596 SWITCH
THE IMPROBABLE JOURNEY FROM THE PALOUSE TO PASADENA
RYAN D. LEAF
Copyright Crimson Oak Publishing 2011
Smashwords Edition
. . .
THANK YOU
Thank you Lord for my family, John my father, Marcia my mother, Jeffrey my brother, and Brady my baby bro.
It’s us five against the world we’ve decided and if it weren’t for you I would not be the son, brother, and man I’m becoming.
I played football for the enjoyment and competition, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t play for you four and the way you looked at me when I walked off that field, seeing the pride and tears in your eyes.
Those four years in Pullman brought a family together like no other and I’m thankful for every moment we got to experience together, I’ll never forget a minute of it.
This is dedicated to my family and the amazing support you’ve been to me my entire life.
I LOVE YOU
Go Cougs,
Ryan D. Leaf
FOREWORD
Mike Price
Did Ryan Leaf tell you what was on his mind? Yes he did. Did Ryan Leaf wear his emotions on his sleeve? Many times. Was Ryan Leaf immature in his younger days? Absolutely. And for that he gets a bad rap. I read stories and personally see some of the real bad acting that goes on in the sports world and I scratch my head why people around the nation have for years looked at Ryan with fire in their eyes.
Let me tell you about Ryan Leaf. If life’s dealt you a blow, he’ll be the first one not just on the phone, but on your doorstep, offering moral support. If you want to see loyalty in action, take a look at the lifelong bonds Ryan has developed with people at every stage of his life. Ryan is not just a good guy, he’s a great guy. After he signed his contract with the Chargers, one of the first things he did was write a big check to WSU, and then he bought new uniforms for his high school. He views his family as the greatest gift he’s ever received. He’ll sign autographs until every last kid is taken care of. There are people all over the sports world who are held up as heroes and they’re very far from being heroes. They don’t hold a candle to Ryan Leaf.
With Ryan, I always liked the analogy of the thoroughbred race horse. Have you ever seen a thoroughbred getting into the gate? They can be a little feisty at times. They’re wired that way, and it’s part of what makes them so special. Now, who would you rather have leading your team on the field, a plow horse or a thoroughbred? Ryan was a thoroughbred.
The story he tells in this book is equal parts entertaining, fascinating, and heartwarming. It’s a coming-of age-story about a group of young men who worked tirelessly to accomplish something that hadn’t been done in nearly 70 years. He brings people to life in these pages, providing background and context and perspective that captures the magic of a very special time and place. It’s a wonderful story. More than anything, my hope is that all who read it will come to appreciate the real Ryan Leaf – a young man of character and strength – who I’m proud to call one of the finest people I know.
MIKE PRICE
Washington State Head Coach, 1989-2002
IT’S TOUGH TO DEFEND
“Not often, but every now and then, Ryan Leaf’s thoughts drift to the twilight of a sunny day near the San Gabriel Mountains. He thinks of the final two seconds inexplicably taken off the Rose Bowl clock – two seconds that could have meant football immortality for Leaf and his fellow Cougars but instead handed Michigan a national championship. The play WSU was going to run was called 596 Switch.”
Those words were written two years ago by a sportswriter named Barry Bolton, the only person who ever asked me what we were going to run if the clock hadn’t hit zero on that first day of January in 1998.
We were 26 yards from victory with no timeouts left and 101,219 people on their feet, holding their breath. I had the option of spiking the ball to stop the clock or taking the snap and firing.
When I called Dick Burleson a dozen years after the fact, to get his view of the chaotic end, I was hoping to hear some regret, that in retrospect the clock shouldn’t have been allowed to run down and that we should have been given a final shot. It wouldn’t change anything, of course, but it would add to the legend of it all. Dick was the head official that day in Pasadena. It was his final game in stripes after a long and respected career calling games in the Southeast Conference. He speaks with a southern accent and is about as personable and charming as anyone can be.
