Early Years
Bethea was a standout for Ferguson High School (Newport News, Virginia), playing both offensive end and defensive end. He was a Parade All-American and a Group AAA all-state in 1973.
He went on to play for Michigan State University, where he started at tight end as a freshman. During his sophomore season he was moved to defensive end where he excelled.
In 1976 he earned second-team Big Ten All-conference recognition.
In 1977 he was the first defensive player named Big Ten Conference MVP since Dick Butkus. He also earned first-team Big Ten All-conference honors and played in the East–West Shrine Game.
Bethea still holds the school records for career sacks (33) and sacks in a season (16) and is arguably the greatest defensive end to play for Michigan State University.
Read more about this topic: Larry Bethea
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“The years seemed to stretch before her like the land: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives; always the same yearning; the same pulling at the chain—until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously be released.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)