Manheim Central senior Jeremy Knosp grasped a football, dropped back and fired a pass to a wide receiver.

Knosp's teammate caught the ball, but all eyes quickly shifted from the play to a man walking nearby.

Strolling around the bleachers and onto the artificial turf of Elden Rettew Field was Republican Sen. John McCain, sporting a "Navy" ballcap, joined by two prominent surrogates and venerable Barons Coach Mike Williams.

Practice stopped. It was time for a pep talk that only a presidential candidate could deliver.

"You know that individuals are important," McCain told the Barons as they knelt at the 50-yard line and formed a crescent around the Arizona senator during his unannounced visit. "Whoever … is not selected as the starting quarterback, you will be ready to go" should the starter falter or get injured.

The pep talk was part of a swing through Republican-rich southcentral Pennsylvania Tuesday as the presumptive GOP nominee sought to energize conservative voters and improve his chances of upsetting Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania.

Achieving such an upset will be no easy task for McCain. Democrats have an edge over Republicans of more than a million registered voters, and Obama leads McCain in polls of likely Pennsylvania voters by about 7.4 percent.

If McCain is going to have a chance of taking the state's 21 electoral votes on Nov. 4, he needs Republicans in midstate Pennsylvania to turn out in huge numbers.

"We've got a lot of work to do," McCain told five local reporters, including one from the Intelligencer Journal, aboard his Straight Talk Express bus as it rambled down Route 30 in York County en route to Lancaster County. "I'm the underdog. I don't underestimate the challenge — 1988 is the last time a Republican won (Pennsylvania). I don't underestimate the size of the challenge."

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At 3:15 p.m., the Straight Talk Express rolled onto the Manheim Central campus, where the maroon-and-silver clad Baron football team was practicing.

After shaking hands with players and coaches, McCain stood on the maroon "MC" painted on the 50-yard line. Team members took a knee as they gathered around Williams, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman and McCain.

McCain, who autographed a football, noted the heat and that Tuesday was the second day of grueling preseason practices.

"A couple of guys asked me to give an hourlong speech," he said to much laughter from the team. "I know you're tired."

The former U.S. Navy pilot then spoke to the team about his experience as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and the importance of teamwork, communication and leadership. He talked about how the Viet Cong kept American prisoners in solitary confinement to keep morale low and to prevent the captives from organizing resistance.

"They knew if we ever got together as a team, we could beat them," McCain said. "And our coaches were our senior officers … . We could organize, and we had leadership."

Williams said the Baron football program and McCain are similar.

"This is a blue-collar town," Williams said. "We don't have a lot of flashy athletes. We don't come out flashy, but we're always there at the end.

"It's a lot like Senator McCain."

McCain later walked over to a crowd of about 50 people in the stands to say hello and have his picture taken with 10-month-old Emily Stauffer of Lititz.

Her parents, McCain supporters Theresa and Joe Stauffer, said Emily had her picture taken with Obama when the Democrat visited a Manheim gas station for a press conference March 30.

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McCain's day began with an entrance worthy of a rock star at Toyota Arena in western York.

Sen. John McCain visits York and Lancaster counties on Tuesday. 

Just before noon, as about 3,000 people sat waiting, the theme to "Rocky" blasted from speakers, a massive American flag rose toward the ceiling and McCain's bus drove into the arena.

The Republican stepped out accompanied by Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut and formerly a Democratic vice presidential hopeful, and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, considered a top contender to be McCain's running mate.

McCain spent a lot of time Tuesday talking about Russia's recent invasion of neighboring Georgia.

McCain has said Russia should be thrown out of the Group of Eight, an international economic forum for major industrial nations, for the incursion, and he suggested sending in a peacekeeping operation to prevent further hostilities. He later said he is not advocating the use of American military force in the region.

"We must make clear to Russian leaders the benefit they enjoy for being part of a civilized world. … They must respect the values of peace in that world," McCain said.

Obama, who's in Hawaii, slammed Russia Monday for escalating the conflict and advocated that a peacekeeping force be deployed to the region.

McCain spoke in York for an hour, followed by a sitdown interview with Fox News at the arena after the crowd dispersed.

As McCain's bus and motorcade rolled into the streets and headed toward Lancaster County, the candidate invited local reporters to join him, Lieberman and U.S. Rep. Todd Platts of York County on the Straight Talk Express to talk about issues affecting the election.

McCain sipped Starbucks coffee, wore a black bracelet honoring a New Hampshire soldier who died two years ago in Iraq and had an open bag of pork rinds on the table. Out the tinted window, the small Pennsylvania communities he hopes to win over passed by along Route 30.

He talked about reaching out to wary conservative voters, many of whom live in communities like Hallam and Mountville. Some right-wing voters have shied away from supporting McCain because of his reputation for working with Democrats, his position on immigration reform and other issues.

McCain said he believes a majority of social conservatives support his candidacy, but those who consider themselves fiscal conservatives are proving to be the hardest for him to woo.

"I'll tell you what's the most de-energized of our base — fiscal conservatives — because our spending has gotten completely out of control," McCain said.

"… (The conservative fiscal) part of our base, I've got to assure them we'll get spending under control."

He suggested one way to rein in spending is to veto any piece of legislation that has pork-barrel spending attached to it.

E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com