“There is no doubt in my mind that it was the right call,” he told me. “I knew it was going to be close, the ball and the clock, but when you spiked the ball, when the ball hit the ground, the game clock read double zero . . . The TV clock may not have said that, but the game clock did . . . I really don’t think it’s physically possible to complete that action in less than two seconds.”
We didn’t see it the same way then or now, but we did agree on two things: That “it was an absolutely great football game” and I should have run a play at the end rather than spike the ball. In the moment, however, it seemed entirely reasonable to get set, wait for the restart whistle, snap the ball and spike it.
I don’t know if 596 Switch subsequently would have worked, but I do know this: We had run it many times that season and the results were almost always positive. It’s a tough play to defend, especially when you have five receivers as talented as ours were. Mike Price told reporters “I’m betting on Ryan Leaf completing the pass if given the chance.” Whether he was being nice or really meant it, I just wanted the opportunity.
Chris Jackson and Nian Taylor were going to run hitches on the outside to freeze the cornerbacks so Shawn Tims and Shawn McWashington would have space on corner routes to the end zone. Kevin McKennzie would have been headed down the middle on a post pattern.
Coach Price had had 596 Switch in his playbook as long as he could remember, and it’s still there to this day. The beauty in it is the switch. Normally, McKenzie would run the corner route and McWashington the post. On this one, they swap roles, which hopefully would cause split-second confusion in the defense. On a football field, you can move mountains in a split second. The other beautiful thing about the play is that the safety on that side of the field – the right side – would have both those receivers coming directly at him and then he’d have to choose one – and only one – to cover out of the break: Shawn going to the corner or Kevin going to the post.
There are a lot of moving parts on a football field and any one of them can make or break any given play. If the Michigan middle linebacker dropped deep to take away the post, the play would have been in serious trouble. If not, maybe there’s a bronze statue of Kevin – dancing into the Rose Bowl end zone – planted outside Martin Stadium right now.
“What if WSU had 2 more seconds?” asked Seattle Times columnist Steve Kelley the next day. “One more play. A game this intense and delicious deserved it,” he said. “One more second. One Mississippi. One last chance at a miracle.”
So close and yet so far. The name of the play proved ironic. The course of destiny, it seemed, was replaced – switched – by the clock. That, in turn, ended a magical, almost fairy tale-like run to national prominence. And personally, there was another switch amid it all. Unbeknownst to me or anyone else at the time, my ascension as a football player effectively came to a halt as the clock ran out that day.
What might have been?
It’s a question that hangs over the 84th Rose Bowl game because of the controversial end. It’s a question that hangs over my pro career because of the controversial beginning.
But there’s another metaphor to be found in the name of the play – 596 Switch – that resonates so much louder than any other. The 1997 Washington State Cougars pulled an end run on doubters near and far. “Washington State can’t compete with USC and UCLA,” they had said for years. “Washington State can’t out-recruit Washington,” they insisted. “Washington State can’t aspire to more than minor bowl games,” they believed. “Washington State doesn’t have the depth to compete over the course of an entire season,” they claimed.
We proved them wrong. We ran a figurative 596 Switch, going directly at them with our resourcefulness, spirit and determination. Who were they going to cover coming out of the break, the intellectual kid from Seattle running the corner route, the up-from-the-bootstraps kid running the post, or maybe one of the decoys waiting in the weeds? We turned old perceptions on their head. We switched fields on the Pac-10 and the nation, uniting a community and fueling the idea that teamwork, dreams and hard work can overcome outdated opinions and negative thinking.
It had been four years to the day since I decided to become a Cougar. Four years since Mike Price told me we would go to the Rose Bowl together. Four years of ups and downs and lessons to last a lifetime. The journey to this place was even more remarkable than I had dreamed it would be that winter day in Great Falls when I first started to believe.
WHY IS THIS ALL HAPPENING?
I knew it was a bad idea and my clammy palms were telling me as much. It was February of 2010, and a typical winter night of cold and drizzle in Seattle. As I walked into the Westin for the annual dinner celebrating Washington State’s newest class of recruits, I really, truly had an urge to turn around and go home. I hadn’t been to a WSU event like this in over a decade. The public meltdown of my pro career left me embarrassed to be around Cougars because I felt I had let them down. To make matters worse, my addiction to prescription painkillers, when I was coaching at West Texas A&M, had been all over the news in the last year.
