As the FIU Blue & Gold Spring Game was winding down, safety Marshall McDuffie barreled toward running back A'mod Ned and was hammered by a block by quarterback Paul McCall.
The crowd gasped at the hit, but McDuffie persisted. He brought down Ned with one arm to prevent a first down.
The play not only showed his prowess on the football field, but it also, in a way, summed up his life for the past 17 months.
His football career had appeared to be over after he was dismissed from the team following a brawl between FIU and the University of Miami in 2006. Without football, he instead devoted himself to his church, performed well in the classroom and caught the attention of FIU administrators, who reversed their decision and reinstated him in March.
Said Vanessa McDuffie, Marshall's mother: ``My personal opinion -- I think the punishment fit the crime. It got everyone's attention and it taught a lesson. It all made Marshall a better man today.''
TOUGH PUNISHMENT
McDuffie, a Tampa native, had arrived at FIU in 2004 and became a pillar of the defense, which was ranked 26th nationally -- and No. 4 against the pass -- in 2006. But he became better known for his role in the brawl. Footage showed him kicking UM holder Matt Perrelli, and he was dismissed from the football team. Athletic director Pete Garcia said McDuffie would never again play for FIU.
To this day, McDuffie said, he doesn't know exactly what happened.
''Everything happened so fast it was just a reaction,'' McDuffie said. ``So I couldn't even tell you what was going on. If I would have known or been able to think about the situation it would have never occurred.''
Pastor Rollo Casiple of La Vina Community Church of Miami was sitting behind the FIU band in the Orange Bowl that night and could hardly believe that McDuffie was involved. Then he received a call at about 1 a.m. Sunday, almost immediately after the team returned to campus.
'Marshall called me and said, `I'm still coming to church tomorrow. I want to keep doing the right things,' '' Casiple said. ``At first I was surprised and shocked, especially when you know guys and the heart of the guys. They got caught up in the moment. There was a sadness in my heart. They were making a foolish choice, but then it became a matter of how you respond to those choices.''
Two days after the incident, on his first day as athletic director, Garcia suspended 16 players indefinitely and dismissed two players from the team: safety Chris Smith and McDuffie.
''It felt like I lost everything at that moment,'' McDuffie said. ``I made it back to my room and I called my mom and I called my pastor. Just talking to them I leaned directly on my faith. I believe God does everything for a reason. I believe I had my priorities wrong. I had football placed above everything else.''
`KEEP ON GOING'
Knowing his football career was over, McDuffie immersed himself in finishing his undergraduate degree in business management. He took six classes in the 2007 spring semester.
McDuffie continued going to La Vina and leading a weekly Tuesday night Bible study group at FIU that he began in 2005.
With former FIU defensive back Lionell Singleton, he also expanded an elementary school tutoring program, ''Kidz XL,'' they founded through the church.
And McDuffie went back home to Tampa last year to speak to children in inner-city schools, including his alma mater, Blake High, about his mistake and the aftermath.
''Some people, when something bad happens to them, they believe they're stuck down,'' he said. ``They believe there is no way out but to stay down. I was just preaching a different message: keep on going no matter what, seize the opportunity and become a better person.''
TRIP TO HAITI
Then, in June 2007, McDuffie's girlfriend, FIU student Rebekah Lucien, suggested a trip to Cap-Haitien, Haiti, to see Lucien's homeland and family.
''Marshall wasn't too crazy about the idea,'' Lucien said. ``But he went along anyway. I think he knew there were people out there without a lot of things. He went with the idea of looking into something for a business for the future.''
But in the end, McDuffie dropped the idea of setting up an import/export business. He simply wanted to help.
''In Haiti, you take things for what they are,'' he said. ``It's the simplicity of life. As Americans, we always want to plan everything out to a tee. There it's completely different. It's unexplainable. It's something I believe everybody should go and see.''
So he, Lucien and eight members of La Vina went back last month and joined Rebekah's father, Henoc Lucien, who is a pastor in Haiti, to help build a church and a school in Cap-Haitien.
The group installed tile flooring, painted and helped fix up both buildings.
McDuffie and Lucien also tried to organize a sports camp for Haitian children, but with nothing but dirt and rocks for a field, the camp was scratched in favor of just play time.
''Marshall saw how happy the kids got when he started playing with them,'' Lucien said. ``He became a role model to the kids. He told his story. . . . He started to see through his own eyes there is more to life than football. In Haiti, no one knows what a football is.''
The two trips left such an impression on McDuffie that he is planning three more to Haiti this year.
''On the trip and the time away Marshall realized that life is more about helping others,'' said Casiple, who went on the second trip. ``Marshall on his own journey figured that out. He got the bigger picture of what life is.''
SURPRISE MEETING
Although Garcia had declared McDuffie would never again play football at FIU, he kept McDuffie on scholarship and told him FIU would give him all the support he would need to graduate.
Then in late 2007, Garcia started to receive word of McDuffie's life away from FIU and his work in the classroom.
''Marshall was a student-athlete that angered me by his actions on my first day on the job,'' Garcia said. ``But he has gone on over the last year and a half to inspire me in the way that young men and women do develop when they take it upon themselves to become better people.''
So Garcia approached FIU President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique about possibly reinstating McDuffie on the team. Maidique was reluctant at first.
''My thinking was, what's done is done,'' Maidique said. ``But then I learned of what this young man was doing with his life, and I was so impressed that we ought to give him a shot. It's a wonderful story of redemption and rehabilitation.''
One week before spring practice, Garcia summoned McDuffie to tell him the good news.
''It was crazy. It's a feeling that I can't even recap,'' a smiling McDuffie said. ``Mr. Garcia told me about all the good things that I did and now it was time to give back to me.''
The day after McDuffie became a Golden Panther again, he left for that second trip to Haiti. He returned the day before FIU's spring practice began March 25, and he capped a terrific spring with the one-arm tackle that helped his defense win the spring game.
GRADUATION
On Monday, McDuffie graduates. He will enroll in FIU's business graduate school this fall. On the field, he will be a fifth-year senior.
You could say McDuffie already has graduated to a better life. McDuffie calls his dismissal from the team ``one of the best things that ever happened to me.''
''Now I'm able to take so much more into life and I'm able to see so much more,'' he said. ``I was just seeing life like a child and not like a man. Through the whole thing I just became a better man.
``I'm able to see and appreciate things that I took for granted much more. I was focusing on investing in other people's lives, not just putting my life first. I was trying to make other kids and other people better people. It was the most fulfilling work I've ever done in my life.''
