Patrick Villanova/The Jersey Journal




With nearly 30 Lincoln High School football players huddled around him, Lamar McKnight began by asking a two-pronged question. The first portion of the former star quarterback?s query was simple enough: ?How many of you want to play college football?? he asked.

The team provided a silent, unanimous answer, raising their hands to the ceiling of the school?s weight room. Then came the back end of McKnight?s question.
?What?s your GPA?? he asked, singling out a handful of players, one at a time. The responses were mixed. Two-point-zero answered one. One-point-eight, said another.

?I forgot to keep what was important, important,? he said. ?Trust me, them grades are what?s most important.?

And so began an informal, yet impassioned talk that spanned well over an hour in the bowels of the Jersey City public school last Tuesday. McKnight, 21, who recounted his winding journey from Lincoln High School to signing a football scholarship at Tennessee State University in March, hopes his words will echo in the minds of those current players for years to come.

Equipped with a big arm and wealth of physical ability, McKnight was a three-year starter for the Lions from 2007 to 2009. Yet, he was missing one element crucial to becoming a Division I signee ? the grades. He graduated from Lincoln in 2010 with a paltry 1.8 GPA and landed at Oak Ridge Military Academy in North Carolina.

After a six-month stint at the military school, McKnight spent five months at Itawamba Community College in Mississippi. He eventually enrolled at Contra Costa College, a junior college in San Pablo, Calif., in 2011. There, he found his footing in the classroom and earned the team?s starting job at quarterback in 2012. He threw for 1,103 yards and 11 touchdowns this past season, while leading the team to an 8-3 record and garnering the attention from schools like Tennessee State and James Madison. He graduated last month with a 3.4 GPA.

?But this is the same kid, three years ago, who didn?t care about school, whose GPA was low, who just wanted to play football,? McKnight told the group. ?You have to pick and chose. You can?t want to be this dominant football player and still be living a messed up life on the flip side.?

But his newfound maturity spawned from personal tragedy. While home on spring break in 2011, McKnight was socializing with friends in front of his Oak Street home just after midnight on March 19. A car circled the block and over 20 shots rang out in a drive-by shooting.

McKnight?s friend, 19-year-old friend Khalif Sawyer, was struck in the head and killed.

?Was I supposed to be out there? No. Was it bad for me chilling in front of my own door? No,? he said. ?But at the same time, I knew what they were getting into. I still convinced myself to be out there with them, even though I knew I shouldn?t have been out there.?

McKnight fled when the gunfire erupted. He said the person running in front of him was struck in the leg by a bullet, while the person running behind him was grazed in the neck by another shot.

?I?m not lucky,? he said. ?It?s the man above telling me ?you?re not supposed to be in this situation, but I?m going to put you through this situation because you made the wrong decision. I?m going to put you through this situation and make you appreciate what you?ve got.? Even since I went to Mississippi, I never looked back.?

Nearly two years after the shooting, McKnight inked a scholarship on his 21st birthday to play for Tennessee State, a Football Championship Subdivision (formerly DI-AA) school in Nashville. He left Jersey City on Saturday, but not before asking Lincoln coach Robert Hampton if he could address the team and share his story.

?He wasn?t easy to coach, he was a maverick,? said Hampton. ?He finally adopted some of the message we had here in terms of him being a leader.?

With aspirations to play football in college, Jahkeem Graham took McKnight?s words to heart.

?I think it did take him time to be better,? Graham said of McKnight. ?They don?t just give it to you. You have to work for it.?

?My main point I want to get through to you today, it?s not going to happen overnight,? McKnight added. ?You?ve just got to coach yourself up, want to be somebody.? 