“Cougs are a very forgiving bunch,” Jack Thompson, the legendary WSU quarterback, told me. He was one of the people who convinced me to come to the dinner. Jack is someone I admire immensely. He’s smart, caring, a great family man, and probably the best goodwill ambassador WSU has ever had. When Jack talks, I listen. But now that the day for the dinner had arrived, I was wishing I hadn’t. What would people think when they saw me? A lot had happened since I was on top of the Cougar world at the 1998 Rose Bowl. Now it was a dozen years later, and I wondered if people would even want to say hello. Would there be sideways glances? Whispers?
There was a social hour before the dinner and I made sure I stayed close to Jack and other folks I knew pretty well. Hanging out in the crowded foyer seemed safe. Going into the ballroom with 400 or 500 people you had let down was risky. So I stayed in the foyer as long as I could, long after Jack and the rest went inside. Ian Furness, the outstanding Seattle radio commentator, was the emcee that night. Once his formal spiel was underway, I figured I’d head inside. Everyone would be focused on Ian, so I could just find my seat and be safe for the night. I wasn’t even halfway to my table when Ian said, “. . . and the next person I’d like to introduce is just now walking in – right over there . . .” He pointed my way. “ . . . our quarterback, our Rose Bowl quarterback – Ryan Leaf.”
As the spotlight swung in my direction, I froze and then sheepishly waved my arm, hoping there wouldn’t be any muffles of “What the hell is he doing here?” Dead silence probably would have been worse than anything. But people clapped, and it was like a weight being lifted from my shoulders. As Ian said a few nice things about me, the clapping grew louder. I started to navigate toward my seat and the spotlight followed and the applause grew louder. My eyes started to well up. And then everyone was on their feet cheering.
Never in my life have I fought so hard to fight back tears. Jack was right – Cougars are a very forgiving bunch. If someone had asked me to say anything at that moment, I don’t think I could have even uttered my name. I was really choked up. This was like a dream. How did I get here? Why was this happening? I was surrounded by successful businessmen and women, plus some of the greatest names ever in Cougar football, and I was receiving an ovation. Ryan Leaf, the NFL bust. Ryan Leaf, the PR train wreck. Ryan Leaf, the cocky jerk. Implausible, surreal, I’m not sure what adjective to place on it all but I was overwhelmed. And then there was clarity – a calm clarity that came over me and transported me back to Pullman so many years ago. The people, the spirit, the culture. The memories of four special years were racing through my mind. Keith Jackson once said of WSU, “The place gets in your blood and you never let go.” He was right.
The thoughts, memories and emotions of four unforgettable years in Pullman poured over me. I stood there in amazement. All these people were applauding me, but I should have been applauding them for staying in my corner all these years. The room quieted down and I spent much of the next two hours in a blissful daze. I wanted to call my mom and dad and tell them this turned out to be a night I’d never forget. I spent the rest of the evening talking with, but mostly listening to, Cougar fans. They shared their stories about games we had in common. And it was eye-opening to me. I had experienced it all from the field, sidelines and locker room. They had experienced it from the stands, from their living rooms and from their favorite bars. This was like one of those movies where they play the same scene over and over but from the vantage point of different characters, so your perspective changes and grows. People would tell me what they were doing, the friends they were with and the pride they felt when Leon Bender and the Cougar defense held UCLA at the goal line, when Shawn McWashington leveled the block and Kevin McKenzie scored at USC, when Steve Gleason de-cleated Cam Cleland in the Apple Cup, when the Cougs came running out of the tunnel before the start of the Rose Bowl, and on and on. My Cougar teammates and I had created an indelible, joyous mark in the hearts and minds of so many people. I just didn’t realize it at the time. And now, all these years later, the stories were like a warm blanket being draped over my shoulders.
