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ALBANY, N.Y. — As an eager freshman at Albany, Eddie Delaney and his father walked into the university's football office five years ago and asked for a shot at the team.
Sounds like an average enough story, except for the fact that Delaney was born without a left hand.
Admittedly, Albany coach Bob Ford didn't know much about him, and obviously had some reservations.
"We were concerned about his hand," Ford said. "I guess probably 70 percent of the coaches in the nation might have said, 'No, you can't do it'. "
But with more than four decades of experience, Ford knew better and gave Delaney that chance. There was no scholarship money for the aspiring defensive end, but he made the scout team as a walk-on and practiced against a first-string offensive line that would help the Great Danes go undefeated in conference play.
Little did they all know, that was just the beginning of a standout career.
"He was up against a 6-foot-6, 320-pound offensive tackle, and Eddie never backed down once," said Ford, whose 250 career victories at Albany rank second only to Penn State's Joe Paterno among active coaches in college football's top two divisions. "He went hard for 11 weeks. Motor never stopped. He got better in that process."
Since then, he's twice made second-team, all-league in the Northeast Conference of the Football Championship Subdivision. And now, after growing nearly half a foot and gaining 50 pounds of muscle from tireless work in the weight room, Delaney is a bona fide star for the Great Danes.
Heck, even some NFL scouts have asked about the muscular, 6-foot-6, 250-pound fifth-year senior, who was elected a team captain — just as he was at Sachem East High — and was the top returning tackler on the defensive line.
"Ed plays with a reckless abandon that I've never seen by anybody around here before," said defensive line coach Bill Banagan, who played for the Great Danes in the 1980s. "He flies to the ball every chance he gets. He's like a kamikaze pilot out there running around. He's never out of the play. You have to know where he is at all times because he's going to run plays down from behind.
"I can remember when he walked through the door, 200 pounds with long, blond, shaggy hair. If you told me at that point that I'd be talking to NFL scouts about him, I would have said you're crazy."
It borders on the unfathomable when you consider "his hand." He also wears an insulin pump to control the Type 1 diabetes that too often saps his body of energy, something his coach didn't find out about right away....
