NFL

Revis made all the right moves to survive the mean streets

ALIQUIPPA, Pa. — If you ask anyone here in the hometown of Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis to share a story about him, they only have one to tell.

It’s not about him marooning the NFL’s top wide receivers on his personal island. Nor is it about being the 14th overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, or his 73-yard punt return for a touchdown in college at Pitt against arch-rival West Virginia that was later named the top play in college football that season.

Instead, it’s a pair of performances over a three-day stretch in his senior year at Aliquippa High the people here will never forget.

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On Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003, Aliquippa High faced Northern Lehigh in the Pennsylvania Class AA championship game in Hershey. After missing at least two practices during the week because of the flu, and after a massive snowstorm postponed the game for a day, Revis played quarterback, running back, wide receiver, defensive back, and also returned kicks.

He scored all five of Aliquippa’s touchdowns, including an 89-yard kickoff return, a 69-yard blocked field goal return and three rushing touchdowns. He also completed a pass, caught another and his 64-yard touchdown run with just over four minutes remaining sealed Aliquippa’s 32-27 win.

“He did everything except clean up the field after the game was over,” said Sherman McBride, one of Aliquippa’s assistant coaches.

The five-hour bus ride back across the state that night was quickly followed by his first basketball practice of the season the next day. Revis was in the starting lineup on his home court Tuesday night when Aliquippa took on its arch-rival, Beaver Falls, the alma mater of Joe Namath, which had one of the area’s top teams.

All Revis did in that game was go 11-for-19 from the field and 12-for-15 from the foul line to score 35 points, including nine in overtime, leading Aliquippa to a 86-82 victory.

“It was a ridiculous performance,” Beaver Falls coach Doug Biega said. “If I had gone box-and-one, this story wouldn’t be being written. But I was too damn stubborn, figuring there was no way this kid could run like this the whole game.

“But he did, and that’s why Darrelle is who he is.”

Nestled next to the Ohio River less than 30 miles from Heinz Field, Aliquippa is similar to many other towns in the Rust Belt left behind in the wake of the steel industry’s collapse. What once was a bustling city with around 30,000 residents now has a population of slightly more than 10,000.

As the town has sagged under the weight of its struggling economy, it has relied on football to keeps spirits up — and give kids a chance to escape from the harsh reality of its streets. Aliquippa High’s football coach and athletic director, Mike Zmijanac, just has to look at the team picture of Revis’ 2003 state championship to be reminded of this.

“In that picture, six of those kids are dead,” Zmijanac said. “That’s the facts — that’s the way it is. The school is wonderful — we don’t have any kids carrying on, we don’t have metal detectors or any of that stuff. But the streets are a tough place, and it’s been a tough place to grow up.”

“Back here, just like any other place that the jobs are lost and everything, it’s a big spider web, and the spider is not prejudiced,” McBride said. “It’s grabbing anybody. If you step outside and go the wrong way, it could grab you. It’s just what happens.”

Revis spent his formative years at 309 Seventh Avenue, a red brick house on top of a hill that looks across town toward the high school and Carl A. Aschman Stadium, where he would later begin to make his name. Today you can still see the stadium from there, but the house itself has been abandoned, with boards covering the front windows and a cracked foundation.

“It’s a tough town,” Revis said. “There’s a lot of negativity there. And the one thing I did growing up is lean [on] the people doing positive things . . . [former Jets and Patriots CB] Ty Law, my uncle Sean Gilbert, Mike Ditka’s from there. Just seeing the billboards of him from our hometown, and wanting to make it out of there.”

According to his younger sister, DeAudra, Revis rarely found himself treading down the wrong path growing up.

“He was very laid back,” she said. “If me and my little brother Terry were to get in trouble, he’d be playing video games or at a basketball game or football — he always had his head on straight, setting goals, going for what he wanted.”

“He was one of those kids that always did everything right, that you look at as a model of what’s expected,” Zmijanac’s wife, Michelle, said. “And that’s why he just didn’t stand out. There were so many kids that did silly things and goofy things or were in trouble, but Darrelle wasn’t any of those. He was always where he was supposed to be, did what was expected of him, and was smiling.”

On those rare occasions when Revis strayed from that path, though, his family was there to set things straight. While his mother, Diana Gilbert, was working at various jobs, either his grandmother, Aileen, or his aunt, Tamu, or his uncles, Mark, who played basketball at Duquesne, or Sean, who was an All-Pro defensive tackle with the Redskins, were there to keep an eye on him and his siblings.

