Devil in the details: Pitt-bound Braylan Lovelace leading Leechburg to success on the field and off

By: Michael Love
Saturday, August 20, 2022 | 8:44 PM

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Braylan Lovelace earned 13 Division I football offers throughout the college recruiting process, and three of them came from the Ivy League.

Brown, Columbia and Penn recognized the 6-foot-2, 205-pound athlete’s ability on the field and in the classroom.

Education is a high priority for the Leechburg senior, who carries a 4.05 grade-point average.

“It was an amazing feeling to receive those offers,” said Lovelace, who ultimately made a verbal commitment to Pitt in June.

“Some people, including a lot of young athletes, may not realize how much a good education can push you through to an athletic career. It really can, and grades do matter. It’s always been a goal to have my GPA be at 4.0 or higher. My sister (Mikayla) has always been a bright student with all A’s all the time.

“She set an example that I wanted to follow. And my mom (Danielle) is a (chemistry) teacher at Valley. She expects a lot from me, as does my father (Dave). They are ones who have set great examples. My family has really pushed me forward and made sure I have done what was needed to succeed.”

Lovelace said the PowerSchool Mobile App is a powerful tool his mother uses to keep him on his toes.

“Every time a teacher enters a grade into the system, her phone gets a notification,” he said. “She will send a screenshot to me saying, ‘You better fix this’ or ‘This has to be better’ or ‘Great job on this.’ She’s always on it. There’s no hiding anything from her. I appreciate that.”

Lovelace said he is undecided as to what he wants to study at Pitt, but he knows he still has a good amount of time to find his calling.

“I’ll figure it out,” he said.

Biology is among his favorite subjects, and he is immersed in the Spanish club.

“My Spanish teacher talks a lot about how much she’s traveled, and it sounds like something I would love to do,” Lovelace said.

Lovelace said that as proud as he is of his academic accomplishments, he also wants to make sure that extends to the entire Blue Devils team.

“With coach (Randy) Walters, we have these papers, pretty much like grade checks, we have to give to each teacher because he wants to see how we are doing in class,” Lovelace said. “That is an important thing each week beyond what we are doing to get ready for whoever we are playing that Friday or Saturday.

“It’s a big thing for me to want to set an example, maybe as a role model, for others to see that even though Leechburg is a small town, you can achieve big things with academics and athletic ability.”

The name on the back

Lovelace is the first Division I football commit from Leechburg since his father, Dave, earned a scholarship to Rutgers in 1993.

Dave Lovelace, who also received offers from Temple and Ohio University, played two years for the Scarlet Knights.

“It always was my goal since I was a kid to be the next Division I player to come out of Leechburg after my dad,” Braylan said. “He’s always valued a big work ethic. He told me everything I needed to do to excel at the highest level and be prepared for each opportunity in front of me. He’s made sure I don’t accept anything less than my best effort.”

Lovelace impressed Pitt coaches at a camp in mid-June and, after an official visit, made Pitt his No. 1 choice. He also opened more eyes at 7-on-7 showcases with Evolve 2tenths.

Pitt was one of his favorite teams growing up, and he said he was ecstatic to make a dream a reality and become the second D-I football player in the family.

“The day I made my decision, I was in the car with my dad on the way back from my official visit and on the way to a Leechburg football golf outing,” said Braylan, who will be front and center Sept. 1 when the 16th-ranked Panthers open their season against West Virginia in the renewal of the Backyard Brawl.

“He recorded the whole thing, my call to (Pitt coach Pat) Narduzzi. He had the biggest smile on his face. The whole time he was at the golf outing, you could see how excited he was. He was telling everyone about it. That was very special to me.”

Dave Lovelace said pride swelled up inside him for his son throughout the recruiting journey.

“Just seeing him grow up from a boy to a successful young man, it’s an incredible feeling,” he said. “We are blessed to be able to watch Braylan grow at Pitt just as we watched Mikayla do the same thing at IUP. He bought into what his talents could get him academically and athletically. He believed in himself on all things. We can’t wait for this upcoming season.”

Dave Lovelace said college recruiting today is a night-and-day difference from when he went through the process in the early ’90s.

“Back when I was going through it, we didn’t know who was in the stands watching us,” he said. “There were cords on phones back then with rotary dials. If you weren’t home, you didn’t know you got a call. There were no cellphones to find you every second of every day. I didn’t have an answering machine either. But schools came into the high school, and that’s how you found out.

“All of the schools were talking to Braylan, when they were allowed to, through all of the social media channels. It has changed so much, and the technology of recruiting will keep advancing, I’m sure.”

Braylan said his big sister also was pretty excited to see him make his decision and join her in the collegiate ranks.

Mikayla, who now is in graduate school for pharmacy, played three seasons at IUP and was a part of multiple Crimson Hawks championship teams.

