S-F’s great Scanlan talks about adversity
Spring-Ford great Scanlan responds to adversity at Northwestern, now repurposing his passion
For all its successful athletes in recent history, the Mercury area can claim a short list of football players that went on to play at the NCAA Division I level. The list gets small when talking about the Power 5 conferences. And it gets downright miniscule if you’re talking about a skill-position player.
Then again, Andrew Scanlan has always set himself apart.
The 2012 Spring-Ford graduate and record-setting wide receiver for the Rams went on to play at Northwestern University through 2016, working his way up the depth chart from special teams and a backup role for most of his first three years before earning a starting wide receiver spot as a redshirt senior – but only after a transcendent moment with head coach Pat Fitzgerald.
Granted, Scanlan had been challenged similarly before. A run-in with a coach as a Spring-Ford 8th grader provided a turning point in his football life and life in general.
Those experiences, plus the death of his best friend, David Tyler, in 2014, shaped the latter years of a playing career that could have had a disappointing finish if not for Scanlan’s perseverance and unwillingness to let doubt win.
Scanlan has returned to Royersford and is still active in football as a coach and trainer trying to elevate the trajectory of area student-athletes.
MERCURY » You’re a 2012 Spring-Ford graduate, you left Spring-Ford as the all-time leader in almost every receiving category - marks that stood until last year - and remain the career receiving TD leader; you were All-State as a wide receiver and defensive back in 2011, selected to the Big 33 game, led Spring-Ford to the PAC championship in 2011 and the district playoffs for the first time. How do you look back on your high school career?
SCANLAN » I feel like I was a part of making Spring-Ford what it should have been and what it is today. It wasn’t just me - I came after some incredible athletes. I used to watch Andre Watkins (Class of 2007), I wanted to be Andre Watkins. He did some phenomenal things on the football field.
I think my greatest accomplishment is being a part of the team that won the PAC again, finally after 13 years. The last time we’d won it was ‘98 and I know guys from that team I still talk to today, and we get into it a little about who the greatest team was.
I think the coolest part was the relationships I built. I’m still best friends with the guy I graduated with, played football with since middle school, still have really close relationships with guys like Zameer McDowell, Darryl Branch, Hank Coyne, Ryan Conway, (Tyler) Yazujian.
Quite honestly, football saved my life and made a difference in my life that I can’t ever pay back.”
MERCURY » How do you mean ‘football saved your life’?
SCANLAN » I went about everything my own way ever since I
was young. I just did things the way I wanted to do it, no regard for rules and regulations and it got me in trouble a lot growing up.
In 8th grade – I like telling this story now, especially to kids going their own way – I quit football. I walked off the field after a practice because I didn’t agree with a coach and it was probably the most immature thing I’ve ever done from a sports perspective.
That day I went home and my grandfather (Bob Scanlan) said, ‘You’re going to regret it.’ Living with my grandparents and my mom, they all said, ‘You’re going to regret it. You need to go back to that coach tomorrow and figure it out and get back on that team because there’s no quit in this house.’
That day when I got into that rift with the coach in 8th grade, he straight up told me, ‘You’re never going to start at SpringFord. You’re never gonna finish high school at Spring-Ford. There’s no way.’ I’ll never forget that moment.
To be able to go through Spring-Ford and bring a PAC-10 championship to Spring-Ford, to be Spring-Ford’s first-ever Big 33 player, it meant so much to me. Everything I did came back to that moment on those steps where Coach told me I’d never start at Spring-Ford or any other school. I always went back to that moment and I’m able to laugh now because what I did with my career was way more than not starting at Spring-Ford.
Beyond that, my two best friends I grew up with, one is deceased, the other was in jail an extended amount of time and just got out recently. Football as it started becoming a bigger part of my life, all those negative things that those friends were doing became a smaller part of my life that eventually got extinguished.
God rest his soul, David Tyler* was my role model from a football perspective. David was my brother in so many ways, and things just didn’t go down the right way with him. He made some poor choices, got caught around the wrong people. *-David Tyler, a former standout running back at Spring-Ford and 2010 Pottstown graduate, and Scanlan became close friends while attending Spring-Ford despite Tyler being two years older. Tyler died of a heroin overdose on October 11, 2014.)
It if wasn’t for football, that could have been me. If it wasn’t for football, it could have been me spending an extended period in jail. You just never know.
You wonder ‘Why not me?’ when those guys that you’re so close with were going through something and the answer was always football.
I’ve lived by the motto ‘Leave Your Legacy’ for coming up on 10 years now. I got the idea from my grandfather who would tell me, ‘Regardless of if you want to play football in college, if you want to go into the military, whatever it is you’re going to do, at least someone is going to remember you for something, so when you do something the right way, that’s your legacy. When you do something the wrong way, that’s your legacy. Why not do it the right way?’
MERCURY » We haven’t had a lot of skill-position players go to really high Division I schools which is notable in and of itself, but the thing that sticks out for me most about you is that in an era of seeing so many transfer or leave the sport, it wasn’t the dream scenario for you. You weren’t starting on day 1 and getting every ball thrown to you. You had to work for it the entire way and it’s obvious that you kept working, stuck with it and were able to have a really nice college career, stayed at the same place and saw it to the finish line.
That journey of going from redshirting your freshman year, earning increased playing time every year throughout your career, to being a senior and playing in all 13 games where you had 29 catches for 331 yards and had a special cap to your career by winning the Pinstripe Bowl (31-24 win over Pitt at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28, 2016) – did your college career live up to your hopes or expectations?
SCANLAN » Absolutely not, but don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret going to Northwestern one bit, I don’t regret staying at Northwestern, I don’t regret anything.