“One night I went to go check on them before I went home to make sure they were getting ready for school the next day, and he wasn’t there,” Tamu said. “I started looking for him, because we live in a small neighborhood, and everybody knows everybody. They told me he was at this guy’s house down the street, so I went there looking for him, but he had left.

“So I called Mark and told him, ‘You need to come down here.’ He came, and me and him started looking around for him. We spotted him walking, and we pulled up.

“[Mark] called him over … and when he came over Mark punched him so hard in the chest that he flew back four or five feet. Mark hit him so hard I started crying.

“But he needed it. I think that did a lot for him, because after Mark hit him, he told him that you need to respect your mother and what your mother’s wishes are. I think it did a lot for him because here it’s so easy to get sucked in.”

Revis also has tried to help other kids find the right path. One of them is Seton Hall forward Herb Pope, who was shot in a gang-related incident in 2007 shortly before he was set to graduate from high school.

When Pope collapsed at Seton Hall last spring with a heart issue, Revis and his mother made the initial contact with Pope’s family to let them know what happened.

“They were the first ones to make sure that [Herb] was OK, and got word back to my family so we was all able to come together,” said Herb’s sister Keisha, a junior at Aliquippa. “I appreciated that because they made sure he was OK so my family was able to get down there.”

Revis still comes back to the town often, both to visit the family that still lives here, and to drop in at the high school, where he is revered.

“Darrelle loves Aliquippa, and the kids love seeing Darrelle,” McBride said. “There’s been days when you see Darrelle at games, and he’d stop and sign or whatever until the last person. A lot of times you’ll see guys say, ‘Oh I’ve got to go’ after signing a couple, but he doesn’t do that.”

When Revis began attending Aliquippa High as a sophomore, after attending nearby Beaver County Christian through ninth grade, he wasn’t dreaming about following his uncle into the NFL. Instead, the goal was to be an NBA point guard, and Zmijanac wasn’t expecting him to join the football team.

“In July we start working out in the gym in our conditioning program,” Zmijanac said. “The first day he showed up as we’re stretching out. He walked over to me, I looked at him and said, ‘Are you coming to stay in shape, or what?’ And he said, ‘I think I’m gonna give this a try.’

“So I said line up. It took about 15 minutes of looking at him for me to say, ‘This kid might be able to play this game.’ ”

It didn’t take long before Revis was one of the linchpins of Zmijanac’s team. But, despite the obvious talent, Revis didn’t have eye-popping statistics as a senior.

“It says a lot about his unselfishness, and it talks about his character,” Zmijanac said. “Football is the ultimate team game, and he understood that from his upbringing. His father was a starter here on two championship teams, and his uncle played in the NFL, so he had the right idea about how to go about things.”

For all of his talent, and all of his achievements at Aliquippa and on the football team, Zmijanac’s fondest memory of his former star comes from a day when he was late to practice.

“He had gone to Cleveland to get his suit for the prom, and he was late getting back. He was a senior, and I thought he was gonna cry. He showed up 20 minutes late in tears, because, to him, that’s not the way it was done.”

Zmijanac probably expressed the feelings of most Steelers fans in Aliquippa when he said he would be rooting for the Steelers to beat the Jets Sunday night, but that Revis would have three interceptions.

That doesn’t fly with Revis’ family members in Aliquippa. They’re fine with you rooting for or against him — just not trying to have it both ways.

“I’ve been telling people all day be true to who you are,” Tamu Gilbert, dressed in a long-sleeved Jets T-shirt, said. “If you’re a Steelers fan, I don’t want to hear, ‘Oh, I want the Steelers to win but I hope Darrelle does good.’ They can’t be like that . . . you either are, or you’re not.”

“The Steelers fans just get on my last nerve,” Aileen Gilbert said. “They are so obnoxious sometimes. They try to push the Steelers down your throat — if you tell them you’re not a Steelers fan, it’s like the whole world caves in on you.

“I went in [the YMCA] Monday after the [Jets’ win over the Patriots] Sunday and I had my Jets shirt on, and when I walked in people were looking over at me, wondering what I was doing wearing that shirt. I was laughing all the way through. This is gonna be an interesting week.”

tbontemps@nypost.com