STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Elmer Hickman knows college football season is close whenever his friends and clients send him the YouTube clip.
Like clockwork, with every screenshot he receives, the former Illinois fullback is reminded of his unique place in college football history. Hickman can laugh about it now, his voice piercing through the phone as he still tries to piece together what happened that afternoon at Penn State 25 years ago this fall when he was stopped in his tracks by a leaping LaVar Arrington.
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“We hiked the damn ball and next thing I know I’m on the ground, like magic,” recalled Hickman, who is now a personal trainer in Miami. “I got up, went to the sideline and my coach is like, ‘He jumped over the line.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean he jumped over the line?’
“He goes, ‘Wait until you go home and watch this in meetings,’” Hickman said between laughs.
On fourth-and-inches at the Penn State 31-yard line, Hickman took a handoff from quarterback Kirk Johnson and was abruptly crushed. He’s the man on the other side of the famous LaVar Leap, the player in the No. 32 jersey gobbled up by the All-American linebacker. Arrington’s perfectly timed jump over the line of scrimmage — a Superman-esque moment for the Nittany Lions superstar — catapulted him into another stratosphere in State College.
“A lot of the people who said they saw it and that they were there, they probably had the ticket but they didn’t see it,” Arrington said. “It happened so quick. … I enjoy the fact that it’s even worth something to even try to claim it.”
As Hickman peeled himself off the ground and retreated to the Illinois sideline, he didn’t know he would forever be linked to one of the most impressive hits in college football history. When Arrington was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2022, Hickman saw video clips of the leap circulating again. This week, with No. 7 Penn State opening Big Ten play on the road Saturday afternoon at Illinois, the video will surely make the rounds again.
“It’s actually kind of fun now,” Hickman said. “It’s kind of cool to be part of something big.”
It’s a play that everyone wants to have their part in, as Arrington put it. Many people want to say there were in the stadium that day or that they remember feeling their jaw hit the floor when Arrington went airborne. The reality is many who were in the stadium couldn’t fully appreciate or comprehend what happened. If they blinked, they probably missed it. They knew Arrington’s tackle in the third quarter with Penn State up 21-0 effectively iced the game, but there weren’t yet video boards in Beaver Stadium to show a replay.
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“You didn’t know it from the sideline at the time,” said longtime Penn State assistant Tom Bradley, who was at field level. When Bradley recruited Arrington, he saw him make a similar play on film.
“You saw it, but you’re like what just happened? What did he just do?” Bradley continued. “It’s just LaVar. Period. It’s just LaVar. It’s one of those things. You can’t really explain it. … It’s just one of those plays that will forever be in the annals of Penn State’s storied tradition. When you talk about Penn State, you have to throw that one in there, you just do.”
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There are a few misconceptions about the leap that Arrington would like to clear up. His recollection of that moment is sharp, his wit as quick as ever.
He was sent on a blitz through the A-gap, but his execution was much more calculated than many probably realize. It was a credit to the hours away from the field that Arrington spent poring over game film. For a kid who grew up training in martial arts, Arrington said his football foundation was based on knowing his opponent better than they knew themselves.
“I was always accused of being a freelancer and undisciplined and all these different things, but really my whole game was based upon studying my opponent,” Arrington said. “I had built my skill and my ability off of visualization at an early age. If I could see it, I could do it. … I don’t know how many people realize how I watched film to a nauseating degree. I just watched over and over again. I knew tendencies. I knew tendencies that were beyond what was going in our scouting report.”
During Arrington’s prep, he noticed that when faced with short-yardage situations, if Illinois came rushing out of the huddle it would snap the ball on one — or first sound, as he calls it. With Penn State leading by three touchdowns and Illinois finally moving the ball, Arrington correctly assumed Ron Turner’s team would go for it on fourth-and-short. The Illini had to.
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“We’d been going on one the entire game,” Hickman said. “I’m like, ‘Hey guys, we need to go on two.’ They’re like, ‘No, we’re gonna go on one.’ I knew — I’m very intuitive — I knew something weird was about to happen.”
As Illinois rushed out of the huddle and approached the line, Arrington was certain they’d go on first sound. He grew excited as they lined up. He saw it on film countless times.
He still insists that at least one Illinois offensive lineman had moved pre-snap. When no penalty came, Arrington stayed locked in, expecting to see a chop block coming his way. To avoid it, he planned to jump through the gap rather than trying to run through it.
“There are tendency breakers and all that, but the DNA or the personality of what a team is going to do, is the DNA and personality of what that team is going to do — especially if the game is on the line,” Arrington said. “They’re not going to try to do something that’s not who they are. … I got a hold of tendencies pretty much every single game. If you look at my biggest plays, my biggest plays always came in the second half of the game.”
Arrington was right about Illinois snapping the ball on one. He was wrong about who was getting it.
“I thought it was gonna be a QB keeper,” Arrington said. “I’m headed straight forward for the quarterback, about to hit the quarterback right in the face. … The quarterback pivots out, so I’m in the air like, ‘Oh s—!’ (laughs). At the least, I figure I’m gonna fall in front of wherever he’s going. If it’s a pass —which it’d be crazy if this is a pass — if it’s a pass or a run I’m at least gonna land in front of whatever’s gonna happen. I’m gonna disrupt it.”
Arrington’s momentum was taking him toward Johnson. When Johnson handed the ball off to Hickman, Arrington surged through the air and smacked into Hickman instead.
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“The crowd was going crazy,” said Brandon Short, Penn State’s middle linebacker at the time. “I didn’t realize what had happened until we got over to the sideline and they said that dude just jumped over the line of scrimmage! I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that sounds familiar (laughs). That makes sense.’”
Short knew Arrington did this twice in high school. He said he stopped being surprised by Arrington’s athletic feats since the day they played against one another in a three-on-three basketball tournament a handful of years prior.
“It’s not like something you practice,” Bradley said. “We never practiced that. It’s not like, ‘OK, let’s get the LaVar Leap in here.’ Some of the stuff he did was just unbelievable.”
Hickman stood on the visitor’s sideline waiting for an explanation.
“They were like, ‘We should’ve went on two and then he would’ve been offside,’” Hickman recalled. “I was like duh! They were trying to console me and I’m like, ‘I don’t need consoling. I saw what you saw!’ Our quarterback went on one, he should’ve went on two, and my thing was that he had the cajones to even do it. That’s what I was impressed with. I was like, ‘He had the balls to even do that?’”
By the time Hickman saw the replay at the hotel after the game, his anger faded and was replaced by admiration. When he walked around campus that Monday back in Champaign, he thought about what would’ve happened had they run a toss play or gone on two.
Penn State’s players watched the replay in meetings in the following days, still in awe of how Arrington did it.
“On tape it was better than I had imagined,” Short said. “I was excited the world got a chance to see just a little bit of what we saw every day from LaVar.”
Though the leap happened in a split second, it now lives forever as a highlight on the internet. Arrington and Hickman have spoken about it only once. Ahead of the game in 1999, Arrington said he hoped fans would remember both players for more than that one play. Hickman, at the time, said he was tired of talking about it.
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Now, they’ve both leaned into their moment.
“If you talk to Elmer, let him know I appreciate him letting me tackle him,” Arrington said.
Added Hickman between laughs: “Thank God we didn’t have (social media) back then because it would not have been good for me.”
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(Photo: Getty Images)
