Planning to succeed: Journey coming to fruition for Cromartie
September 15, 2011 | Football
Sept. 15, 2011
BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com
MADISON, Wis. -- Sporting a New Orleans Saints jacket, UW cornerback Marcus Cromartie anticipated the reception that he would get from his teammates when he walked into the team meeting.
“I tried to keep it as nonchalant as I could,” he said.
This was last Thursday — the night of the NFL opener between the Saints and the Packers in Green Bay — and almost everyone in the room was wearing Green and Gold, except for Cromartie.
“I’m a Saints fan,” Cromartie said. “I’ve always been a Saints fan.”
His emotional ties to the “Big Easy” extend beyond the NFL.
Although he was born on a military base in Yuma, Ariz. — his dad was a 20-year Marine and his mom 20 years Navy — Cromartie was raised in New Orleans; the 15th ward, West Bank Algiers.
That’s where he lived until Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
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“When Katrina happened,” said Cromartie who was going into his sophomore year of high school in New Orleans, “I had to grow up kind of fast.”
He remembered the day the mandatory evacuation order was issued.
“Try to picture the whole city of New Orleans trying to leave at once,” he said. “I went north to Memphis with my dad and a normal five-hour drive took 13 hours.”
He remembered wondering about his mom’s whereabouts and safety.
“She wasn’t sure if she was going to leave or not,” said Cromartie, whose parents are separated. “The cells were all down and it took three days to find her. She got out the morning of the hurricane.”
His dad’s home escaped the flooding but suffered major structural damage from the wind, while his mom’s home was able to be salvaged and restored. She still maintains it.
Both relocated after Katrina.
Julius Cromartie moved to Dallas and continued to work for the military.
Judith Harris moved to Jackson, Miss., and took a job at a VA hospital.
Marcus Cromartie went with his father and began life anew in Texas.
In retrospect, he said, it turned out to be a blessing.
“When I was in New Orleans, college was never on my mind,” he admitted. “I was just in high school to play football and have fun. I never had any sense of responsibility or accountability.”
When he got to Dallas, he was committed to taking advantage of his athletic gifts. “Football is important in Texas,” he said. “I don’t know where I’d be today if I had stayed in New Orleans.”
But it’s still home.
“Most of my family still lives there — my sister, aunt, uncle, grandmother — and my mom goes back almost every week,” he said. “I definitely make sure I get there two or three times a year.
“I went back the Fourth of July. You can still go to some parts of New Orleans and it will be like a ghost town; gas stations are still closed down. But for the most part they’re trying to build it back up.
“I will always be from New Orleans. It will always be the place where I was raised and I grew up. It definitely holds a special place in my heart.”
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Cromartie, a redshirt junior, has also done a good job of growing up in Madison. With Devin Smith sidelined with an injury, Cromartie will get his first career start at cornerback Saturday against Northern Illinois.
“Crow had a great training camp for us,” said UW secondary coach Chris Ash, “and actually pushed Antonio (Fenelus) and Devin. There was at one time the possibility that he could be the starter.
“He’s prepared himself well for this opportunity. He’s more mature, he understands what it takes to be successful, he’s paying attention to details and he’s competing on a consistent basis.”
When Smith was limited by an abdominal strain in training camp, Cromartie got reps with the starters for nearly two weeks. That helped groom him to be the nickel back against Oregon State.
“I accepted my role at nickel,” Cromartie said, “and I wanted to see where I would get from there. When Devin went down, I knew I would have to be a contributor at corner.
“I’m ready. I want to do what I can to help the team win.”
UW coach Bret Bielema observed, “People want to see him have success.”
After Smith was injured last Saturday, Bielema said, “There were a lot of guys slapping him (Cromartie) on the back and encouraging him on the sidelines.
“He did some really good things.”
Cromartie has been an interesting study, especially from Bielema’s perspective.
“Crow is a neat kid,” he said. “He’s got a lot of ability but he kind grew through a maturity phase. He was kind of a kid that all the guys liked to have fun with. He’s very competitive.
“Still to this day every time he makes a play it draws a reaction not only out of our defense but out of our offense. He’s one of those kids who have the ability to make everyone like you or dislike you.
“Going back to last spring, I challenged him, ‘Hey, you don’t always have to be the funny guy.’”
Cromartie understood where Bielema was coming from.
“Definitely,” Cromartie said. “You have to take accountability for things you’re doing. I do like to have a good time, but there’s a fine line now. There have been people who have helped me mature.
“The difference now is that when I say things, or do things, I know what can result from those things. My main goal coming into training camp was to be more humble.
“I felt that would keep me on steady ground and help me practice and play better.”
After the Oregon State game, he got a text from his cousin, Antonio Cromartie, a starting cornerback for the New York Jets and a former first-round draft pick out of Florida State.
“He calls or texts me before and after every game,” Marcus Cromartie said.
“He asked, ‘How did you do?’
“I said, ‘I felt like I did pretty well. I made a couple of tackles.’
“He asked, ‘Did you get any interceptions?’
“I said, ‘No.’
“He said, ‘Well, then, you know that you can do better.’”
There was one sequence that illustrated Cromartie’s resiliency.
Attacking off the edge, he ran smack into Oregon State tailback Terron Ward.
The collision jolted Cromartie, who was temporarily stunned.
“When you’re on the ground, it just takes some time to collect your thoughts,” he said. “I’ve seen that same play over and over again in practice and I was prepared for it.
“It opened up and I was thinking, ‘How am I going to tackle this guy? Tackle him up high? Or take his legs out?’ I tried to get low, but he got a little bit lower than me.”
It might have been the equivalent of a wakeup call.
“We ran a stunt with him coming on a blitz,” said Ash, who calls the defensive signals. “He made contact with the running back and it kind of rung his bell. But he shook it off and got back out there.”
Cromartie started delivering hits on the next series.
“We have this thing called a play cycle,” said Cromartie, who finished with seven tackles, matching his career total. “Once that play is over, you review it and you see how you did.
“And then it’s off to the next play. You never want to sit on that last play.”
Cromartie knows that he can play better. So does Ash.
“It wasn’t perfect by any means,” Ash said. “There are a lot of little things to clean up. But it was great for him to get reps and reinforce some of the things we’ve been talking about since day one.”
Little things like alignments, footwork and techniques, Ash explained.
“He’s going to be just fine,” he added.
Cromartie handled last season’s disappointment that way.
As long as he hung in there, he knew that he was going to be just fine.
“When you practice as if you’re going to play,” he said, “and when the game comes, you don’t play, it kind of takes a toll on you. But you have to mature from it and never give up.
“You see guys come into a program and they get discouraged and have ideas of transferring. Looking back, if they would have stayed and endured the hardships, they would have made it.
“You just keep going — going through the tough times — knowing that there’s a plan for you. My teammates encouraged me. They kept saying, ‘C’mon Crow, we’ve got your back, we believe in you.’”
To the point where he believes in himself.
