Tara Sullivan

Sports Columnist, @Record_Tara

Chris Hogan looked up from underneath his new AFC Championship baseball cap, his green eyes growing wide at the depth and breadth of attention before him, a sea of cameras in his face, a chorus of questions in his ears. The relatively little-known wide receiver from Wyckoff handled the crush with ease, a perfect portrait of New England Patriotism.

Hogan talked about team play over individual achievement, even after he’d caught nine passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns to help the Patriots beat Pittsburgh on Sunday night and clinch a trip to the Super Bowl. He talked about taking advantage of his opportunities, making sure to appreciate the chance to play for a title in just his first year with the Patriots. He talked about the long journey he took to get here — lacrosse at Penn State, one year of football at Monmouth, a few training camps and practice squads before hanging on with Buffalo and getting snatched away by New England — and relishing every step he took along the way. He even talked about his ability to remain calm in the face of his newfound fame, barely acknowledging the way his story captivated the NFL world Sunday night.

“Head down, just grinding away,” Hogan said, his jubilant teammates celebrating in the locker room around him. “That’s all I do. Take advantage of my opportunities, and when they come, make the best of them. I just wanted to go out there and help my team win in any way.”

The manner in which he did that — Hogan scored the Pats’ first touchdown when he found himself wide open in the right corner of the end zone, and scored his second when he outraced the coverage on the long end of Tom Brady’s flea flicker pass — turned him into an overnight sensation. From television highlights to social media explosions, Hogan was everywhere. He was trending on Twitter, people wondering who the heck he was. He was Skyping with Deion Sanders, whose post-game NFL Network interviews are reserved for only the biggest stars. He was blowing up Instagram, gaining 25,000 new followers overnight.

“It’s an absolutely incredible story. I don’t even think he’s processed it enough to realize it,” Hogan’s best friend, Mike Esposito, was saying late Monday evening, home from his trip to Foxborough to attend the game, a morning conversation with Chris still rattling in his head. The tight group of friends from Wyckoff and Ramapo High School is still abuzz, sharing Facebook posts, texting each other (Esposito woke up to 28 texts on his own phone) and generally marveling at what just happened.

“It’s a kid you grew up with succeeding at that level — it’s just an ‘oh-my-gosh’ discussion of how unreal it is," Esposito said.

The reach is long. Monmouth football coach Kevin Callahan, on the other end of the phone doing his eighth Hogan interview of the day, was among the legion of fans cheering at the television Sunday night. Callahan coached Hogan for only one season, but from the moment Hogan stepped on the field in camp, his talent was obvious. He might not have played the game since high school, but with his years of lacrosse, with his dedication to working out, with his study habits and with his natural athletic skill, he wasted no time making an impact.

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“I remember his first game for us, against Colgate, his first reception was a 17-yard touchdown,” Callahan said. “Then three games in, our fourth game of the season, we had a number of injuries in the secondary, and we looked around, and I said, ‘Chris, what about playing some defense?’ He said, ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’ He played corner in that game and had two interceptions. I’m not kidding. He also played wide receiver and had a 41-yard reception, a key reception. He made an impact. He’s a tremendous athlete, and from that point forward he played both ways for us.”

The Patriots need him only at receiver, and on Sunday, he did everything he could to help them manhandle the Steelers. He had four catches for 57 yards on the first TD drive, scoring on the 16-yard pass from Brady, and added the 34-yard TD pass midway through the second quarter.

“He had a great week of practice. He’s been playing well all year. All those things kind of collided and he had that day,” fellow receiver Julian Edelman said after the game. “It was an unbelievable day for him. Anytime you’ve got guys making those plays, it’s going to be great for the offense. He deserves it. He’s been working his tail off.”

Added safety Duron Harmon: “He’s an unbelievable teammate that gives his all each and every day. He works hard; he’s one of the last out of the locker room and one of the last off the field. I’m just excited to see him have the type of day that he had today.”

It was a day to turn him from little-known receiver to overnight sensation. Like his Bergen County-to-Monmouth predecessor, former Cowboys receiver Miles Austin (who grew up in Garfield), said in a conversation Monday, he can relate to what these next few weeks might be like for Hogan. When Austin made the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent and returned a kick 93 yards for a touchdown in a January, 2007 playoff game against the Seahawks, people suddenly started knowing who he was.

“You go from having no notoriety at all to being relatively familiar pretty quickly,” Austin said from Texas, where he now works in the Cowboys’ personnel department. “I feel like although he had some exposure being on Hard Knocks [with Miami] and playing well in Buffalo, this is the biggest amount. It’s got to be an exciting feeling for him. I remember being excited myself. He’s got to embrace it. I mean, this is huge. He’s playing for a Super Bowl ring. That’s really exciting for him. I wish him the best.”