Her time at IUP came on the heels of a stellar four-year career at Leechburg that saw the Blue Devils girls basketball team rise to prominence.

The 2018 Leechburg grad put herself in the record books as the all-time leading scorer, boys or girls, in Blue Devils history with 2,047 points. She helped Leechburg reach the WPIAL playoffs three times and earn the first WPIAL playoff win in program history.

“I admit that I did look up to her when I was younger,” Braylan said. “She was one of the big Leechburg athletes at the time and was one of the ones from her group to go on and play college basketball. She also pushes me a lot to do what I need to do. She was very excited and also very emotional when I made my decision to Pitt because I am ‘growing up,’ as she would say.”

The name on the front

Braylan Lovelace entered 2021 as a known commodity in several WPIAL football circles after a sophomore season that saw him carry the ball 109 times for 993 yards in seven games. He added 27 receptions for 334 yards.

The Blue Devils went 3-4 in Eastern Conference play during the covid-affected 2020 season and just missed qualifying for the WPIAL Class A playoffs.

But Leechburg had a season to remember in 2021 with its first winning record since 1991 (9-3), its first playoff trip since 1988 and its first playoff victory since 1978.

The Blue Devils became the first team in Alle-Kiski Valley history to score 500 points in a season.

“We’ve been working hard all offseason, since January, to be ready for this season,” Lovelace said. “We kind of developed a target on our backs, and we expected that. We don’t just want repeat what we did last year; we hope to exceed it. It will be a big challenge, but we accept it.

“For the seniors, it’s our last ride. I’ve been playing with some of these guys since I was 6 years old, so we’re going to put it all out there. We’re going to try and win a championship. We know what we have to do to get there.”

Lovelace was a big part of the team’s success, rushing 171 times for 1,506 yards and 28 touchdowns.

He rushed for more than 150 yards six times and eclipsed the 200-yard mark with four scores against both Jefferson-Morgan and Jeannette. He scored a career-best seven rushing touchdowns against Imani Christian.

The specter of covid lingered throughout the season with a number of games throughout the WPIAL canceled, but Leechburg escaped that fate.

Lovelace said Blue Devils players took proper precautions to make sure they stayed on the field and continue to do that now to be safe and healthy.

An eye on the future

With his college decision behind him, Lovelace said it is full speed ahead for his final high school year on the field and in the classroom.

“There should never be a day when I am resting,” he said. “I know what I still have to do to prepare myself for the next level. It’s so much different than in high school. There is some pressure on my shoulders, but I accept that as I keep moving. ”

Leechburg coach Randy Walters said he is ready to see what Lovelace can do to follow up his junior year.

“Braylan has a positive influence on the team because of his great personality,” Walters said. “He’s got all the ability. But he knows when to chill people out and have fun. He’s one great example of how strong the entire team is academically. I was looking at some numbers at our banquet last year, and I think the team GPA was 3.28. He holds his teammates accountable, and in turn, they hold each other accountable.

“I told a number of coaches all throughout the recruiting process that Braylan is a better kid than he is a player. That all comes from mom and dad and the family and how they stress education, work ethic in both academics and sports and just being a good person in school and in the community. In my coaching career, I’ve worked with many terrific kids, including ones on this team, but I’ve never had a more well-rounded kid as a Division I athlete plus everything else.”

While games in the Eastern Conference loom large for Leechburg, one game on the schedule has extra-special meaning for Lovelace.

And he and his Blue Devils teammates don’t have to wait long to scratch the itch.

Leechburg will face neighboring foe Apollo-Ridge in a Week Zero contest Friday at Owens Field.

The teams last played in Week Zero in 2019 with the Vikings recording a 28-12 road victory.

The Vikings lead the all-time series by the slimmest of margins, 22-21, with the first meeting in 1969.

“It’s great to see a number of rivalries come back this year with the Backyard Brawl and us playing Apollo,” Lovelace said. “It is a cool coincidence. Rivalries are what football is all about, no matter what level. Apollo and Leechburg has been it for years. My dad went through the same thing with Apollo when he played. It is super intense. It’s all about getting those bragging rights.”

Lovelace feels that the Alle-Kiski Valley as a whole has a chance to do some good things this year and put several teams in the playoffs.

“I grew up with a lot of the kids on these teams, like Ben Lane at Freeport,” he said. “I played AAU basketball with a lot of them from fourth through seventh grades. We definitely follow each other’s progress. After a Friday night game, I’ll send a text or get a text asking, ‘How did you do in your game?’ If we have a Saturday game, we might go out to another game close by on a Friday, like Kiski. We played with those kids on Kiski Valley (youth team). To see the potential for a lot of the area teams to do well is exciting.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.