One would have to know my story to fully understand what an amazing gesture that evening was to me and why it meant so much at that point in my life. But this wasn’t about me. It was about the Cougar Nation. This was about the people who made, and make, WSU such a special place. This was a statement about shared experiences, loyalty and friendship. Being a Cougar means you’re part of a family. Walk down any street in America with a WSU t-shirt or hat on and at some point in your day someone’s going to say “Go Cougs!” to you. There’s a bond that is unlike any other. Being a Husky, Duck, or Trojan just doesn’t carry the same level of spirit and caring. I made a decision when I was 17 years old to attend Washington State. At that time I had no idea what a monumental decision it truly was. It was a decision that would shape me – and embrace me – for the rest of my life. The saying goes, “Once a Coug, Always a Coug.” There are as many examples of the meaning of that phrase as there are Cougars. You’re about to read mine, and the life lessons of loyalty, love and persistence that come with it.
THE BEGINNING
Once upon a time there was this 17-year-old kid who grew up in a pretty standard middle-class family in a middle-class neighborhood. Mom was a nurse and dad was in insurance. There were three kids, all boys, and the oldest one, the 17-year-old, came across so cocky to outsiders that they’d have never guessed he was actually a terribly insecure young man. He was also a pretty good athlete. So when colleges started calling and writing, some of the smaller ones inviting him to play basketball and the bigger ones selling football, he jumped in head first. He was going to be the next Terry Bradshaw. That was his goal since childhood. And now all these coaches were telling him it was not only possible, but maybe even destined. The confidence factor reached new heights at the same time the insecurity was burning underneath.
The result was a very confused kid named Ryan Leaf. Talking about it now, so many years later, feels a bit like I’m a third-party retracing someone else’s journey. But that was me and the journey was mine.
I was good at two things, athletics and lying. I was always worried about what others were thinking about me or how I was being perceived. I was always very aware of what others were saying about me and, if I didn’t like it, I did something about it, usually to the chagrin of my parents, particularly my mother. Soon lying, to make the story more about who I wanted people to think I was, ultimately won out. I tried to gain control of who I really was for years. This is that story.
While the years have thickened my skin, softened my temper and expanded my perspectives, one thing has not changed since those days as a teenager in Great Falls: the focus. I had, and have, an ability to focus intensely on things that are important to me. In those days, my aim was to be successful in sports – no matter what. Genetically speaking, running, jumping and throwing were more than natural for me. They were like electric bolts charging my body. Add in a tunnel-vision mindset and the makings are there to rule the court or field. While great for winning games, this limited me socially. To say I was competitive is an understatement. I was hyper-competitive, to the point that my mom started to get concerned about it when I was around 9 or 10 because I was alienating all the kids my age. I had to beat them in everything, every time. I had to. This extremism pushed people away and rarely allowed me to establish friendships and relationships outside the realm of team sports. I told myself that in order to be understood and to fit in, I needed to get out of Montana and find a bigger pool to swim in. That thinking, of course, was delusional. But it put me on a path that ultimately led to the highest highs of the Pac-10 Conference, as well as the lowest lows of the NFL.
People make decisions about where to go to college in many different ways. Maybe it’s following in the footsteps of parents. Maybe it’s financial considerations. Or interest in a particular major. In my case, it was mostly about athletics – playing early, getting the right coaching and then high-stepping into the NFL. I knew very little about Washington State University. Growing up in Montana, it was all Montana State – where my dad went to school – and Montana. My first introduction to Wazzu was a letter that arrived in the mail in August of 1993, just before my senior year at C.M. Russell High. It had come in a round-about kind of way. I had attended a football camp earlier that summer in California and one of my fellow campers was the son of then-WSU athletic director Jim Livengood. Jim and my parents started talking during one of the sessions and, just like that, I was suddenly on the Cougars’ recruiting radar. As I recall, it was a standard recruiting letter, but it prompted me to do a little research beyond what little I already knew about WSU – that Mark Rypien, a Super Bowl MVP, and Drew Bledsoe, the No. 1 pick in the most recent NFL draft, went there.
