Central Michigan University Athletics
CMU Wide Receiver Comes Into His Own
10/2/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. -- A blessing or a burden?
Anthony Rice just wants to be his own person, create his own identity. But when your dad was the quarterback at Notre Dame, and led the Irish to a National Championship in 1988, you carry that, for better or for worse, whether you embrace it or not.
Rice, a junior wide receiver on the Central Michigan football team, carries a royal football pedigree. Growing up in Mishawaka, Ind. -- a down-and-out from the Notre Dame campus -- he lived in his dad's substantial shadow.
"I've got so many memories of going out to Notre Dame with my dad," said Rice, who, along with his CMU teammates, will take on Northern Illinois Saturday at 3 p.m. at Kelly/Shorts Stadium. "It would be fun to be out there with him and see all the reactions (to him), but at the same time it was hard because I didn't really get to spend too much time with him because he would be talking to other people."
At Marian High School, Anthony Rice was a standout, and the recruiters came calling. So did the whispers, inevitable for a kid with a legendary surname in northwest Indiana.
"It got to the point where I started to get recruited and people would say things like `He's only being recruited because of who his dad is,'" Rice recalled. "At that time I really felt like I had to step back. It was like it was time for me to get out of his shadow and for me to kind of make a name for myself.
"I honestly can't speak to whether it helped me or not behind closed doors. But I know that my dad -- he's a very laid-back guy, he doesn't really get in my business. If I ask him for help or something, yes he'll help me. But he doesn't go out of his way to try to use his name to get my anything."
Rice signed with CMU after his junior year at Marian. In Mount Pleasant, the spotlight didn't shine nearly as brightly as it did on him back home.
His teammates are a generation removed from when the elder Rice led the Lou Holtz-coached Irish.
"I'd say 90 percent of them don't know who he is," Rice said. "That's the nice part about it. When they do find out about him, it's kind of funny. I prefer to be my own person. Have people know me for me."
That's becoming increasingly clear. Last week in a 30-10 loss at Michigan State, Rice caught eight passes for 78 yards -- both career-highs. He is second among CMU receivers with 19 catches for 208 yards in an offense that ranks second in the Mid-American Conference, averaging 327 passing yards per game.
Bloodlines aside, Rice went through the requisite growing pains when he arrived on campus, no unlike so many student-athletes do.
"The expectation level for a kid like him, when his dad was a star quarterback at Notre Dame, I mean everybody expects him to come in and be all-world," said CMU assistant head coach/wide receivers coach Mose Rison. "It doesn't happen that way. It normally takes time and it's taken some time.
"As you can see now, he's an outstanding football player."
Rice said he was struck with a case of homesickness when he came to CMU in 2012. For that, he leaned on both of his parents, who were divorced when he was 7 years old. Tony lives in Chicago, while his mother, Felicia, still lives in Indiana.
"That first year, I'm pretty sure like 70 percent of the freshmen, you just want to quit because you're on scout team a lot and you're just getting beat up and you don't really understand how football changes from high school to college," Rice said, adding that he fought the urge to return home. "I owe that to my parents. I wanted to leave so bad, but my mom said `stick it out, stick it out' and my dad said the same thing, `stick it out.'
"I ended up listening to them. I'm so happy I did not leave.'"
Said Rison: "It is a growing process. I'm so proud of Anthony. The difference in terms of the kind of football player he is now, from where he was when he arrived as a freshman, there's no question it's night-and-day different. He causes people headaches on Saturday afternoons.
"When the game is on the line and we've got to make a throw, there's no better player to throw the ball to than Anthony Rice."
Rice still leans on his dad for advice, though he's clearly coming into his own, both as a player and as a man.
"He's a source of support and encouragement," Rice said. "He's not the type to text me and tell me what I need to do, but he will guide me through situations, make sure everything's OK, ask me if there's anything I want to talk about. But he doesn't really push football with me. Only if I want to talk about it.
"I mostly like to hear about him. He doesn't like to talk about himself. When we talk about football, it's more like, `What was your experience like?'"
