Tackling success

Challenges have made UMass's Jennings stronger

AMHERST - Before the play, Josh Jennings is a portrait of complete focus. His hands are on his hips. His mouthguard dangles from a strap to the No. 2 on his chest. He stares intently at his coach, Don Brown, on the sideline.

Then, in an instant, he's ready. Jennings puts the mouthguard back in and resumes his post squarely in the center of the University of Massachusetts defense. The junior middle linebacker calls out signals and locks his eyes on the triangular space between the center, the guard, and the running back. As the ball is snapped, he reacts. Sometimes he blitzes. Sometimes he blazes to the sideline. Sometimes he angles back to plug a gap in pass coverage. Always, he is flying to the ball.

He gets there with uncanny success. The 6-foot, 220-pound Jennings leads UMass with 80 tackles. His 8.9 tackles per game place him third in the Colonial Athletic Association. All season he has demonstrated an ability to dominate defensively. Last Saturday, he led a 49-0 lockdown at Rhode Island with two interceptions. One he returned 40 yards for a score. That effort earned Jennings CAA Defensive Player of the Week honors for the third time this year.

"He's always possessed a great motor," said Brown. "He always plays and practices hard. Those are constants."

Jennings talks about his defensive teammates as brothers, and emphasizes that Brown's defensive system of multiple blitzes and gambles is predicated on trust. That said, he admits that before the play he readies himself for full responsi bility.

"I'm thinking that there is no one else on the field," he said. "It's just me and the offense. If I don't make the play, I feel like no one else will - not because we're not good, but because of my competitive nature. I want to make all the plays."

That approach has been born from a young life that has featured one jarring blow after another. His family life has been pocked with addiction and crime and health problems. Even this fall, his breakthrough success on the field has been mixed with anguish - the sudden death of his father early last month.

His path has been one of challenging adaptation. He has been able to move forward in part because of a support system he regards as instrumental, but also from the confidence he has gained through success on the field.

He grew up in New Britain, Conn. At first, his mother, Tammy Clark, wouldn't let him play football because she feared he would get hurt, but when he turned 9, she relented. Right from his first time putting on pads, the game made sense to Jennings. It was a place where he could be both analytical and aggressive; where, in fact, that combination was ideal.

The home front wasn't quite as logical or controllable. At both his father's house in Waterbury and his mother's in New Britain, he saw family members fighting hard battles with drug dependency. "It's a scary thing," he said. "It can happen to anyone. You'd be surprised how fast it can happen, how fast things can unravel."

As he hit his teenage years, Jennings says, he also had close family members sent to jail. When he was in high school, he found himself living amid a chaotic situation. His little brother, Jacob, just a toddler, required a lot of guidance, and that, Jennings says, is where he put much of his attention.

He didn't have much focus for school, he admits, and found himself falling way behind. College football coaches, lured by his talent, backed away when they looked at his academic records. "I wasn't NCAA clearinghouse eligible," he said.

But through what Jennings describes as the generosity of an elderly booster of football in New Britain, he was able to pursue his diploma at prep school. That 2004-05 school year at Bridgton Academy in Maine was, at the time, extraordinarily difficult for Jennings. He was far from everything he had ever known. "It was freezing, it was the middle of Maine, nobody around, nobody that you knew," he recalled. "Just 150 kids, all boys. You couldn't leave during the week."

In retrospect, he says that year turned his life around. "It really helped me as far as my academics, getting back on track, really buckling down and taking that part of my life seriously."

From there, he went on to a year at Dean College in Franklin. He was a junior college standout, the Northeast Football Conference Defensive Player of the Year. In 2006, he arrived at UMass, eager to become part of Brown's vaunted defense, and determined to become the first member of his family to graduate from college.

Things got off to a rough start. In just his second game and first start, he aggravated a back injury against Navy and was lost for the season. Though he would get the year of eligibility back as a medical redshirt, he had to delay gratification yet again.

Last year, things came together for Jennings in a big way. He started five games as a fourth linebacker in a 3-4 set, and finished third on the team in tackles. A sociology major, he also earned CAA Academic All-Conference honors, recognition of which he is particularly proud.

This season, Brown moved Jennings to middle linebacker, entrusting him with perhaps the most important spot on the defense. His combination of intensity and analysis has been a perfect match for the position. "He's really cerebral," Brown said. "You can talk to him. You think he's one of those hair-on-fire guys. He plays that way, but you can also talk to him during the game about making adjustments. He's with you."

His performance has earned rave reviews around the league.

"He is relentless, but he plays the game the right way," said Northeastern coach Rocky Hager. "He knocks you down hard, but he'll pick you right up. He's the consummate competitor."

Jennings's work has come against a painful backdrop. On Oct. 4, Jennings piled up a career-high 16 tackles in a big win over Delaware. Afterward in the parking lot, he basked for a bit with his family, talking with his mother and Jacob, 9, who has become a fixture in the UMass locker room.

He also had a nice conversation with his father, Winslow Jennings. The two then spoke again by phone that night. The next day Josh would learn that Winslow, who worked for years as an emergency medical technician, had died in his sleep at age 48. While his dad had not been in great health, Josh said, his death, from causes still unknown, was a shock - all the more so because Winslow's wife and Josh's stepmother, Patricia Jennings, had died earlier in the year.

Jennings said he got tremendous support from his teammates, from Brown, and particularly from his longtime girlfriend, Kelly DeRosa. "She's always there," Jennings said. "She bears with me and understands. She's done that dramatically."

According to Brown, Jennings has dealt with a huge range of challenges in a mature fashion.

"I'm really proud of him," said Brown. "Nobody should go through what he's gone through, but he's come out the other side . . . He's one of those guys you'll always feel good about because he's made something out of himself."