Dan Wolken

USA TODAY Sports

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Every now and then, maybe on Mother's Day or Christmas, or whenever he sees a teammate celebrating a big win with their parents, Rakeem Cato can feel the anger start to bubble up inside.

He can still remember everything about his mother, Juannese, but mostly that she was the kind of woman who worked two jobs, taking care of her seven children and three more she took in when a close friend passed away.

And basically, she did it all on her own. Rakeem's father had been in prison since before he was born, serving a lengthy sentence for armed robbery. The man she was living with at the time would be headed back to jail shortly thereafter.

But in that five-bedroom house in the Liberty City area of Miami where Cato spent the first 12 years of his life, he did not know instability or destitution, just that his mother would provide whatever he needed.

And then, on a Sunday that is burned into Cato's memory, she got sick. On Tuesday night, they took her to the hospital. Cato, who would later be called the most competitive person his coaches at Marshall University had ever been around, played in a baseball game the next day. When he came home on Wednesday afternoon – April 20, 2005 – she was dead.

He was 13.

"I had to grow up real fast," Cato said. "That kind of put me in a spot where I had to be self motivated, had to go after life."

There were so many in the projects of Liberty City who spent the next six years embracing Cato, making sure he had a place to sleep, something to eat. His sister, just five years older, gained legal custody of her siblings and held the family together. His grandfather bought him school supplies and took him on road trips. When he needed to, he stayed with friends for days and weeks at a time. And coaches made sure the skinny quarterback with great feel for the game didn't fall off the path toward a college scholarship.

But even with all that love, there was still so much anger. For years, Cato struggled to control it, lashing out at coaches and teammates whenever things went awry. He was called uncoachable, a problem child, and the big-time colleges all stayed away. At 6-foot, 150 pounds, it probably wasn't worth the effort anyway.

"He was mad at the world, but he was 13 years old, fighting to survive," Marshall coach Doc Holliday said. "It's not something you fix overnight."

It might have been considered a victory in itself that Cato escaped the roughest part of south Florida and ended up 1,000 miles from home, able to pursue a college education. Holliday, who has recruited players from those neighborhoods for three decades, would have taken satisfaction in just that.

But he knew Cato could be so much more. Marshall, however, didn't have the luxury of allowing him to redshirt, gain some much-needed weight and learn everything from the routine of getting up and going to class to how he was supposed to interact with teammates and coaches.

It was all new to Cato, and when Marshall made him the starting quarterback for his first game as a true freshman – mainly because they didn't have any other viable options – they weren't totally sure if they were setting him up to succeed or implode.

Though the talent was immediately evident, a lifetime of anger kept simmering below the surface. Cato would constantly beat himself up over bad passes or missed reads. When receivers or linemen made mistakes, he would bark at them to the point where some felt uncomfortable being around him. And then in his sixth college game, played in monsoon-like conditions at UCF that contributed to his 11-for-29 passing performance, Cato lost his composure on the sidelines and forced Holliday to sit him down for the next four games.

"He had to understand we're going to make the decisions and he's going to do it our way," Holliday said. "It was hard on me to do that, but it was a decision that had to be made. If I hadn't, he probably had no chance."

Now, when they talk about Cato having a chance at Marshall, it is no longer about whether he can control his anger but rather whether he can lead the Thundering Herd to an unbeaten season, set school passing records and perhaps even win the Heisman Trophy.

After throwing for 3,916 yards last season including 39 touchdowns and just nine interceptions, the transformation of Rakeem Cato is almost complete.

"I think he's a kid along with a lot of other kids I coached that needed football," said Telly Lockette, his coach at Miami Central High School and now an assistant at South Florida. "He could write a book someday about his life."

***

Though she seemed healthy until practically the moment she began to die, Juannese Cato was aware enough of her own mortality and the responsibility of caring for her family that she had given her oldest daughter, Shanrikia, a list just in case something happened.

It was, more or less, an instruction manual for how to run the house, covering everything from meals to doctors' visits. But there was nothing that could have prepared the family for losing their mother so suddenly to pneumonia.

"It was a struggle," said Shanrikia, who was just 18 herself at the time. "I was scared I couldn't keep custody, that they might take the kids, but I kept them in school, paid all the bills and took care of them as much as I could. It was rough, and sometimes I wanted to give up but I kept praying, kept going day by day."

Understanding how much his sister had on her plate, including his two younger siblings and eventually her own child, Rakeem essentially formed a second family out of football.

Among his closest friends were former Florida State running back and Atlanta Falcons draft pick Devonta Freeman, Indianapolis Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton and current Syracuse safety Durell Eskridge, whose families allowed Cato to come and go as he needed.

"Their dads and moms were great to me," Cato said. "They treated me like I was their child. Whatever they got for their kids, I had it. When they ate, I ate. When they went shopping, I went shopping. I did things around the house, cleaned, whatever they asked. If it wasn't for them…I don't know. I don't know."

