Chicago Tribune
`Most dangerous guy on field'
Ohio State receiver Anthony Gonzalez too exceptional to ignore, writes Teddy Greenstein
By Teddy Greenstein
November 10, 2006
It's a safe bet Anthony Gonzalez won't read this story.
"I don't like reading things or seeing things about myself," he says. "It makes me uncomfortable. My thing is: Nothing, literally nothing, I do from a football standpoint or even a life standpoint is designed to get attention."
If Gonzalez wants to blend in, he's going to have to change his ways.
Stop being the money receiver for the nation's top-ranked team, Ohio State. Stop earning 4.0 GPAs as a philosophy major. Stop sleeping in an oxygen-deprivation tent that keeps him fresh in the fourth quarter.
Gonzalez, who ignores his fan mail by forwarding it directly to his mother, says, "My hope is that my teammates respect me, and my parents are happy with how I am as a human being. Getting credit and all that, I couldn't care less about."
But Gonzalez is simply too exceptional to ignore.
It starts with his play. Although Ted Ginn Jr. gets the Heisman Trophy talk because of outlandish speed and punt-returning flash, Gonzalez actually leads the team with 639 receiving yards.
And of Gonzalez's 43 receptions this season, 37 have produced first downs.
Last Saturday Ohio State faced a third-and-7 on Illinois' 35-yard line. Quarterback Troy Smith didn't take his eyes off Gonzalez, even though linebacker J Leman was practically glued to him. Smith finally found a tiny window for his throw and Gonzalez made a twisting 10-yard grab.
"He recognizes what's going on before the play even happens," Smith says. "That allows him to be the most dangerous guy on the field."
Smith also has called Gonzalez, who runs a sub-4.4 40-yard dash, "one of the premier athletes in the nation."
You wouldn't have to convince Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz of that. Not after Gonzalez caught two touchdown passes in the Buckeyes' 38-17 victory on Sept. 30 in Iowa City.
"This guy, are you kidding me?" Ferentz said. "He blocks like a tight end, he has excellent receiving skills, he's a great runner and he's a tenacious competitor.
"If somebody said you had to choose between Braylon Edwards, Lee Evans, Ted Ginn and Gonzalez . . . we've had some good guys in our conference, and this guy belongs in that class."
Gonzalez scored his second touchdown in the game after catching a short slant at Iowa's 13-yard line. He then circled around to the 19, headed for the far sideline and charged across the goal.
In his typical fashion, the 6-foot, 195-pound Gonzalez called it "a total team play" and added, "I can't wait to watch that on film just to see all the blocks."
Always learning
Gonzalez takes one phone call on game day. Every game day.
It comes from his grandmother, 84-year-old Lourdes Gonzalez, who lives in Miami. She gives Anthony a blessing in both Spanish and English.
Gonzalez's grandparents wed in Cuba in the 1940s and honeymooned in America, touring the country. They ran out of money in Cincinnati and briefly settled there. They returned to Ohio in 1961 after fleeing Fidel Castro's oppressive regime.Gonzalez's father, Eduardo, thrived on the football field and earned a scholarship to Michigan as a reserve tailback. But sports were not the emphasis in the Gonzalez home.
"My grandfather was real big on education," says Gonzalez, one of four children. "He came home from work one day and had a giant map of the world. He threw it on our wall and every time he came over, he'd come back with new countries or landmarks for us to remember."
Gonzalez knew he wanted to become a lawyer, like his grandfather, before settling on a major at Ohio State. His grandfather's advice: Study English or philosophy. Nietzsche won out.
Gonzalez, a redshirt junior who is to graduate in the spring, has gotten straight A's in four of his last five semesters. His lone blemish was a B-plus in a business management class.
Gonzalez eventually wants to attend Stanford Law School for what he calls "the diversity of experience."
"I was born and raised and educated in Ohio," he says. "I think there's a lot of value in getting a different perspective. You could say: `Why Stanford? Why not the University of Georgia?' My next answer for that is: Stanford's the best."
Book smarts rarely equate to football smarts. If they did, as Gonzalez says, the best football coaches would be Harvard and Yale grads.
But Gonzalez loves studying game film and sees the field as a giant puzzle.
"He loves to know the exact whys and the wherefores," coach Jim Tressel says.
Each week Gonzalez analyzes film of every third-down snap that his opponent's defense has played this season.
"From that you usually get a pretty good idea of how guys will react to certain routes," he says.
Endurance test
Chuck Kyle coached Gonzalez in both football and track at Cleveland's St. Ignatius High School. At one point they discussed how world-class athletes train in Colorado Springs to reap the benefits of higher altitudes.
Gonzalez told him that some Olympic athletes sleep with a plastic tent covering their bed that reduces the percentage of oxygen in the air from 20.9 to 13. To compensate the body produces more red blood cells, and the result can be an increase in endurance.
"He researched it," Kyle says. "And then all of sudden, he got one."
Gonzalez sleeps in the $5,000 tent--paid for by his family--and has noticed the benefits, especially on hot days.
Last year when it was still a novelty, some of his teammates would rotate in and out of the chamber. Gonzalez was too polite to tell them that a few hours wouldn't make a difference.
"I didn't want to ruin it for them," he says.
Always a team player.
, and trying to justify those hopes (at least in my own mind...which doesn't count for much 
)
