Hall of Fame Profiles: Steve Justice

Great teams usually have a great lineage. The Yankees' Joe DiMaggio finished his career in 1951, the same year that 19-year old Mickey Mantle broke into the Major Leagues. Just enough time for the departing great to show the youngster a few tricks of the trade.

A certain lineage can be found among Wake Forest offensive linemen. Tyson Clabo started for three years along the Demon Deacon offensive line from 2001 through 2003. Steve Vallos started alongside Clabo in 2003 and held his starting spot through the ACC Championship season in 2006. Vallos was joined on the offensive line by Steve Justice who started for three seasons from 2005 through 2007. Between 2001 and 2007, every single Wake Forest football game included either Clabo, Vallos or Justice as a starter on the offensive line.

That lineage not only produced great offensive lines at Wake Forest but also landed all three of those linemen in the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame. While Vallos was inducted in 2018, both Clabo and Justice will take their places in the shrine this weekend.

Justice will join six other Wake Forest legends, including Clabo, in the 45^th induction class of the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame. The group will be honored during a dinner on Friday, February 15 at Bridger Field House and will be inducted into the Hall of Fame during halftime ceremonies of Wake Forest's men's basketball game with North Carolina on February 16.

While offensive linemen are frequently among the least-recognized football players with the glory going to quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers, there is something to be said that the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame will have inducted three linemen and just one running back (Chris Barclay) over the last two years.

Like most offensive linemen, Steve Justice couldn't be more humble. Not just a three-year starter, Justice is the most decorated center in school history. A consensus All-American as a senior in 2007, he was a first team selection by the Associated Press, ESPN, the American Football Coaches Association and CBS. He became just the eighth Demon Deacon to win the Jacobs Blocking Trophy as the top blocker in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Justice was the runner-up as a senior for the Rimington Trophy, given annually to the nation's top college center. A sixth round pick by the Indianapolis Colts, he spent three seasons playing professional football, finishing up with the Carolina Panthers.

The call to join the Hall of Fame was completely unexpected to Justice.

"Honestly, I was really surprised," Justice said. "You have so many amazing players at Wake Forest. I blocked for Chris Barclay and he was an amazing player. You have tons of great football players. I guess (the Hall of Fame committee) looked at the stuff we did off the field. You look at offensive linemen and there's really no stats to go off of so you have to go off of how the guys carried themselves on and off the field."

The call informing Justice of his impending induction highlighted his personal intersection of life and football.

"I was at Lowe's with my son," said Steve when he got the call. "I was in line checking out when the phone rang. It was Jody Puckett. He said he was calling from the Hall of Fame and I said 'I hate to do this but I'm standing in line with my one-year old son. I knew (my son) wouldn't let me get through the line. I said can I call you back?"

As any coach will tell you, winning the war in the trenches is the first step toward winning the football game.

"It all starts with the offensive line," said Justice. "There's so many guys that I owe so much credit. Even though I had the success that I had and won the awards that I did, if I didn't have the down blocks from my guards, Arby Jones and Louis Frazier and Matt Brim, I wouldn't be able to pull, I wouldn't have been able to double team. We wouldn't have been able to have the success we had as a unit. Honestly, it was the five guys we had at the time making the plays that made us so successful. Honestly we're just really lucky that myself, Vallos and Clabo had the recognition that we had. Everyone together should be getting these awards."

The lineage of Wake Forest's offensive line is strong. While Clabo and Justice never played together, Clabo served as the student host when Justice made his visit to campus. The bond between Justice, Vallos and Frazier is even stronger as Vallos and Frazier were members of Justice's wedding party.

That was a big wedding. And it was a Wake Forest wedding. Justice's wife, Lindsey, was a member of the Demon Deacon women's soccer team.

"Obviously, my wife really drove me a lot when I was at Wake," Justice said. "She made me work hard."

And that hard work on Lindsey's part helped pave the way for Justice's current career as a personal trainer. He runs Justice Fitness in the SouthPark section of Charlotte.

"My wife started (as a personal trainer) in 2009 when I was in the NFL," Justice said. "This was before we had kids so she trained on the side. As I fumbled through life after football and didn't know what I was going to do, I just helped her do it. I've had some really cool opportunities."

His coaches and his strength and conditioning regimen while at Wake Forest helped forge his career path.

"It gave me such a foundation for fitness in general," said Justice. "When I was at Wake we would have all the off-season workout stuff. I look back and I'd remember really enjoying it, the training aspect of it. Some days it was harder to get up for it than other days but most days, I really enjoyed the weight room. I would stay both summer sessions and just work out, trying to improve my game. It always intrigued me. After I was done I didn't think I could have a future in a business with it, I always thought personal training was something you did on the side. But I met some really great people, some really great clients and things started coming together. I look back and see that God's plan was to go this route. It's been really interesting because you see what you want to do when you graduate from college and the dreams that you have and then you kind of look back and think 'wow, it's a really cool journey He's had me on from the beginning' because of the people I met through Wake Forest or in Charlotte."

