La Salle star makes it official with 'Nova
Jamal Abdur-Rahman failed to contain his excitement. Around 10:10 a.m. Wednesday, the La Salle High School senior calmly sat with his parents, Amin and Rosie Abdur-Rahman, and Explorers football coach Drew Gordon. Then the 5-foot-10, 180-pound running back cracked a bright smile as he signed his scholarship papers to Villanova during his national signing day ceremony at La Salle's Alumni house.
Jamal Abdur-Rahman failed to contain his excitement.
Around 10:10 a.m. Wednesday, the La Salle High School senior calmly sat with his parents, Amin and Rosie Abdur-Rahman, and Explorers football coach Drew Gordon. Then the 5-foot-10, 180-pound running back cracked a bright smile as he signed his scholarship papers to Villanova during his national signing day ceremony at La Salle's Alumni house.
"I'm real excited for it to finally be over so I can finally stop thinking about it," said Abdur-Rahman, The Inquirer's Southeastern Pennsylvania player of the year. "And So I can be ready to move to the next level."
He was one of 18 high school seniors who signed national letters of intent to the Football Championship Subdivision program (formerly Division I-AA) Wednesday, the first day designated to sign such a letter.
The Wildcats missed out on Troy (N.Y.) running back Jordan Canzeri.
The 5-9, 175-pounder signed with Iowa after originally giving an oral commitment to Villanova.
Canzeri, who the Wildcats recruited to play wideout, is a big loss. He rushed for 2,048 yards and 33 touchdowns last season en route to leading the Flying Horses to the New York Section 11 Class AA title. Canzeri also advanced Troy to the Class AA state title game at the Syracuse Carrier Dome.
After giving an oral commitment to Villanova on Jan. 27, however, he received a lot of late interest from Iowa, Connecticut and Indiana.
Like Canzeri, Abdur-Rahman had options to play on the Football Bowl Subdivision level. He had a scholarship offer to Maryland as was being recruited by Purdue and Temple before orally committing to Villanova in August.
Gordon, a former Wildcats quarterback and 1972 Villanova graduate, said Abdur-Rahman will excel at his alma mater.
"I'll say this and people will laugh maybe, but [former Eagles running back] Brian Westbrook was 170 pounds when he came to Villanova and turned out to be a pretty good player," Gordon said. "He got bigger and stronger and so forth.
"Jamal can do a lot of the things Brian can do. . . . Certainly not as well as this point. But the potential is there. I don't think we've seen the best of Jamal's football."