and quarterbacks coach Steve Bush urged the talented quarterback to tough things out, at least until summer practices.

‘I kind of thought he’d stick around for a little longer after we talked about it,’ Bush said.

That’s what Howard planned, but then again, Howard’s luck with plans since joining the Orangemen left reason for doubt. Instead of bringing reprieve, the months of June and July only placed further distance between Howard and his love of football.

Rather than hanging out with teammates, Howard took a seven-hour Greyhound ride every weekend to visit his girlfriend, SU student Brandy Oakley, at her home in Boston.

‘I could tell things were bothering him — he’d be watching TV or something, and he’d just get real quiet all of a sudden,’ Oakley said. ‘I was like ‘What’s wrong?’ and he never really responded.’

Said Xzavier Gaines, who became the third-string quarterback after Howard’s departure: ‘I remember, you could see that he was thinking a lot. He had something on his mind. If I had to guess, I would have said he was having family problems back home or something like that.’

All of a sudden, Howard’s introversion — his weapon on the field, where he mystified opponents with an emotionless unpredictability — became his adversary.

Talk to mom about his problems? No, not possible. Not with her diabetes and three grandchildren to worry about. Speak to coaches? He couldn’t. They’d think he’s crazy. You have everything you ever wanted, they’d say, and how could he argue? They’d be right.

Out of ideas, Howard announced that he was transferring. The Next Donovan McNabb became the latest target of criticism — speculation ran rampant that he’d left only because he couldn’t overtake starting QB R.J. Anderson on the depth chart.

‘People thought that I had no idea what I was doing,’ Howard said. ‘People thought I was just going to end up on the street somewhere.’

Howard was anxious to debunk that idea, so he started his search for a new school immediately upon leaving Syracuse. After visiting Youngstown State and IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), both Division I-AA programs, Howard elected for Youngstown State on Aug. 15.

He lasted six days.

‘As soon as I left Syracuse, I was trying to rush everything,’ Howard said. ‘I was calling around, calling around, calling everywhere trying to find any place that would take me. So I jumped right into Youngstown State.

‘When I got there, I found out I’d made another mistake.’

Howard participated in two practices, meanwhile discovering a college where just 9 percent of all students live on campus. Sure, YSU had a similar enrollment as Syracuse, but it felt much smaller.

Football would not go here.

‘Cecil had a lot of things on his mind at the time, and he may have jumped into things too early,’ YSU head coach Jon Heacock said. ‘I don’t want to pass judgment on him because he was only here for two days. That’s not enough time for me to understand him, and that’s not enough time for him to understand this place.’

Zero for two, Howard went back to a place he could most definitely understand, a place where maybe, just maybe, he could find the same passion for football that had made him a high school star.

He spent the next 10 days at his childhood home in McKeesport, a rundown area outside Pittsburgh.

He’d see his mother, Lorraine Bookert, who’s own athleticism (as a youth, she’d lift weights to keep pace with the neighborhood boys) was now the blessing of her son. He’d see the block of local children who idolized him for his scholastic achievements and never let him pass through town without a visit. He’d see the high school field and the high school coaches who turned him from a raw track-running talent into an option-running mastermind.

Howard liked what he saw — enough to consider enrolling at nearby Duquesne.

‘Being close to home again seemed like a good idea for a little,’ Howard said. ‘But once you’re there for a while, you starting thinking ‘Do I really want to be close to here?’ If you’re close to home too long, you go crazy seeing the same stuff over and over again.’

Howard spoke with friend Anthony Nolen, a high school teammate at McKeesport who’d transferred to Northeastern in 2001 after spending time at West Virginia. In short time, Northeastern emerged as Howard’s new favorite.

By transferring from another I-AA school, Howard would have to sit out a year before regaining eligibility. But he went anyway. His mother, saying another goodbye, warned him: ‘Don’t let me see you come knocking at my door again.”

So far he hasn’t. But that doesn’t mean the search is over.

These days, it’s the thinking — the process under the helmet — to which Howard’s finally learned to listen.

‘Just thinking about it,’ he said, ‘I went from being the big man on campus to being just another freshman football player in less than a year. It’s frustrating, but it’s also kind of exciting. It’s kind of like I get to start over.’

Since August, he’s attended three different colleges. He’s started over twice. He’s still searching for his one missing passion, but some days, some days, he thinks he’s found it.

‘The first day after practice at Northeastern I called him up and asked how practice went,’ Oakley, Howard’s girlfriend, said. ‘And he said, ‘Practice was great.’ I can honestly say, through the whole time I’ve known him, that’s the first time he ever said a practice was great.’

But how does Howard know that he’s finally found football? After all, by the time he’ll be eligible to play next season, a full two years will have passed since his last in-game snap.

The arm and the legs will still be there, but what about the rest of the plan? Should he wait? Should he stop? Should he run?

Should he keep on searching for football, or should he finally, after all this time, simply let football search for him?

Published on September 26, 2002 at 12:00 pm