Gulley overcomes difficult start to SU career to emerge as team captain, feature back in senior season

Three years ago, Prince-Tyson Gulley lay in a hospital bed for an entire July night.

The young running back had just survived a stabbing and a transformation was underway. A season-ending injury would end the upcoming season just four games in, but he had started down the road to maturation.

“It was life-changing. But I honestly felt like that built me into the person that I am today. I wish it didn’t happen,” Gulley said of the stabbing. “But when it happened, I started seeing stuff a little bit more clearly. Now I understand what I really have to do and I get away from the foolishness now.

“I definitely had to mature from there. You can’t take life for granted.”

With a refined outlook on life, Gulley’s tumultuous Syracuse career is on another upswing. It’s been a journey that includes being stabbed at a South Campus party and winning a Pinstripe Bowl MVP,  suffering a broken collarbone that sidelined him for most of the 2011 season and rushing for 830 yards in 2012 as the Orange’s No. 2 back.

Now, the tailback hopes to spearhead the rushing attack of Syracuse’s new-look, up-tempo offense after waiting four years to be the feature back. Gulley enters his fifth year as not only the vocal leader of the running backs, but as a captain, selected by his teammates toward the end of training camp.

“He had some ups and downs in figuring out the way when he was a young man here,” SU head coach Scott Shafer said. “And then the last two years he’s really grown. Last year, he actually had a lot of votes and it didn’t surprise me that he was elected captain (this year).”

Gulley, a two-star prospect out of Akron, Ohio, was one of six running backs in SU’s recruiting Class of 2010.

Only he and fellow freshman Jerome Smith cracked the Orange’s roster as tailbacks, but Gulley came in with an abundance of ambition — maybe too much.

But there was some growing up to do, and it took a near-death experience before his sophomore year to get that process rolling.

At a South Campus party on July 29, 2011, Gulley was stabbed several times. The wounds missed his kidney and spine by an inch each. A 19-year-old Syracuse man was later arrested and charged with the stabbing.

Gulley spent the night at Upstate University Hospital and, with no internal bleeding, was released the next day having narrowly eluded a disaster.

Once the season started, Gulley was Antwon Bailey’s primary backup. Through the Orange’s first four games, Gulley rushed for 89 yards on 18 carries before Smith, a fellow sophomore, had even seen the backfield.

But those were the only four games Gulley would play all year. He was hesitant to see the SU trainers about the sharp pain in his left shoulder, hoping it would feel better on its own.

But the ache became unbearable, and it turned out to be a season-ending broken collarbone he had suffered against Toledo in Week 4.

“For a guy like Tyson, football is his life. I knew it really hurt him,” Smith said of the missed time. “I knew when he got back he would come back with a full head of steam and ready to roll.”

He did, racking up 830 yards on the ground and nine touchdowns while taking 69 fewer carries than Smith, who reached the end zone just three times while surpassing 1,000 yards on the season in 2012.

Smith and Gulley’s rushing prowess reached its peak in the snowy 2012 Pinstripe Bowl against favored West Virginia. Smith chipped in 152 yards on the ground, but it was Gulley who stole the show and the MVP award with 213 rushing yards and two touchdowns, plus 56 receiving yards and another score through the air as SU rolled past the Mountaineers, 38-14.

And to prove that Gulley was not just growing on the field, he made changes off of it.

If anything felt wrong, Smith said, Gulley was in the trainers’ room getting it checked out. Gulley says he still needs to have a social life, but his teammates say he’s cut it back since the stabbing.

The leadership role Gulley’s taken on — which SU’s coaches and players credit for helping him get on the right track — has been evident with the running back groups leading up to the season.

In the film room, junior George Morris II has learned from Gulley’s experiences with different offenses. At Fort Drum, freshman Ervin Philips roomed with the fifth-year senior and Gulley instructed the newcomer to learn from his mistakes.

Senior Adonis Ameen-Moore has seen past SU tailbacks grow into role models and said Gulley’s not only embraced that tradition, but has added to it. Junior Devante McFarlane called Gulley the group’s “big brother.”

“It’s great, because his work ethic has matched his words,” running backs coach DeAndre Smith said. “He’s the first one who’s always starting out series, so he’s doing that and they follow that lead.”

As the Orange cranks up its offensive tempo and looks to discover which of its 13 receivers and seven tight ends will best fit the scheme, Gulley is the steadiest option in the run game.

With lightning speed and the ability to seamlessly reverse direction, he’s one of the fastest weapons on an offense that hopes to move at such a pace.

With the spread attack also opening the middle of the field for the run game, his four-year wait to become Syracuse’s feature back may have yielded the best possible scenario for him.

The short haircut Gulley tried last year is long gone. His long hair is back, because that’s who he is.

“This is me. That’s just how I ride,” he said.

He had a down year in 2013, missing two games with an ankle sprain and not scoring in any of SU’s last seven games. That was the latest drop in Gulley’s roller-coaster college career.

Shafer informing him of his captaincy was the next change in direction.

Now it’s Gulley’s job to keep running down that path.

“He just told me that the work starts now,” Gulleysaid. “‘You’ve already been working hard but now that you’re a captain, we’re looking for more from you. So you’ve got to lead by example.’

“So that’s what I’m doing.”

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