What I learned about WSU, I liked. It had great school spirit, a family-type atmosphere, one of the best schools in the nation for what I was interested in studying (broadcast communications), and a head coach known for mentoring quarterbacks. So one Friday in September, right after one of my high school games ended, my dad and I took off for Pullman. We stayed overnight in Missoula at my Aunt Jackie and Uncle Charlie’s house and then got up at the crack of dawn to drive over the mountains, through Idaho and into Washington. Total drive time was about eight hours. This was an unofficial visit, nothing formal. I remember driving through the rolling wheat fields between Spokane and Pullman and wondering where the hell this place was. As we took that left turn off Highway 195, moving slowly in the long line of game-day traffic, and came up over the final hill, I got my first glimpse of what would ultimately be my home for the next four years. It was a gorgeous day. Off in the distance, soaking in the sun and sitting on a hill with nothing but blue skies in the background, was a set from a movie. Or so it seemed. Red brick buildings, a giant clock tower and lots of trees. All sitting on a hill. It was like an oasis in a sea of wheat.
We found Martin Stadium pretty easily because it sits squarely in the middle of campus. I bet there’s not another school in the country with their football stadium sitting right in the middle of everything. I thought that was the coolest thing. We sat just below the press box and I remember watching warm ups and being shocked at how big all the quarterbacks were. The Cougars dismantled Oregon State that day, 51-6. Singor Mobley was a wrecking ball on defense and Deron Pointer was the man on offense, catching two TD passes and returning a kickoff past midfield. Best of all, quarterback Mike Pattinson threw the ball 41 times. Forty-one times! That stat alone was enough to get me fired up about WSU. I briefly met some of the Cougar coaches afterward, but Mike Price wasn’t one of them. He was moving fast, and just gave me a smile and wave as he motored down a hallway. As my father and I headed back to the mountain passes and home I thought Pullman seemed like a great place. But I was far, far from being sold. Plus, I didn’t have an actual scholarship offer in hand yet. Today, in this era of earlier and earlier offers and commitments, it would be insane to wait until fall to make an offer to one of your top QB targets, but in those days the senior season of high school still was critical in the assessment process.
As my senior season at C.M. Russell wound down, I narrowed my list of college possibilities to Washington State, Miami, Colorado State, Colorado, Oregon and UCLA. Subconsciously, the fact I was from Montana played a big role in shaping that list – something that didn’t occur to me until years later, and now makes me smile. WSU’s point man in recruiting me was offensive line coach John McDonell, who had been an NAIA All-American at Carroll College in Helena and later was the head coach at Scobey High in the northeast corner of the state. Miami was coached by Dennis Erickson, who had played and coached at Montana State and also coached high school ball in Billings. One of his assistants helping recruit me was former Montana State head coach Dave Arnold. Colorado State, meanwhile, was coached by Sonny Lubick, a Butte native and former Montana State player and assistant. And Colorado had Jon Knutson on their side. Jon was a star senior at C.M. Russell when I was a freshman and I idolized him. He was a junior linebacker for the Buffs and involved in recruiting me there.
It never dawned on me at the time that these schools were playing the “Montana card.” I just figured Montanans were everywhere. Recruiting is a very odd process: grown men chasing a bunch of 17- and 18-year-olds who think they’re hot stuff. Livelihoods depend on how well you woo these kids, so coaches have to find and use every possible tool to help get the guys they want. Being recruited can be intoxicating. You’re wanted! You’re loved! You’re adored! The best recruiters make you feel like you’re the only one they want. For me, this was just fueling an ego that was already too big. And working the ol’ Montana angle was smart. While I always wanted to leave home for school, the fact is that I was, and remain, very proud to be a Montanan. There’s not that many of us – the elk, deer and antelope outnumber humans by a long shot – so we tend to consider ourselves among the lucky few. Waving the state flag clearly was the right thing for those schools to do in recruiting me because UCLA and Oregon were my only finalists without a home-state connection. UCLA was in the mix because their coach, Terry Donahue, was something of a star himself and the Bruins were really rockin’ back then. I don’t recall exactly why Oregon was on my list, but I presume it was because the assistant coach recruiting me, Mike Bellotti, seemed like a good guy.
