When Maryland linebacker Melvin Keihn was an eighth-grader at Southwest Academy in Gwynn Oak, Md., an advisor told him he should give football a try. Keihn, who loved basketball, bought a football for him and his dad, Bainda, to toss around in the backyard.
The advisor hooked him up with a Pikesville, Md., youth football program, where he played for two weeks before switching to the Hamilton Tigers' program. But in the short period of time Keihn was with Pikesville, the football novice had already caught the attention of Biff Poggi, then the head football coach at Gilman School.
"I heard that there was a kid playing at Pikesville who was really special athletically," Poggi said. "I went out to look at him at practice, and he was certainly that. He was bigger, faster, stronger than everybody. He had no idea what he was doing, but he had all the pieces."