After finishing his playing career at 315 pounds, Justice has shown that he practices what he preaches. Today he weighs in at just 210 pounds.

Among Steve's fondest memories from his playing days were, of course, the 2006 ACC Football Championship. Second was running out of the tunnel for the 2007 FedEx Orange Bowl. But it was a game at Nebraska in 2005 that brought to life the magnitude of the platform that is college football.

"I had never played on a stage like that," said Justice of the Deacons' trip to Lincoln. "I was starting at center, my second game-ever, a little nervous. There was just a sea of red. I'm on offense and on the punt team. We didn't get a first down on the first series so the punt team comes on. Everyone runs off the field except me so I'm on the field waiting for the punt team. I'm the only Wake Forest player on the field. I just looked around and said "Holy cow, look at all these people. It was a great place to play."

While being enshrined in the Hall of Fame is Justice's latest honor, he was also recognized as an ACC Legend at the ACC Championship game in Charlotte in December.

"I got to take my kids to (the championship game)," said Justice. "It was really emotional and cool. Kind of an out of body experience for me. I know myself and I know I really shouldn't be there with Steve Spurrier, Bobby Bowden and Ed Reed. I'm like, 'honestly?' I remember walking up (to the gate) and I'd lost all my weight and they said 'are you one of the legends?' and I said 'I think so.' I feel like I don't deserve it so it's just really neat for someone to include me on it. I'm really honored. Really happy."

All three of Justice's brothers, as well as his father, played college football. Deciding where to attend college after his high school career concluded in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., was an easy decision.

"My older brother was actually playing football at Carolina," said Justice. "At that time I was hard-core, wanted to be a Tar Heel. Didn't know any better, obviously. It was Coach (Troy) Calhoun who was my first initial contact and I loved Coach Calhoun. And then he left to go to the Denver Broncos. Coach Lobo (Steed Lobotzke) then took over and obviously Lobo is near and dear to my heart because he was my coach for so long. We've been through so much. I remember Coach Lobo coming to a wrestling match of mine in high school and it seemed like they were more interested in the person than just the player. And that kind of grabbed me. It proved that once you got there that Coach (Jim) Grobe was more interested in building character players and not just characters. Seeing them graduate, seeing them evolve as men. And that's where it kind of changed for me. Not only did I not have that many scholarship offers but it made it easier for me to choose. I saw Wake as an opportunity to play earlier in my career and I loved the size of the school. I loved the fact that it was a smaller-knit community. More of a home feel for me."

As for the 2006 ACC Championship season, Justice credited the camaraderie of not just the offensive line but the entire team as a major factor in that season's 11-3 record. And that bond began even before Chip Vaughn blocked a Duke field goal attempt in Week 2 that kept the Deacons undefeated at 2-0.

"I think you have to look at we lost (quarterback) Ben Mauk (in the opener), you have a blocked field goal and then it just put a lot of pressure on more players than just the quarterback to really step up and make plays," said Justice. "I think it showed that we came around as a team and not just that we needed a couple players to make plays. We could do this together and we could have each other's backs. I think spirits could have been down and you don't know how the season would have gone (had we lost to Duke). We felt like that was a close one but we've still got this."

Justice's list is long of folks he wishes to thank for his Hall of Fame induction, those Wake Forest people that helped shape his career both on and off the field.

"Coach Lobo is number one," said Justice. "Coach Grobe was just an amazing coach. Big Daddy (Coach Bill Faircloth), Miss Bonnie Rae. She was a second mom to every single player who goes through that campus. Miss Bonnie's amazing. Matt Brim, Arby Jones, Steve Vallos. Louis Frazier who was my roommate for a while. He was one of my dearest friends. Coach (Ethan) Reeves in the weight room. (Athletic trainers) Don Steelman and Chris Ina. Hunter Willard in academics. And Joe Haynes (campus director for Athletes in Action)."

This weekend, Steve and Lindsey and their four children, Hannah (8), Hope (6), Hayden (2) and Hunter (10 months) will return to campus for a full slate of Hall of Fame activities.

"My wife and I met at Bostwick and Luter (dorms) and we'll go by there," said Steve. "We'll go by McCreary Field House, I haven't seen it yet. We'll take the kids by the soccer field because my wife played there a ton. My two older daughters are starting to play soccer so it will be cool for them to see (Spry Stadium). We'll probably walk around the Quad, show them the Chapel. My parents and my brother and his wife will be there. It will be nice on Saturday after the game to take a walk around when it's a little more mellow and we can enjoy the view. The school was just always so beautiful with the brick and flowers. You can go anywhere on campus and it was so gorgeous."

Lineage is important. Not just on offensive lines but, more importantly, in families.

A limited number of $60 tickets are available for sale to the general public for the Hall of Fame dinner on Friday, February 15. Contact Amy Fleet at fleetac@wfu.edu to reserve a ticket.

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