It was a full 18 years before I learned that Coach McDonell – a.k.a. Coach Mac – wasn’t a Montana native. He was born and raised in Spokane, for God sakes, yet in all my conversations with him all I ever heard about was Montana – college in Helena, coaching in Scobey, his cousins in Great Falls, and so on. Heck, the way he talked, I figured his family must have homesteaded the place shortly after Lewis and Clark came through. Whether Spokane or Helena, though, one thing was undeniable about Coach Mac: He’s a gentle giant – a big man with a bigger heart. There was no way anyone wouldn’t like WSU if he was the first impression – an opinion backed up by the fact he was also the lead recruiter for Drew Bledsoe four years earlier. Coach Mac and I kept in close contact that fall of 1993 and he came to watch our state semifinal playoff game against Missoula Big Sky. We lost a heartbreaker that day and I had two long TD runs – two! – that were called back because of inadvertent whistles. In early December he invited me to take an official visit to Pullman. This would be the first official visit I would make to a college. In most cases, recruits are given plane tickets to and from the university and you usually travel by yourself. But I wanted my dad to join me, so we drove to Pullman – 16 hours round trip – for the second time in three months. On the drive, I remember thinking Pullman was far enough from home to truly be going away to school but close enough to get back to my Montana mountains and rivers.
The visit started Friday evening with introductions to all of the coaching staff. I think back and try to remember some telling, ground-breaking moment in that initial handshake with Mike Price but my mind always takes me first to Chad DeGrenier. He was my host for the weekend, a fellow quarterback who had transferred in from a junior college and wound up starting a couple games that season after Mike Pattinson had broken his collar bone. Chad was a super nice guy and a devout Christian. He had been picked to be my host because the coaches somehow had the impression that I, too, was deeply religious and wouldn’t be up for going out to parties. To this day, I don’t know why the coaches thought that. Not that I have anything against religion, but I’m not exactly a holy roller. I didn’t drink while I was in high school and my family and I went to church every Sunday – I was even an altar boy at St. Luke’s Catholic Church – so that may have led to their erroneous conclusions. As a result, my first night on a college campus was less than wild and crazy.
We started out at Coach Price’s home for a dinner party with all the other recruits and their hosts. I must have been bug-eyed, because the basement was like walking into a wing of the hall of fame. It was full of memorabilia, from bowl trophies to framed jerseys of Drew Bledsoe, Timm Rosenbach and others. It was awe-inspiring to see autographed pictures of Bledsoe standing alongside the man who could be my future coach. The food was amazing, too – steaks the size of dinner plates and all the fixings to go along. I was so impressed by all this, and of course focused only on myself, that I can’t even remember what other recruits were there with me.
After dinner, the evening was open for free time, and Chad proceeded to take me on a tour of campus and then over to Moscow to see the Idaho campus. Lots of driving around, lots of sights, but not much fun. Is this it? Is this all that college is cracked up to be? When he was dropping me off at the hotel, I couldn’t contain myself. “What the hell? Aren’t you going to take me to a party or something?” He looked at me in astonishment. He said he’d been told by the coaches that I wasn’t into the party scene. “Hey, if I’m going to be here for the next five years, I want to know what this is going to all be about,” I said. Chad actually looked relieved and told me he’d have a party plan for the next day.
The sun was out the next morning and it was one of those stunning Palouse days. Academic meetings and tours dominated the first half of the day but then we went over to Martin Stadium. I had been there in September for the game with Oregon State, but with no one inside it looked massive to me. The idea of playing here gave me goose-bumps. A few guys were on the field throwing and catching and I was once again struck by their size and athleticism. That evening, the coaches brought us to the locker room and we found jerseys lying side-by-side on the floor in front of the lockers. There was No. 16 with LEAF on the back. I picked it up and looked at it and just smiled from ear to ear. I walked out of that locker room on cloud nine.
