There’s No Quit in Bruins’ Fullback

In the spring of 2003, Michael Pitre, a senior at Orange El Modena High, was having a hard time.

His mother had recently died after a long battle with cancer and his athletic career was uncertain because of a neck injury suffered during football season.

“Life was just a big struggle,” said Pitre, now UCLA’s starting fullback. “It was kind of hard to find any type of motivation. I didn’t have football in my corner, I didn’t have my mom to lean on, and it was tough watching my dad deal with her death.”

Things were so bad that at one point while rehabilitating from his injury Pitre contemplated leaving football. “It was that tough,” he said.

That’s when UCLA coaches Karl Dorrell and Eric Bieniemy stepped up. Pitre, who’d committed to UCLA the day Bob Toledo was fired, was assured that he was in the new coaching staff’s plans. That’s all he needed to hear.

“Dorrell and Coach E came over to the house and told Mike how much they liked him,” said Pitre’s father, Michael. “It helped Mike to know that they really wanted him.”

Pitre, however, was without medical clearance and spent his first season at UCLA as a frustrated redshirt.

“You have to understand that Mike had been playing football since he was 7,” said Pitre’s father, a former standout linebacker at Compton Dominguez High. “When you get hit with something devastating like that, sometimes you need to step back a little. That’s what Mike had to do last season and I know it was hard for him.”

Pitre hung around his teammates and attended meetings every day, but it hurt him not to practice.

“He was a wide-eyed freshman, looking around all of the time,” senior running back Manuel White said. “It was easy to tell that he wanted to play real bad.”

To help ease his stress, Pitre turned to the weight room and food, and had gained 18 pounds, ballooning to 258 by season’s end.

In late December, Pitre finally received his medical clearance for spring practice. And once he got an opportunity, he made the most of it.

With White sitting out contact drills to protect a healing injury, Pitre showed the Bruins that he was ready to play both fullback and single back. He has been on the rise ever since.

“There was an adjustment that I just had to make,” said Pitre, who has lost 30 pounds since January. “I had to get used to the change. I knew that my parents raised me right and I just had to go back to hard work.”

After a strong training camp, Pitre opened the season as a surprise starter and has proven to be a valuable lead blocker for Maurice Drew and White. In Saturday’s 33-10 victory over San Diego State, Pitre showed off other skills.

He became the first UCLA fullback to carry the ball in more than a year. He ran for no gain on that play but later caught a halfback option pass from Drew for a 47-yard gain.

“That play was so special. It was surreal,” Pitre’s stepsister, Jamie Johnson, said. “I have TiVo and watched it over and over.

“This has been a dream for our family for a very long time. It’s amazing to see because we’ve been going through so much as a family for so long. Finally something good is happening for us.”

Pitre grew up in Corona and his mother, Allison Pitre, drove him and Johnson to Orange every day to go to school. The daily trips down the 91 freeway made the family close. The family frequently met at the end of the day on a football field in Orange, where Michael Pitre coached his son’s youth team. But once Allison Pitre was diagnosed with a rare form of thyroid cancer in 1996, everything changed.

“My mother was sick for so long,” Johnson said. “She became sick when my brother was in elementary school. She was sick, then would get better and then sick again and then better. It was always a difficult journey.”

Pitre signed with UCLA in February 2003. His mother died a month later.

“Once he signed his letter of intent, that was a dream come true for her,” Johnson said.

“Michael’s final year of high school, he pretty much had to raise himself,” Johnson said. “He doesn’t talk about it much and when he does, he does it in spurts. Having him play is kind of like the light at the end of the tunnel for us. It’s just sad that she’s not here to see it with us.”

Her influence lives, however. “Whatever his mother told him, it really made a difference to him,” Bieniemy said. “He’s had to grow up and be a man.

“He displayed that type of maturity last year when he wasn’t playing. Normally, that’s a tough time for a young player to be in school and not play. To his credit, Michael did not let his academics slip. He did well in the classroom without any problems. He’s a credit to our program.”