There was Rasheed Marshall, minding his own business and scanning the local Wal-Mart’s DVD section with a few teammates late this summer.

A man flanked by his two sons tapped Marshall on the shoulder. No big deal, though. When you play quarterback for a West Virginia team carrying expectations unseen in a decade, you get noticed. A lot.

Marshall prepared for the usual. A handshake, a good luck, a pat on the back, maybe a picture.

‘Hey,’ the man asked. ‘Are you LeBron James?’

Marshall cracked up laughing. Now this was a good one. Everyone in West Virginia, a place that places football somewhere between family and religion, knew who he is: the fifth-year senior and fourth-year signal caller on the cusp of taking the Mountaineers back to national prominence.

But as Marshall chuckled, the man stared at him like he had three eyes. Marshall realized it was no joke. One of his sons had mistaken Marshall for the NBA phenom.

‘No,’ Marshall said politely. ‘I’m not LeBron James.’

The man nodded and slinked quietly away – back to his cave, presumably. Because to live in West Virginia and not know Rasheed Marshall is to live in Nashville and mistake Garth Brooks for Mick Jagger. Marshall has found that out in his five years in Morgantown, W.Va.’s spotlight, enduring comparisons and expectations with a calm demeanor matched by his precision as quarterback of an intricate offense.

He views his high-profile position as more blessing than burden, accepting both praise and blame as easily as throwing a 5-yard out. Tomorrow night, he’ll continue his life under a microscope when Syracuse plays No. 15 West Virginia at Mountaineer Field at 7:30.

He wasn’t always the main attraction. While at Brashear High School in Pittsburgh, he wasn’t even the most highly recruited player in his league. That honor went to former Pittsburgh quarterback Rod Rutherford.

But several schools, including Wisconsin, came calling. He decided on West Virginia because of its proximity to Pittsburgh. First, though, he spent a year at Valley Forge Academy, a military prep school, to enhance his SAT scores.

When he arrived at West Virginia, Marshall drew comparisons to Major Harris, who led WVU to its first undefeated season in 1988.

When current head coach Rich Rodriguez replaced legendary Don Nehlen, who recruited Marshall, Marshall was compared to Woody Dantzler and Shaun King, who played at Clemson and Tulane, respectively, in Rodriguez’s unique spread offense.

‘It was a good feeling, having the opportunity to be mentioned with all these guys who made their marks,’ Marshall said. ‘For people to say I’m sort of next in line before I even played one down of college football, there was a little pressure. But I liked it. I just wanted to make a name for myself.’

That pressure prepared Marshall for the deluge of expectations he and the Mountaineers garnered before this season. West Virginia was the consensus pick to win the depleted Big East’s Bowl Championship Series berth and picked by some to challenge for a national title.

A good amount of the weight fell on Marshall’s shoulders. He’s the only football player pictured on the home page of the Big East’s official Web site, taking the place of Pittsburgh star receiver and current Arizona Cardinal Larry Fitzgerald.

Marshall can’t walk down the street or go shopping in Morgantown without being noticed, signing autographs and taking pictures with admirers – ‘all that good stuff,’ he says with sincerity.

Not all of the attention, though, has always been good. After one loss early last year in which he played poorly, a fan pelted him with a beer can as Marshall drove away from the stadium. He shook his head, swallowed hard and kept driving, maintaining poise in an infuriating scenario.

‘He handles (stardom) tremendously well, as well as any college football player I’ve been around,’ Rodriguez said. ‘Rasheed has handled it as humbly as any player I’ve ever been around. In the community and around campus, he’s the same guy he was four years ago. He’s been booed and he’s been adulated, and he’s handled it all the same way.’

This season, it’s mostly adulation. Before losing to Virginia Tech three weeks ago, Marshall had guided the 5-1 Mountaineers to a No. 6 national ranking, WVU’s highest in 10 years.

He did so with a keen understanding of Rodriguez’s run-oriented spread offense, which allows Marshall to take advantage of his superb athletic ability. From his junior to senior season, Marshall grew exponentially in his understanding of how defenses try to stop him.

Though he’s about as flashy as a traffic cone, Marshall can still be productive. He takes the steadiness he needs to deal with fans on the field. He ranks only sixth of seven Big East quarterbacks in yards per game with 150.5 and fourth in touchdowns at nine. But he’s first in efficiency, posting a 145.2 rating, the 17th best in the nation.

‘We’re so critical of our quarterbacks, or at least I am,’ Rodriguez said. ‘In reality, he’s played pretty solid football all year. And he knows what we want to do with our offense. He’s having his best year by far.’

Most of that has to do with his security in the offense. In West Virginia’s 31-19 win over Connecticut last Wednesday night, on a crucial third-and-7, Marshall dropped back and roped a perfect 20-yard out to the far side of the field, helping to ice the game.

Surrounded by 50,000 screaming fans and a Division-I defense, it felt like a Tuesday afternoon to Marshall.

‘This is really not a game,’ Marshall thought. ‘It’s practice.’

‘Right now,’ Marshall said, ‘I feel like I’m in the ultimate comfort zone.’

When he spoke, he intended to mean on the field. In reality, with just a handful of games left in his career, Marshall could have meant being the biggest star in his state. To him, the benefits far exceed the pressure.

‘It is nice,’ Marshall said. ‘Sometimes, I just sit at home at the end of the day and just think about how blessed I am to be part of such a good program. All of it really is a blessing.’

Published on October 19, 2004 at 12:00 pm