On Sunday, one of the nation’s top offensive line prospects will announce his college decision. Coaches and fans of his top three schools will pay close attention to see if Harrisonburg (Va.) High’s Landon Turner sides with their team. But perhaps the person most invested in the decision other than Landon is his father, West Turner.

West has already experienced the attention of high school recruiting, the excitement of Saturdays on the field, and the exhilaration and the pride that come with starting for a top college program.

For the older Turner, however, the highs came with lows – and 25 years after he starred for the Mountaineers in Morgantown, he acknowledges that his life could be considerably different had he chosen a school other than WVU all those years ago.

“If I never went to West Virginia, I don’t know what I would have been, to be honest with you,” says Turner. “I could have done something differently, I could have gone pro [in football] if I had gone somewhere else. I don’t know if I’d be exactly where I am right now.”

Turner came to West Virginia from Vanderbilt, Penn., a 6-foot-3, 245-pound linebacker looking to make an early impact on his new team. In the fall of 1983, his freshman season, Turner’s talents were recognized and put to use on kickoff team. He got his first crack at the college game in the second game of the season when the Mountaineers defeated Pacific, 22-20.

Two games later, No. 19 Boston College welcomed WVU to town, and Turner welcomed star Eagles running back Troy Stradford to the turf. Stradford received the game’s opening kickoff from the five-yard-line and started up field. He didn’t get far before he met Turner, whose hit knocked the ball out of Stradford’s hands and knocked Stradford out of the game.

The result of the hit? Well, Doug Flutie never did beat West Virginia in four tries.

“I was just free,” says Turner. “I got to run around and throw my body into people and that’s all I did my freshman year.”

By the end of the season, he had proven himself enough to get a starting position on Don Nehlen’s defense. As a sophomore, he started all 12 games for the Mountaineers, culminating in a victory over Texas Christian in the 1984 Bluebonnett Bowl.
 

Heading into his junior season, Turner’s personal expectations had risen a great deal, and he began to realize that a future in professional football was a real possibility. In the third game of the season, a 28-0 shutout at the hands of the Maryland Terrapins, Turner suffered a minor injury that would require medical treatment. But rather than come to the training staff immediately after the game, he waited until the following Monday, a decision that would lead to the end of his time at West Virginia.

“I came in for treatment for an injury from the Maryland game and [head physical trainer Greg Ott] told me that since I didn’t come in for treatment on Saturday, I don’t get to come in for treatment on Monday, so I blew up at him,” Turner remembers. “I screamed and cussed him out and Don Nehlen decided to toss me off the squad indefinitely. I never came back.”

Turner could not figure out Nehlen’s decision. He had seen other members of the team commit what he felt were far greater offenses and avoid such a severe punishment. So why had his brief moment of insubordination brought about the end of a successful college football career?

“I couldn’t understand how you could beat up your wife or steal a Domino’s pizza truck and wreck it down in Sunnyside and stay on the team, but when you yell at a trainer who wasn’t the nicest person in the world, you get kicked off,” he says all these years later. “I didn’t understand that, so I was kind of bitter for the next couple of years, to say the least.”

Not yet ready to give up his dream, Turner enrolled at Pittsburgh and joined the football team. He practiced with the Panthers, but before he ever got a chance to play in a game, he dropped out.

Unsure of his next step in life, Turner began training as a boxer, taking on as many bouts as he could. He hired Milan Puskar as his manager, and eventually became West Virginia’s heavy weight champion. In his career, Turner fought the likes of Polish boxer Andrew Golota, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Lennox Lewis.

But he made himself a promise. Once he had lost 10 bouts, he would hang up the gloves. His time in the ring ended with a 19-10 record.

With boxing in the rear view, Turner knew it was time to finish the education he had put on hold over 10 years ago when he left Pittsburgh. It was time to put aside the past and return to the school that gave him his first opportunity as a college student. In 1998, he completed his undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts, and in 2000 he got his masters in Safety Management.

He was, finally, a proud graduate of West Virginia University.

Now he works in South Carolina as the Safety Manager at Parsons Corporation. His job has taken him all across the country, from Miami to Tucson to Mexico and many stops in between. In April, he made his way back to Morgantown for the Old Timers’ game. Seeing some of the old teammates brought back a flood of memories from a past full of ups and downs.

“I think about what time does to people and it’s remarkable how people have grown, people have matured and also how people’s lives have taken different turns,” he says. “It was really good and just talking to the really old timers, the guys who are 60 or 70 years old and talking about what West Virginia meant to them. It was just a very cool experience.”

Dale Wolfley, a teammate of Turner’s at WVU, put together the event that Turner hopes will become an annual opportunity to reunite with Mountaineers of the past. Turner says another of his former teammates, Rich Rodriguez, was not so welcoming in recent years at West Virginia.

“Before, it was really hard to come back and get a ticket or come back and have coaches actually want you back. Especially during the Rodriguez time, it was kind of tough,” he says. “It wasn’t too bad, but you didn’t feel as welcome as you do this time around. I think they should recognize the guys who helped build that program into what it is today and realize some of our blood and some of our bones are on that field, too.”

In addition to the former players on hand in April, Turner had the chance to see his former head coach. A man he had both admired and resented in the few years he spent with the Mountaineers. Turner says there were no hard feelings between the two, and the past is the past.

“You really can’t carry all that baggage with you,” he says. “We spoke to each other, we hugged one another at the Old Timers’ game and let’s put it this way: I’ve forgiven, but I haven’t forgotten.”

He also has not forgotten the good times at West Virginia, and on Sunday, his son will have the chance to experience those positive experiences at his alma mater. Turner asked Landon not to tell him his choice so that he could honestly tell people that he had no idea what that decision would be. His top three are North Carolina, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. He knows no matter what school he picks, he will have his father’s full support.

“I’ve definitely talked to him about it, but I always told him that he’s the one who has to stay there four years, so it’s his decision,” says West. “I’m still going to be just as proud of him no matter where he goes, but it would be a bonus if he went to West Virginia.

“He’s a really good kid and a good student and I told him that all he needs to do is do everything the exact opposite of what I did and he’ll be fine.”

Mountaineers fans, of course, will hope one thing he does exactly the same as his father is to choose WVU when he makes his announcement Sunday afternoon.