***

Nobody was closer to Cato, however, than Tommy Shuler, who had been his best friend since they were six years old. Shuler's mother, a teacher at Cato's school, had also offered her home any time he needed a place to stay.

"He was like a regular person living at the house," Shuler said. "We got in the habit of doing everything together – go to the park, run routes, work out, go to the movies. Sometimes we slept on different ends of the same bed. It was like the brother I never had."

Cato and Shuler were inseparable on the field, too; quarterback and receiver leading Miami Central to the 6A state championship in 2010. But while the 5-7 Shuler had decided to take a scholarship offer from Marshall, Cato initially decided to stay home and go to Florida International. Eventually, Shuler convinced him to change his mind.

"The first time he told me about Marshall, all I knew about was the plane crash and 'We Are Marshall,' " said Tommy Shuler Sr. "They watched the DVD so much I thought it was going to blow up the DVD player."

Though Cato had a support system – including his grandfather, Eddie Green, a Vietnam veteran and retired mechanic, who took him on road trips and helped Shanrikia provide basics for the family – he had dealt with significant instability before coming to Marshall.

His grandfather, his sister, friends and coaches did the best they could, but they could not substitute for what he lost when Juannese passed away. When Cato showed up at Marshall, he was unprepared physically and mentally for the kind of structured environment he would have to adapt to in college.

"He was a 150-pound guy that never lifted a weight, didn't know when to go to bed, when to get up, when to eat, when to go to school," Holliday said. "That was just the way he grew up. And he expected to win every snap, every practice and got frustrated when things didn't go well."

***

Cato's high school reputation as a hothead had proven not to be a myth, and it made life difficult on everyone. But after his first season, which ended with Cato earning the starting job back and leading the Thundering Herd to three consecutive wins, things started to turn.

In the spring and summer of 2012, Cato met weekly with offensive coordinator Bill Legg, center Chris Jasperse and senior receiver Aaron Dobson. Legg knew that Cato struggled to talk with his teammates, so he kept the group small, hoping he could bond with at least the two other key figures in the offense and hopefully begin to open up.

"We'd just hang out and talk," Legg said. "I made all three of them tell me and each other things that was on their minds. Things nobody else knew about them. Maybe something they grew up with or were going through. That started the lines of communication.

"As a freshman, it was going to be hard for people to follow him with how he managed his frustration. By August of 2012, he was a different guy. He was the same guy, same competitor, but how he was managing it was completely different."

It is still a struggle, Cato admits, to keep his emotions in check at times and to understand that, as the quarterback, the way he interacts with teammates is crucial to the team's success.

"He didn't know how to express how he felt in a leader way," Shuler said. "He'd be fussing, getting at people and but he didn't know what they'd been through. Now he knows how to complement and teach, so that put it all together."

Though Cato has never wanted to use his mother's death as an excuse for his temper problems, it is only recently that has he started to understand what triggers them and how to control them – perhaps, he thinks, a byproduct of becoming a father and the maturity that comes along with that.

He also met his own father, Keith Jones, who was released from prison last year and began to build a relationship with him. Last year, Jones was in attendance when Cato threw for four touchdowns in a 48-10 win at Florida International.

"That was such a good thing for him," Shanrikia Cato said. "He had so much anger in him; he felt like he didn't have anyone but us and my grandfather. But he's a whole lot better now. He became a stronger man."

***

And in Marshall's high-powered, fast-paced offense, Cato has become a star. After throwing for 4,201 yards and 37 touchdowns as a sophomore, he became a better decision-maker and runner as a junior while still throwing for nearly 4,000 yards.

His decision-making also graded out at 90 percent or better in every game last season, Legg said, with some as high 98 percent.

"There's a lot of run-pass reads, run-pass options and a lot of things involved in our offense that are on him, but he embraces that," Holliday said. "He's got a very high football IQ. When things get bad, that's when he's at his best. He improvises. His eyes are always down the field. You pressure him, he gets out of the pocket and keeps the play alive. And he can throw it as well as anyone I've ever coached."

Last season's Military Bowl, when Cato threw for 337 yards in a 31-20 victory against Maryland, put him squarely on the Heisman radar heading into 2014. Though it will always be difficult for a player from Conference USA to win the award simply due to the level of competition, Cato has a chance to not only get to New York but overtake Chad Pennington as the school's all-time leading passer.

There also is an underlying expectation around the program to go unbeaten and leave a legacy beyond what anyone could have expected when the 5-7 receiver and skinny quarterback from Liberty City overcame everything in their past and landed in West Virginia with a fresh start.

"It's rough, but to get out you have to be self-motivated and strong," Cato said. "Anything can distract you. You can easily fall behind the wrong people, easily do something dumb to get you messed up but the strong survive and us, me, Tommy and my closest friends we all had one goal and one dream and we wanted to make it out. It's a blessing to come this far." ​