Our Greatest Hits: ODU quarterback Taylor Heinicke was a reluctant superstar inspired by his late father
Editor’s note: As we wait for the sports world to return, we’re occasionally looking back at some of our favorite Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press stories. This story appeared in The Pilot in 2014. To catch up on stories in this series, visit pilotonline.com or dailypress.com and search “Our Greatest Hits.”
— Jami Frankenberry, sports editor
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He usually wears glasses to class - the Clark Kent, mild-mannered-reporter kind. But on this day, Taylor Heinicke left his specs at home.
No matter. With or without them, he’s an anonymous face among the hundreds of students hurrying along Kaufman Mall. No one recognizes him, and he likes it that way.
He turns into Old Dominion University’s engineering building and settles in a back corner of a classroom. He and 20 other students listen as Arthur Taylor begins to lecture on statics - in essence, how to build structures so they won’t collapse.
“This is a subject that gives engineers nightmares,” Taylor says.
Heinicke jots down occasional notes, but doesn’t ask questions or mingle with students.
After class, he walks to his car and drives home, like he’s just another of the 25,000 millennials on campus.
He is anything but.
Heinicke is the most decorated player in ODU’s recent football history. The senior quarterback has passed for more yards (11,483) than any college quarterback ever in Virginia. He is on pace to finish among college football’s top five passers all-time, regardless of division.
With boyish good looks and a charming personality, he has all the makings of the proverbial big man on campus.
Instead, he’s a simple guy, preferring to play video games and hang out at home. When he wins awards, he gives credit to teammates, coaches and family.
Call him ODU’s reluctant superstar. And for that, Heinicke has his late father, Brett Heinicke, to thank.
Brett Heinicke was just 50 when he died of a massive heart attack in December 2011, not long after his son had finished his freshman season at ODU. Taylor Heinicke, still 18 at the time, was heartbroken. He still is.
Yet, his death strengthened Heinicke’s determination to live by the lessons learned from his dad.
Brett Heinicke taught his son, overtly and by example, that there is nothing more important in athletics than modesty.
The elder Heinicke won a state golf championship in high school and starred at the University of Hawaii. Yet, Heinicke said, he only learned of his dad’s athletic prowess from an aunt.
“He was such a humble guy,” Heinicke said.
Ron Whitcomb, ODU’s quarterbacks coach, said of Brett and Taylor Heinicke: "You couldn’t get closer than they were.
“When we were recruiting him, it was almost to the point where we worried, ‘Is he going to be OK away from his dad?’ ... They were inseparable. Brett was going to put Taylor ahead of everything.”
Yet, Brett was also stern when he needed to be.
“My dad would never let him gloat about anything,” said Lauren Heinicke, Taylor’s older sister. "If Taylor’s team would win a game, my dad’s message was always the same: ‘It’s over. Focus on the next game.’ "
Heinicke, whose Monarchs open the season Saturday at home against Hampton, is an honor student in mechanical engineering - an unusually challenging major for a football player - and it’s his intellect and work ethic that make him so good, coaches say. He analyzes things on the field the way an engineer views a building.
He finds pass receivers just as they break open, feels the pressure coming from rushing defenders even as he's looking downfield, and routinely checks down to new plays at the line to give his offense a tactical advantage.
"He has the ability to process a lot of information in a short period of time," said Brian Scott, ODU's associate head coach. "Even in the NFL, a lot of quarterbacks look to their first receiver and their second receiver, then panic and run.
"He doesn't panic. His eyes move from one receiver to the other until he's seen them all, and then he eyeballs them all again. If he gets in trouble, he's sneaky athletic.
"He's got it. I don't know what it is, but he's got the gift that great players always seem to have."
Heinicke leads ODU into Conference USA and the Football Bowl Subdivision - college football's highest level - this season. A new 30,000-seat stadium is on the drawing board. None of that would have been possible without Heinicke, ODU officials say.
"Taylor Heinicke is what I call a program-changer," coach Bobby Wilder said. "Without Taylor Heinicke, we don't have the success that we had, and we don't look as attractive to Conference USA."
Heinicke wants ODU to have a winning season in its first year in FBS, a tall order. He hopes to end his career in a bowl game - a longshot.
"We'd like to make some history here," he said.
