JuJu Smith-Schuster spent three years at USC, one of the top schools on the West Coast. But he hasn’t seen any teaching like the lesson he’s about to get from receivers coach Richard Mann. Class begins today as the Pittsburgh Steelers kick off their rookie minicamp.
Mann is football’s version of Jamie Escalante, the famous Calculus teacher depicted in Stand and Deliver. He’s been coaching wide receivers, and just wide receivers, since 1970. That’s 26 years before before Smith-Schuster was even born. Mann’s career snaked through Aliquippa High School, Arizona State and into the NFL with stints in Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Tampa Bay, to name a few.