Scott MacDonald

Scott MacDonald

Scott MacDonald came to West Virginia University with the notion of becoming the next Jerry West or Hot Rod Hundley. Never in his wildest dreams did he ever imagine he become better known as a football player.

But as fate would have it, MacDonald is remembered in Mountaineer lore as the guy who made the juggling, finger-tip catch and running for what seemed like an eternity to reach the end zone for the winning touchdown to beat North Carolina State in the 1975 Peach Bowl.

MacDonald says he never expected to score on the play.

“Once the ball was tipped and then I tipped it and brought it in, I knew there was a guy that had an angle on me and I didn’t have any envision of making it to the end zone,” he said. “I was thinking just run as fast as you can and go as far as you can.”

MacDonald came from a very small high school in Northern Minnesota and he says his catch is listed on the school’s web site for noteworthy accomplishments. Even to this day when he returns to Two Harbors for all-class reunions, classmates still bring it up.

“It’s amazing how many people remember that,” he said.

If not for WVU offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, MacDonald’s catch would have never happened. It was Cignetti who coaxed MacDonald into coming out for the football team after he had exhausted his basketball eligibility. Cignetti liked his 6-foot-6-inch frame and thought he was athletic enough to make the transition.

“You watched him play basketball and you saw that body and the type of athlete he was and so forth and you knew if football was important to him he could make the transition,” said Cignetti.

MacDonald wasn’t so sure.

“These were the big boys,” he said. “I played quarterback and running back in high school. They tried to get me in the weight room but once I went in there I became intimidated with what these guys were lifting I never went back.”

MacDonald admits WVU head coach Bobby Bowden was also probably a little skeptical of the experiment but offered to give him a scholarship for the ‘75 season if he did well in spring practice. MacDonald had asked for one to help pay for the final semester of school he needed to graduate. His father had passed away during his freshman year at WVU.

What it essentially amounted to was a tryout.

“I had a pretty good spring game down in Charleston and so I ended up getting a scholarship for the season,” MacDonald recalled.

“Coach Bowden had a great eye for personnel,” said Cignetti. “If he saw a guy that was going to help he was all for it.”

MacDonald was in the starting lineup for the Temple game and gradually became a bigger part of the West Virginia offense. However, his first big play didn’t turn out too well at Penn State.

MacDonald caught a pass deep in Penn State territory and ran all the way down to the five before being hit from behind by Nittany Lion linebacker Greg Buttle and fumbling.

“Up to that point Coach Bowden hadn’t really said a lot to me. So I came to the sideline and Bowden said, ‘Gosh dang it, all you’ve got to do is hold onto the football!’

“He finally talked to me.”

MacDonald finished the regular season catching just 15 passes for 282 yards and a touchdown. He figured he might catch a pass or two in the bowl game but not the five he caught for a then-bowl-record 110 yards.

“I remember having good practices down at Clemson and not dropping anything,” said MacDonald, who now lives in Hoffman Estates, Ill., just west of Chicago. “Cignetti told me, ‘If you keep catching the ball like that we’re going to come to you in the game.’”

MacDonald’s performance made up for a basketball career that didn’t quite meet his expectations. WVU assistant Chuck Windsor discovered MacDonald through a friend of a friend and convinced WVU coach Sonny Moran to give him a scholarship. MacDonald was the leading scorer on the freshman team in 1972 and his best year on the varsity came as a sophomore in 1973 when he averaged 9.2 points per game. From there it got progressively worse.

The forward managed to be named team captain during his senior campaign in 1975 -- Coach Joedy Gardner’s first year after replacing Moran -- but injuries kept MacDonald from having they type of year he expected.

“My last year I got a stress facture in my leg running down the ramp to the Coliseum and that sort of put a damper on my last year playing basketball,” he said. “It was frustrating because I had worked hard and I thought I was going to have a good year.”

It wasn’t until after the Peach Bowl that MacDonald was able to make up for the disappointment.

“It was just unbelievable,” he said. “I personally felt good about it because it was the end of my college athletic career. I didn’t expect to be drafted (in football) and even if I was, unless it was the Minnesota Vikings – the team that I loved ever since I was a little kid – I wasn’t going to pursue it. So I looked at the Peach Bowl as my last event.”

In addition to his game-winning catch, MacDonald’s other big memory from that game was attending the pre-game banquet that featured two of the game’s very best speakers in Bowden and North Carolina State coach Lou Holtz.

“I remember the banquet was quite entertaining with Holtz and Bowden up there at their best,” he said.

Now 30 years later, MacDonald says it’s still odd being remembered as a football player. “I was going to be a big basketball star and my basketball career was kind of disappointing in a way.

“But with the teammates I had and the friendships I made, I couldn’t have made a better choice,” he quickly added.