Pick your favorite Donovan McNabb criticism. There are plenty. Go down to Philadelphia and you’ll hear some – even though the detractors are not nearly as numerous as the reputation makes them seem. The point is outside Syracuse or Solvay, Liverpool or Lafayette, McNabb is not universally beloved.

So when he took the stage in the Carrier Dome Tuesday night, there was something uniquely genuine that was equal parts interesting and intriguing. McNabb operated with a sense of ease, a comfortable human touch, seldom seen from elite professional athletes. For a moment, he wasn’t McNabb the quarterback. He wasn’t McNabb the endorser. He wasn’t McNabb the icon. He was just Donovan McNabb, an SU alumnus like the many others who left and returned with arms just as wide and a reception just as warm.

‘I came to Syracuse as a young boy, and I left as a man,’ he said. ‘It was the most enjoyable time of my life.’

He still had that aura of not being fazed, of always offering the ‘right’ answer when moderator Michael Veley interviewed him in the Q&A session following McNabb’s speech. Yet there were times when McNabb was simply a former Syracuse student, with the esoteric language of Syracuse students.

‘I used to go to class and think, ‘I’m going to have to do this for four or five years.’ And you know what? I enjoyed every minute of it,’ McNabb said. ‘I mean – some days I didn’t make it. You know, you seniors, you know the routine. Hump days on Wednesday. It snows. The bus didn’t really come on time. All the excuses we could use. I just didn’t wake up.’

He joked about nights on Marshall Street. When he brought it up, there was a hesitant laugh around the Dome.

‘Yeah, I know you like that one,’ McNabb shot back. ‘You know, Harry’s, 44’s, Faegans. Never been to Chuck’s. But I’ve never had anything like I’ve had Acropolis Pizza. Best believe I’m going to get myself a slice before it’s over.’

He told of the 2003 graduation speech delivered by President Bill Clinton. McNabb revealed he was called first to speak, but he ‘decided to let Bill talk.’

‘I’m the one that let Bill talk here, so you can thank me later,’ McNabb said. Whether this was true or not really didn’t seem to matter. He was back as a college student giving a ‘remember when…’ story when memories seem clouded, and puffery is a premium.

As requisite of just about any alumnus that returns, McNabb covered all his bases. He talked about how his greatest memory at SU was graduating with a major and two minors. He gave the advice of believing in what you want to do, seemingly from the Manual of Speaking to College Students. But he was able to inject that human touch even in the most cliché on moments.

McNabb told the nearly 2,000 in attendance they don’t need to play football – they can work to own the team. ‘It’s better when you own it,’ he deadpanned. ‘If you can own it, own it.’

He instructed the students to enjoy their time on campus because much changes when the time expires. ‘You payin’ bills. …You payin’ bills. …You payin’ bills,’ McNabb said. ‘I’m talking car insurance bills, electric bills whatever it may be. And then you got to eat on top of that.’

The students laughed in response. But this wasn’t from that Manual of Speaking to College Students. McNabb was serious.

‘You laugh now – but there ain’t no cafeterias,’ McNabb said. ‘Believe me, you know what I’m saying? The food in the cafeteria really was [ITALICS]nasty[/ITALICS]. But when you leave, you realize, there was a full-course meal in that cafeteria.’

McNabb has been gone for 10 years, and he was both admittedly and evidentially emotional when called up to the stage. He remembered his parents dropping him off at South Campus for the first day of football practice, with his mother emotional and his father sticking out the chest and telling him to ‘be a man,’ like any other student can relate on that first day of college.

For these short moments, McNabb wasn’t the guy from the Chunky Soup commercials, nor the one on television hoisting the NFC Championship trophy nor the quarterback mired in controversy about a diva wide receiver or conservative talk-show host. He was the student next to you in speech communications class or the one hoping tails wins at Flip Night or the one indulging in late-night pizza at Acropolis.

For the weeks leading up to the McNabb speech, the sports marketing students walked around campus with those ugly electric-green shirts that read ‘McNabb Home to the Dome.’ It seemed more advertising than actuality. Turns out they knew what they were talking about.

Zach Berman is the featured sports columnist for The Daily Orange, where his column appears weekly. E-mail him at [email protected].

Published on April 9, 2008 at 12:00 pm