Football

Wild catch: Livers goes from walk-on to offensive, locker room leader for Villanova

Courtesy of Villanova Athletics

Villanova wide receiver Poppy Livers made the Wildcats as a walk-on, but worked his way up to becoming a team captain this season.

Poppy Livers often knows what defenders across from him are thinking. Livers is 5 feet, 7 inches and weighs 168 pounds. He looks like an underdog, and for him, it makes the game more exciting.

He takes pleasure in outrunning someone bigger. As he jukes out a defender, Livers sometimes cracks a quick smile, taking pride in proving him wrong.

Livers was barely recruited out of St. Francis (Calif.) High School. College scouts would take one look at him and think he was too small. If they looked at his 40-yard dash time —4.47 seconds —they’d think he wasn’t fast enough to make up for lack of height.

“I just didn’t let it stop me from my dream,”Livers said.

To get to Villanova, Livers had to turn discouragement into determination. He would wake up at 5:30 a.m. when he was at St. Francis to work out with quarterback Kyle Miller, sneak into the team’s weight room during the day without the school’s administration knowing and spend hours working with former NFL player Maurice Mann to perfect his craft.



Livers walked on with the Wildcats in 2011 and earned a scholarship after his sophomore year. As a junior in 2013, Livers led Villanova in receptions with 53 and receiving yards with 580. In the spring of 2014, Livers was voted as a co-captain by his teammates for his upcoming senior year at Villanova, which plays Syracuse this Friday.

He still approaches the game as if he’s being counted out.

“He plays with a very big chip on his shoulder,”Mann said. “He understands the fact of this size but he doesn’t let it mentally affect his performance. He feels as if he can compete with any athlete.”

Livers was raised by Belinda Solis, a single mother, and credits her for his learned fearlessness on and off the field. Both Livers and Solis say the other inspires them. Livers saw her come home from work, tired, before she made time to play ball with him in the yard.

He learned to catch golf balls when he was just one and a half years old. Livers started talking about playing professional football when he was 5. When he was 10, 11 and 12 years old, he won three consecutive Punt, Pass and Kick competitions.

But Solis always kept her son grounded.

“Even though he was probably better than other kids, I told him don’t ever think you’re better than everyone,”Solis said. “If you’re better at something than someone else is, teach them what you know and he would pass it along.”

After not garnering much college interest at St. Francis, Livers attended Valley Forge (Pa.) Military Academy as a postgraduate. He played football and basketball at VFMA but left after one semester to live and train with Mann, a family friend, in Miami.

There, in the summer of 2011, Livers watched film of Wes Welker and Don Beebe to learn the nuances of his position. Mann had Livers box, do burpies, perform ladder drills and box jumps, run a mile and finally run routes without a break in between.

“It wasn’t really heavy weights because again you don’t have to be the strongest man on the field to make plays,”Livers said of the workouts with Mann. “You’ve got to be smart and you’ve got to know what you’re doing. You’ve got to have a plan.”

His plans have made him one of the Wildcats’most dangerous players.

As a slot receiver, Livers has carved out a role, utilizing his low center of gravity and agility to escape defenders with what Villanova wide receivers coach Brian Flinn calls “short-area quickness.”Livers also said that with his size, he has to be a daredevil with running routes over the middle.

Sometimes, teammates have to remind him not to dive for balls in practice so he stays healthy for games. His speed in a Tuesday practice is the same as it is on game day. For Livers, Villanova’s optional workouts are mandatory.

“We have this tennis ball machine that he’ll be out there before everyone shows up just catching tennis balls with one hand,”Villanova quarterback John Robertson said.

In both high school and college, Livers’personality has helped him become a leader. He drove 20 minutes out of his way to pick up St. Francis teammates for morning workouts and Miller said that he created a “concert-like atmosphere”with his vocals in the car.

At Villanova, he frequently organizes extra work with the wide receivers. Sometimes it’s staying after position meetings, watching film or sitting down one-on-one with a younger player to talk about route-running.

When Villanova takes on Syracuse on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. in the Carrier Dome, Livers’teammates will know who to look to.

“He’s upbeat, he never has a bad day, he never has bad body language,”Flinn said. “He never rolls his eyes, never complains, he never takes a play off.”





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