There is foolish. Then there is what a high school football team did before a game against Liberty High School in Las Vegas.
Liberty is where once-reluctant offensive tackle Troy Fautanu developed into a dancing bear of a right tackle. So athletic was Fautanu that Vanderbilt offered him a full scholarship after one of the Commodores coaches watched him play in a high school volleyball game.
A school Liberty has never lost to – Liberty opened in 2003 — somehow decided there was ante to be upped. Its players made a rap diss track before the renewal of its perceived rivalry with Liberty. And it did not spare the player the Pittsburgh Steelers selected 20th overall in the 2024 NFL Draft last month.
“One of the lines was like, ‘Troy boy, big for no reason, we’re coming for your season,’ something like that,” Liberty football coach Rich Muraco told Steelers Depot with a laugh. “It was all over town.”
Muraco was so incredulous after hearing it that he called the school’s head coach, not to berate him but to ask what he had been thinking. He could have thanked him for making his job that week a whole lot easier.
“We ended up beating them like 58-0, so it was definitely some motivation for our kids and Troy in particular,” said Muraco, who has been Liberty’s head coach since 2009. “Troy absolutely dominated the kid who made the song.”
The kid almost made it too easy. He lined up across from Fautanu that game, giving the latter ample opportunity to let him, ahem, critique the song.
And the story does not end there.
“Fast forward a couple of years, and Troy’s playing at Washington, and this kid was playing at Portland State,” Muraco said. “At this point, Troy’s a big-time college player. He buried this kid and was like, ‘You remember me from high school?’ The kid’s like, ‘Oh, take it easy. Take it easy.’”
The moral of the story? Tread lightly when it comes to the player Muraco says is as nasty on the field as he is nice off it.
Looking at you, Cleveland Browns social media team.