From there, as promised, Chad DeGrenier took me out to party. After a quick stop for a burger at a place I would later come to love – the Cougar Country Drive-in – we met up with two very large guys named Ryan McShane and Jason McEndoo, They were both 6-6 and in the process of morphing from about 250 to 300 pounds or more. They were both freshmen offensive linemen who had just redshirted. These two were pieces of work. Ryan’s nickname was Chop, presumably for his blocking skills, and Jason’s was simply Mackey. They had already become the best of friends and were wild men to say the least. In the coming years, when an offensive lineman said, “Let’s go have a few beers,” I knew the actual meaning was “let’s hit a party and down a keg.” So when they said “let’s go have a few beers,” I took them literally. Soon we were walking into a house that Aaron Price lived in with some of his fraternity brothers. Aaron was the Cougars’ senior placekicker – and Mike Price’s son. But on this night, he was the maestro. The place was packed and the fun was flowing. I think my chin hit the ground when I spotted these beautiful co-eds who were dressed up as sexy Santa’s elves. Oh man, this college life is something, I thought. You might think a cocky kid like me would just jump right into the middle of all this, but I felt so out of place and awkward that I just found a corner and tried to stay out of sight. What hit me most about it all was the freedom. These people were living the life every high school senior dreamed about.
Chad came over and asked how I was doing. He was like an older brother watching over me. He’s really the type of guy every parent would want their son to turn out to be. It was no surprise later in life that Chad became a standout quarterback in the Arena Football League and a very successful high school coach in Arizona. I couldn’t have asked for a better host. And like Chad, I didn’t have a single thing to drink that night. I was too scared. But as the night wore on and Chad introduced me around I started to loosen up. I got up enough nerve to try and talk to some of the girls at the party – even the scantily dressed elves. It must have been a comedy show for Chad, Chop, and Mack watching an awkward, gangly, 17-year-old try to say anything relevant to beautiful college girls. Big swings, and big misses definitely. With the football players, I think my swings were equally as big and off target as I regaled them with stories of my quarterbacking skills. Yeah, that was me, the egomaniac with a self-esteem problem. At some level, I think I acted so cocky in those days as a way of masking my insecurities and awkwardness in social settings.
Later that evening, Chad drove me and Chop and Mack back to their dorm, and as most nights ended after a night of drinking and running around, Chop and Mack proceeded to start some trouble with some fraternity guys and I got to witness my first college fight. It makes me laugh now, but it scared the hell out of me. These big linemen getting rowdy and boisterous and looking for trouble. Nothing really came of it, just some shit talking and posturing, but I could see how that all worked and how intimidating a football player could be on campus. We sat in Mack’s room and talked about sports, school, girls, life and everything else.
He reminded me years and years later how I told him that I wore a wristband on my arm that had a 3 on it when I played basketball because that’s all I did was hit three pointers. What an egotistical sucker I was.
Chad took me back to my hotel room around 4:00 in the morning and I lay in bed not able to fall asleep thinking about the night that had just transpired and what it all really meant. At 7:30 my short sleep came to an end. My dad was pounding on the door – we had to head over to Perkins for my exit interview with Coach Price and his staff. My father and I sat across from Coach as he extended me my first scholarship offer to play college football. I looked at my dad and didn’t say a word, but he knew exactly what I was thinking – all those early mornings when he’d get up before work to play catch with me had paid off.
Coach Price would tell me years later that he didn’t think my visit to WSU went well at all. My dad is a quiet, reserved, and introspective man who takes everything in, ponders it, and then makes good, correct decisions. Based on that, Coach Price concluded to his staff after breakfast, “We didn’t get him!” Little did he know that Dad and I spoke almost all the way home that day about Pullman and our experience. I would take two more official visits – to Miami and Colorado State – before all was said and done, but my heart was definitely pointing toward WSU.