He says it as if he doesn't realize he's already made history at ODU.
Heinicke holds more than a dozen NCAA records and in 2012 won the Walter Payton Award, presented to the nation's best player in the Football Championship Subdivision.
Two years ago, in a 64-61 victory over New Hampshire, he piled up a combined 791 yards passing and running. He amassed more total yards by a player than anyone since college football began in 1869.
Yet, Heinicke refuses to dwell on his success.
Mike Dodsworth, his stepfather, and his mother, Diane Dodsworth, noticed last year that all of his awards were gathering dust in a corner of his dorm room.
“We take his awards home now and display them in our house,” Mike Dodsworth said. “Those kinds of things don’t mean a lot to him. He understands, at the core, there’s always someone who’s better.”
Coaches say he's also a role model off the field.
"He doesn't like to go out and get crazy," said Casey Fehrle, his girlfriend. "The thing he appreciates most is a home-cooked meal and a quiet night.
"He really doesn't like all of the attention. He's shy. He's like a hermit. He doesn't want people to recognize him."
Taylor and Lauren Heinicke had a picture-book upbringing. They lived in relative affluence in suburban Atlanta with loving parents. Their father sold sporting goods; their mother works in IT for Coca-Cola.
They had relatives who worked at Disney World and often spent their summers at Disney resorts. "We were so spoiled," Lauren said.
They were both athletes - Lauren played soccer and Taylor played baseball, basketball and football. Both excelled academically.
But the reality of modern life hit while Lauren was in college and Taylor was a junior in high school: Their parents divorced.
It was an amicable split, one that didn't surprise Taylor. When Diane later married Mike Dodsworth, everyone embraced the blended family.
Taylor lived with his dad. “The tough part was not seeing my mom every day,” Heinicke said. “But we all adjusted.”
Curiously, Brett, Diane and Mike Dodsworth were high school classmates and good friends at Fairfield High in Cincinnati.
There is no bigger fan of Brett Heinicke than Mike Dodsworth, who has traveled with his wife to see every game that his stepson has played, always wearing jersey number 14.
"Brett was a tremendous father," he said. "The thing I remember about Brett was, not only was he a star athlete, he was an honor student. He's one of these guys who could sit in an honors class, never take notes or study, and make straight A's.
"That's something Taylor inherited from his father. "
Heinicke - now just a smidgen over 6 feet tall and 212 pounds - was a wisp of a 13-year-old when preseason practice began for his eighth-grade team. The team’s quarterback had moved in the offseason, and coaches asked the players if anyone thought they could take his place.
Heinicke, then a defensive back, stepped up and heaved the ball 50 yards, said Todd Marksberry, an assistant coach. "We already knew his athletic IQ was off the charts," Marksberry said. "But the throw settled things. He was our quarterback."
He threw an interception in his first game, leading to a loss. When he got home, he cried puppy-dog tears. His father came into his room and told him not to fret.
"He told me it was just one game," Heinicke said. "He said to just keep working hard. You'll be successful. I took it to heart. We went on to win the rest of our games and won the championship."
Heinicke did something midway through the season that Marksberry said left coaches wondering what they had on their hands.
"He called an audible," he said. "We had not taught him how to call an audible, nor had we given him permission to do so."
In the spring before Taylor's sophomore season at Collins Hill High School, Brett Heinicke called assistant coach Kevin Reach and asked him if he could borrow a playbook for his son. Reach agreed, and within 30 minutes, Brett Heinicke was on his doorstep. They liked each other immediately.
Over the years, Brett Heinicke seemed to spend nearly as much time at Collins Hill as his son. He and Patrick Everett, the father of former Collins Hill and current ODU defensive end Andrew Everett, would line the field before each football game.
Today, as players head onto the field at Collins Hill, they touch a rock holding a plaque dedicated to Brett Heinicke. The football MVP receives the Brett Heinicke award.
"Brett built platforms in our weight room, nine of them, all made of hardwood," said Reach, now the head coach. "A lot of people give money. Brett realized that time was more important than money."
Taylor Heinicke did not star until his senior year, when Reach installed a no-huddle spread offense. The system - the same that’s run by ODU - was a perfect fit. Heinicke passed for 4,218 yards - the second-most in Georgia history.
