The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Pettway setting standard for Blue Devils
One game into senior campaign, RB is Blue Devils’ all-time leading rusher
In the fall of 2014, young Isaac Pettway attentively patrolled the sidelines at Wickliffe football games.
As an eighthgrader, Pettway was a ballboy for Coach Marce Porcello’s team. When he wasn’t wiping off or switching out footballs during the game, he was paying attention.
There before Pettway was senior running back Tiontay Phillips — the standard for Wickliffe running backs as the school’s all-time leading rusher.
Every time Phillips touched the ball and broke away for big yardarge, the crowd went wild.
“Wow,” Pettway marveled. “I want to be like that someday.”
Four years later, Pettway has chiseled his name into the lore of Wickliffe football as the new standard for running backs — maybe for any player of any position in Blue Devils history.
With a first-quarter run in Wickliffe’s 21-7 win over Collinwood in Week 1 of his senior season on Aug. 24, Pettway became Wickliffe’s all-time leading rusher. That record goes with a record he set as a junior as Wickliffe’s all-time leader for touchdowns scored.
When Wickliffe welcomes visiting Fairview for its home opener on Aug. 31, it will do so with Pettway as the career leader in yards (3,715) and touchdowns (56). With nine games remaining — or more, depending on if the Blue Devils qualify for the playoffs for the third year in a row — Pettway has a chance to put some serious distance between him and the rest of the greats of Wickliffe football standouts.
It’s a destiny he always hoped for, going back to his days watching Phillips, but never imagined would come to fruition.
“It was a goal of mine to come out and shine, put on a performance to make the community proud,” Pettway said.
“I realize I just broke a record, but it doesn’t matter THAT much to me. I just want to go out, do what I do on Friday nights, and do what I can for my team.”
It’s safe to say he’s done a lot, ever since the day he strapped on a Wickliffe High School football helmet.
As a freshman, he shared carries with Justin Fortkamp, finishing with 675 yards and 10 touchdowns. A year later, he ran for 1,394 yard and 21 scores, which set up a magnificent junior campaign during which he ran for 1,579 yards and 24 touchdowns.
All while being the focal point of opposing defensive coordinators every Friday night.
“He is definitely one of
the best players that has ever played for Wickliffe, if not the best,” Porcello said. “He’s such a competitor and such a leader — that’s what’s given us a chance to be what we are today.”
Porcello remembers fondly the day he and a few members of the varsity coaching staff went to junior high practice and extended the opportunity to Pettway and a few others to be ballboys on Friday nights for the varsity squad.
“He caught my eye,” Porcello said. “You knew it was going to be something special. You could see it when he was in seventh grade.
“By eighth grade, he was a very mature young man.”
Pettway said he always looked up to Phillips, so to break his record was special. He entered the season only 24 yards shy of the alltime rushing record.
He finished with 67 yards rushing and a touchdown.
The touchdown he scored further separated him from the previous record-holder for career touchdowns — Mike Philipp (54). Pettway snapped that record last year in a playoff game against Grand Valley.
“It’s not all about me,” said Pettway, the consummate team player. “If I don’t have the ball, I still have a job to do. It’s not a one-man thing, it’s an everybody thing. It’s an 11-guy thing.”
That’s why, as nice as the two career records are, the record he is really chasing this year is a third straight playoff berth. The last time Wickliffe qualified for the playoffs three years in a row was 1999, 2000 and 2001.
He wasn’t even born yet when that streak started.
So to do it again this year would be special.
Wickliffe qualified in 2016, then qualified and won a playoff opener last year. The goal now is to qualify and win two games — at least.
“That’s important to me, that three-peat of getting to the playoffs,” Pettway said. “Wickliffe teams don’t do that often. It’s right there for us. We just have to take it weekby-week and only focus on the next team in front of us.”
Pettway will also represent Wickliffe in the BlueGrey All-American Bowl — a showcase for high school seniors — in December. He took part in combines in Cincinnati and Philadelphia over the spring and summer, and was selected as one of 90 players from around America to play in the game.
“It’s awesome,” Pettway said. “When I got the letter, I was like, ‘Wow.’ I can’t wait.”
Pettway admitted it’s difficult to believe he’s a senior
and playing his last year with the Blue Devils. It feels like yesterday he was an eighth-grade ballboy flipping the ball out onto the field for the officials and watching his idol Phillips.
Now he’s a senior, a recordholder and has a bid to play in an All-American game.
“It’s great to have role models you look up to,” he said. “I used to look up to Tiontay, not to be like him, but hopefully be better than him. I just wanted to be the best player — the best teammate — I could be.
“Maybe 20 years from now, my son will break my record. I want my own kids to be better than I ever was.”
Considering what he’s done statistically and as a leader, not to mention how Wickliffe has done with Pettway at center stage, that would be something special.