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The rookie of the year remains a star without a team since deciding to leave the USF program.
By BRANT JAMES
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2000
BROOKSVILLE -- Joe Condron is a big mystery.
Big as his 6-foot-8, 355-pound body. Big as the shiny black sport utility vehicle he tools into the parking lot at Central High School, just as the summer weight-lifting session has ended.
Condron has no pressing need to be there. Central is long-since a memory, where he starred in football until graduating in 1999. Now it's just a place where he can lift for free.
But it's not as if that's a pressing need either.
A season after establishing himself as one of the cornerstones of an aspiring NCAA Division I program at the University of South Florida, Condron faces a fall with no practice, no program.
Angered by a perceived deception by Bulls coach Jim Leavitt and in need, some close to him say, of reconsidering his dedication to football, Condron left the USF program and withdrew from school in February.
Compelled to reconcile with Leavitt after re-thinking his decision, Condron met with the head coach a month ago, but came away "not feeling welcome," according to his mother, Sue Condron.
"It's a shame," she said. "He was ready to go to school and go back. Everyone saw a change in him. It's a shame coach didn't."
Joe Condron's career at USF, in specific, is over. His football career, in general, is on prolonged hold -- until he asks for and receives his release from USF, so he can wait the mandated year before entering another program.
Condron doesn't seem at all in a hurry.
At 19 years old, Condron can be forgiven for indecision, especially considering the upheaval the death of his father, Joseph, caused his personal life in March.
"I figured everything was fine, like nothing would change," Condron said. "Now I don't know what I'm going to do yet."
As with all young athletes with a physical gift, be it a 90-mph fastball or silky jump shot, Condron has had to deal with expectations. Coaches, scouts, and his parents foresaw a kid the size of Condron playing football, playing it well, and playing it at a high level.
Condron's mother said she knows her son is reassessing things.
"It was his Dad he played for," Sue said. "He was the one who pushed him all the way. I think it might have been his Dad's dream more than his.
"His freshman year, that year we told him to play for us. We said if he played anymore, that he would play it on his own," she said.
Joseph Condron, 47, died of a heart attack March 12 in Daytona Beach Shores. He left Coast Construction, a Hernando County company he founded, for his wife and brothers to run.
Condron's future seemed bright at USF.
As a starting right tackle, he was named a national Division I-AA player of the week and the USF rookie of the year.
Unhappiness marked his time there, however, Condron said. He decided to leave partly out of a dislike for Leavitt and the departure to the University of Houston of Eric Wolford, the coach whorecruited him.
Condron was unhappy at what he perceived was Leavitt's attempt to keep Wolford's departure a secret.
"Coach Leavitt wanted to keep it on the down-low because he didn't want it to hurt recruiting," Condron said.
"I was pretty p----- off. (Wolford) told us after everybody already knew. He said Coach Leavitt did not want anybody to know."
Leavitt and Wolford deny that.
Condron said that Leavitt's unwillingess to allow him time off to help his partially torn anterior cruciate ligament heal contributed.
Leavitt wouldn't discuss Condron other than to say, "I would rather address players who are in the program. ... I wish him well."
Condron said some players tried to talk him into staying but understood his motives.
"A lot of guys tried to talk me out of it," he said. "I said it was something I had to do and then they liked it, then.
"A lot of players do not like Leavitt either," Condron said.
Condron was incensed by comments the coach made after he informed him of his decision.
Leavitt was quoted in the Times as saying: "He really doesn't want to do the running and lifting for winter conditioning. He just wants time off. How can you be on our football team if you can't do running and lifting?"
"When I told him I was leaving, he said I was lazy, and he was (lying)," Condron said. "Why would I go out and start every game (he actually missed two with the knee injury) and be lazy."
Wolford, who considers himself "very close" to Condron, doesn't think the player is lazy but said he needs to commit himself.
Girth, alone, will not allow him to play football for long, Wolford said.
"He realizes he could play on Sundays," Wolford said. "But he has to put work into it. The thing is, is he going to prepare himself?
"This year he came in and played so well because of his ability and because he was a 6-8 kid who weights 350 pounds. He needs to get in the weight room. Once he gets strong, it'll be no contest."
Condron said in June that he would "never play for Leavitt again," because, "he says one thing and does another. I don't want to play for someone like that."
Condron reconsidered a few weeks ago, however, and met with Leavitt on campus to ask if he could return.
Playing this fall was impossible because Condron hadn't maintained his credit-level, but he was interested in being ready for next spring.
The meeting didn't go well.
"He went down and registered, but he said he just didn't feel welcome," Sue Condron said.
"He said it seemed he had burned his bridges; he'd done too much damage."
Condron's mother is in a precarious position. On one side she has her oldest son. On the other, Leavitt, a friend of her and her husband since high school.
"We're friends, and there's no ill will," Sue said. "Getting Joe through the recruiting and getting him there, we've been through so much together."
She said she sympathizes with Leavitt's predicament.
"I know it's been hard for Coach Leavitt," she said. "He can't make any special allowances for Joe, and I know he was taking a harder approach with him. He couldn't cut him any slack.
"He just takes Joe so personally," she said. "He wanted him to make a full commitment, which Joe did, then (Condron) told him he needed some time off. Coach told him he played too important a position for him not to be sure."
Condron is enrolled at Pasco-Hernando Community College.
The foot Condron broke during his senior season at Central hasn't properly healed, his mother said, and may require surgery.
Condron has been able to continue playing pick-up basketball, however.
Wolford said he thinks basketball may be Condron's favorite sport and openly wondered how good he would be at football if he took an equal interest in it.
Condron never has been big on conversation, which didn't facilitate his relationship with Leavitt. Wolford, someone Condron liked and trusted, said he was "a good kid, but someone I had to stick with all the time."
"Joe did what he was asked, but he was never one of those guys that just comes and sits and wants to talk," said Steve Crognale, Condron's coach at Central.
"We'd have a few conversations, but never a one-on-one thing. That's just him; he's not a vocal guy."
Sue Condron insists that her son hasn't lost his will to play and asserts the good physical shape she says he's in as evidence.
"He did want to play," she said. "He finally made the decision when he went down there. He thought he was going back."
Joe Condron admits the approaching fall feels odd.
"I miss it," he said.
Condron said Florida Atlantic's new program -- which hopes to begin play in 2001 and become a Division I member in 2003 -- interests him, and he's limited his search to Florida schools.
He did the same when being recruited as a prep star, so he can stay close to home.
Condron is especially determined to do that, he said, since his father's death.
"I don't want to leave Mom alone," Condron said.
With the regimen of football removed, Condron must decide what he wants. The sport was always simple -- find the enemy, block him.
Life is more complicated, and no one -- perhaps not even Condron -- knows how this play will end.