If you commit to a Division I football program, you have to have the mindset of wanting to be an all-conference player and more. If you go in saying I just want to participate in the sport, you are going to be chewed up and spit out. That’s exactly what happens to a lot of people I think.
My competitive drive didn’t let me give up because I wasn’t getting the ball thrown my way or I had a different role than what my expectations were going into college. You have to adjust to things.
The relationships I built with the people at Northwestern, friends, teammates, administrators, coaches, it didn’t let me quit. I couldn’t do it.
I got a good amount of snaps and reps but injuries* kept me off the field. It wasn’t my personality, it wasn’t because I didn’t know the playbook, it wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, it was that I couldn’t do it consistently enough. Productivity was a big piece of it. *Most notably, Scanlan suffered a broken foot in May 2015 entering his redshirt junior season, which limited his participation in training camp and the start of the season
I couldn’t let it deter from my ultimate goal which was to play in the NFL.
My last year, going into my senior year, I was presented with the idea a few days before Senior Day of 2015, Coach Fitz brought me into his office and pretty much said, ‘Look, Andrew, to be honest with you we would love to honor you at senior day if that’s what you’re up to’, essentially what we’re saying is that we don’t see your role improving going into your fifth year. You’re more than welcome to come back, we’re honoring your scholarship, but we don’t see your role improving, so is it worth coming back and sitting the bench?
The crazy thing is, I looked back exactly on the story I just told and to those steps and I remembered in my mind seeing me on those steps and being told again that I wasn’t going to start at Spring-Ford.
Before I even left the room I said, ‘Coach, I’m coming back next year and I’m going to start.’
Coach Fitz looked at me and said, ‘I love your attitude. Let’s do it.’
MERCURY » Will that senior year and earning a starting spot be the piece that you remain most pleased about from your career?
SCANLAN » That was the pinnacle of my sports career. Starting that senior year was the pinnacle. I played in the Horseshoe (Ohio State University), which was cool because I was a Buckeyes fan growing up. We came up short of winning that game unfortunately. That was the pinnacle, and beating Penn State two out of three times. That senior year was something special.
And then finishing my career at Yankee Stadium, I couldn’t have written it a better way. I grew up a Yankees fan – that’s my favorite sports team above any, including football – and ending it in Yankee Stadium, getting to use the facility, sit in Jeter’s locker, it was so cool.
To stay back one more year, give it one more shot, it’s the fruits of your labor that came to that moment, that day of winning in Yankee Stadium. To finish my football career that way, I couldn’t have written it any better.
MERCURY » Did you pursue any post-college play and how did that transition go for you in life after Northwestern football-wise?
SCANLAN » Obviously I wasn’t a hot commodity. Getting an agent wasn’t in the cards at the time, getting training with the ‘gurus’ all that stuff you see in social media, it wasn’t in the cards for me. I was an unproven guy just chasing his dream. … I had a tryout with the Eagles and the Bears. I went to those tryouts, did really well, got some nice compliments from coaches there and a few ‘We’ll be in touch’ and bounced around, got some calls from some teams in the league. I was offered a few times to play overseas, but something kept me home.
It wasn’t in the best interest of my family to leave (to play overseas). I have two little sisters in the area, one (Kyra) just graduated from Spring-Ford, she’s at Old Dominion now, and the other is 9 years old. I felt like they needed me.
And having Nikki (longtime girlfriend Nikki Lynch, a fellow former standout athlete at SpringFord) here and being ready to grow a family, and we did that which has been the best way my dream could transition. Post-college career wasn’t what you always dreamed of when you lay your head down at night but being able to put on a practice jersey for the Eagles was really special for me and I know the community was rooting for me. I got a lot of messages and texts and emails from people I never really even came across. That really was special to know a community has your back regardless of what the outcome was.
MERCURY » Did it take you a while to find peace with moving on from a playing career?
SCANLAN » Honestly, if it wasn’t for how much I love this community and this area, I’d still be pursuing in some capacity.
I can’t lie – and I’m not the only one struggling with it – that postfootball life is no easy feat. You go from doing 50 hours a week doing something that’s not a job, it’s something you love. Then it just ends abruptly with no certainty of an end.
I can say I’m content being done playing but there’s always a part of me, especially being as young as I am, that says if I go out and put in two months of full focus, determination, drive, everything I was doing before, I know I can try out somewhere but there’s something holding me back.
I don’t know if I can say I’m at peace with it because it’s always creeping back in my head. It’s not a nightmare but a little bit of consciousness that I still want to do it.
I stay connected to it as much as I can. I train kids now, I did a little coaching when I was done, so I stay connected, which is helping a little bit, but seeing it makes me just want to do it.
MERCURY » How have you repurposed that football passion into these new pursuits?
SCANLAN » My passion is my purpose and my purpose is to hand down what I learned and give it to kids that are trying to chase their dreams now. I do that as much as I can. I’ve worked with guys that have stories so similar to mine and I can share how you have to do it. I have a passion for that. I find that is my purpose at this point, to give back what I know and give them an understanding that people want them to succeed.
The actual work is hard and it’s going to continue to be hard, but when people want you to succeed, the hard work becomes easy work.
This is my purpose at this point, to educate, motivate, help, be a difference.
* Scanlan lives in Royersford with Lynch and their 1-year-old son Cayleb. He is a Market Development Manager for Snap! Raise, a social donation platform that aids the fundraising efforts of local athletic programs, clubs, and organizations.
Scanlan stays active in football as President/Co-Director of Students Will Achieve Greatness 7v7, a 7-on-7 developmental and mentorship program in southeast Pa. He also holds wide receiver training sessions. He previously served as a volunteer assistant at Spring-Ford before serving as offensive coordinator at Norristown in 2018.