Yet, eight weeks into the season, he had no scholarship offers. That changed on an airport shuttle bus when Earl Williams, Heinicke's personal trainer, ran into Alonzo Brandon, who heads ODU's athletic foundation. Taylor Heinicke is a kid you should be recruiting, he told Brandon, who passed on the tip to Whitcomb, the quarterbacks coach.
Heinicke was slated to redshirt as a freshman until a fifth-game injury to starter Thomas DeMarco. Heinicke's family members were at the game because it was Parents Day - the first they had attended at ODU.
Lauren Heinicke had just gotten back to her seat and was eating popcorn when she saw her brother put on his helmet and enter the game. The family screamed: "Omigosh, he's going to play!"
"I was so glad that my father got to see him play," she said.
Heinicke tossed two touchdown passes in the second half to lead ODU to a 48-33 upset of 20th-ranked Massachusetts.
The season ended in Statesboro, Georgia., with a 55-48 loss to Georgia Southern in the second round of the FCS playoffs. Heinicke had the best game of his career to that point, throwing five touchdown passes and running for another.
It was Dec. 5, 2011. Eleven days later, Brett Heinicke was gone.
Williams said he “never saw a happier man than Brett ... when he was tailgating for an ODU game. He was making brats and passing them out to everyone. He knew he was about to see his son play.”
"After the Georgia Southern game, I saw him give Taylor a huge hug, the same way I hug my boys."
Heinicke said he will never forget his father's last words: "I'm so proud of you."
The ODU band was playing the national anthem as the Monarchs prepared for their 2012 opener against Duquesne.
It was Heinicke's first game since his dad's death, and he began crying uncontrollably on the sidelines. It took Whitcomb a few minutes to help Heinicke pull things together.
Last summer, Heinicke went through a rough bout of two weeks as he again struggled with his father's death. Whitcomb, with whom Heinicke has forged a close friendship, was with him every day to work through it.
Heinicke said he's still grieving.
"I feel like there's still weight on my shoulders from it," he said. "There are feelings inside me I need to let go of. There just hasn't been time."
Trey Marksberry, Heinicke's best friend since grade school, said he was too busy taking care of others in the months after his father's death to take care of himself.
"He really did a good job of staying strong with his mother, with Lauren, with all of us, so that we wouldn't fall apart," he said. "He took care of us. That's his nature."
Diane Dodsworth said she worries about her son.
"I've just never seen him melt down, not once," she said. "I don't know how he manages the frustrations he faces. Does he take it out in the weight room? Or on the field? I don't know."
Heinicke recalls watching the Green Bay Packers win a Super Bowl with his father, a lifelong cheesehead who ran into the Georgia night to scream, “We won the Super Bowl!”
"That's one of my greatest memories of my father," Heinicke said. "He was such a big Packers fan. We ate brats and cheese dip and watched the game in our basement. I'll never forget that."
Two weeks after his father died, Heinicke got a tattoo on his left arm. It says, "Dad," has an angel in the clouds and a quote from the Bible. John 16:22, which reads, in part: "Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy."
After every touchdown, Heinicke touches his left arm, then points skyward with both hands.
Heinicke now lives with two of his boyhood friends in an off-campus home dubbed the "Collins Hill House." Heinicke, Everett and wide receiver Nick England, who also went to Collins Hill, are roommates, along with long snapper Rick Lovato.
Life is good, Heinicke said. But in less than four months, his college career will end.
"I feel like I just got here," he said. "I don't want it to end."
Scott said he believes Heinicke will be the first ODU player ever selected in the NFL draft, despite his relative lack of height.
"But he's still got a story to write at Old Dominion," Scott said. "The book isn't closed. He's still got a lot of football to play."
Whether or not he makes it to the NFL, Heinicke has no regrets.
"I've worked my hardest every day. If it's not meant to be, I'll be able to say I left it all on the field."
As his father would have wanted.
Postscript
Taylor Heinicke, who finished his four-year career with 14,959 passing yards and 132 touchdown passes, said this week he plans to return to ODU to complete his undergraduate degree. He has switched majors from engineering to mathematics. Heinicke’s professional career included limited playing time with four NFL teams and an abbreviated stint in the XFL before it folded earlier this year.
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