Ironically, the Cougar coaching staff’s misguided idea that I was Mr. Religious actually made me like them all the more. They were just trying to respect what they thought my wishes were. It was so sincere and honest. This was the first of many pieces of evidence over the next four years that proved how special Mike Price and his staff were.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
Shortly after my official trip to WSU, Dave Arnold, an assistant coach at Miami, came to Great Falls to visit with me and my parents. He of course was a Montana native - but not just any Montana native. He had been the head coach of the Montana State Bobcats in the 1980s, leading them to the 1984 Division I-AA national championship. My dad was an MSU graduate and, by extension, my brothers and I were all Bobcat fans. In our house, the name Dave Arnold meant something. That 1984 Bobcat team and their great quarterback, Kelly Bradley, are as vivid in my mind today as they were back then.
Coach Arnold’s luster was bright before he arrived at our house that evening, but it reached blinding proportions the minute he stepped through the front door. That’s because he was wearing the coolest ring I’d ever seen – a massive salute to the Miami Hurricanes’ 1989 national championship. It was gold, with a giant emerald gem in the middle embedded with diamonds that formed a large numeral 1. The thing was like a spotlight in our living room, catching the light from every lamp and shooting beams through the house. Other than the fact he mentioned he had another ring at home for the Canes’ 1991 national title, I don’t remember much else we talked about, but I was impressed enough to tell him I’d take an official visit to the Coral Cables campus just before Christmas break.
This would be my third of the five official visits the NCAA allows prospective athletes to take. After visiting WSU, I had tripped to Colorado State. That one was a little awkward because I wasn’t there on a weekend. In order to avoid conflicts with our basketball season at C.M. Russell, I hit Fort Collins on a Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Sonny Lubick had just completed his first season as head coach of the Rams after previously serving as Coach Erickson’s defensive coordinator at Miami. The offensive coordinator was Mick Dennehy. Both he and Coach Lubick were Butte natives and both had been head coaches in Montana early in their careers – Coach Lubick at Montana State and Coach Dennehy at Montana and Western Montana. The two of them were with me for what seemed like start to finish on my trip. They were incredibly likeable, and from the sounds of things they had a good plan to get CSU on the map. There was nothing fancy about this trip – a movie one night, a tour of the stadium, and lots of talking – but I left with a very positive impression. When I returned home I told Mom and Dad that I would get to play right away because their depth at quarterback was pretty thin. That was a huge selling point for me, and it thrust CSU right up the list with WSU. By the way, the plan that Coach Lubick told me about turned out to be as good as it sounded – he took the Rams to nine bowl games in his 15 seasons as head coach. The field at Hughes Stadium is now named in his honor.
As for Coach Arnold and the Hurricanes, I couldn’t get that national championship ring of his out of my mind. Miami had won two of the last four national titles, and they had a passing guru for a head coach. They also had a long history of amazing quarterbacks, including the previous season’s Heisman winner, Gino Torreta, a Heisman finalist a few years earlier in Steve Walsh, and three guys who were fixtures in the NFL –Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde. Still, going to Miami was definitely a stretch for me. It was a long way from home in a city about as polar opposite from Great Falls as there is. I was really more curious than serious about going there, but since they were going to pay my way to check it out, I figured I had nothing to lose. Except maybe a little sleep. Getting to Miami from Great Falls was no easy feat. I had to change planes in Minneapolis and then Atlanta. I left Great Falls at the crack of dawn and arrived in Miami early that evening. As soon as I stepped off the plane I knew I was in a different world. I wasn’t just a fish out of water, I was a fish outside my universe. It was warm and muggy – in December. I didn’t know what to think of the Santa Claus in red shorts and tank top ringing the Salvation Army bell.
Coach Arnold was there to greet me and we headed straight to dinner at a posh restaurant on the water in South Beach. I wasn’t dressed appropriately at all – jeans and a flannel shirt. I felt awkward and out of place and quickly realized how much more comfortable I was in Pullman and Fort Collins. The meal, however, improved my outlook. It was stone crab - mountains of stone crab that melted in my mouth. There were a couple other recruits on the trip. Like me, I think they were basketball players stuck doing the Sunday-through-Tuesday routine. My roommate was a guy by the name of Stephen Alexander. He was a tight end from a place called Chickasha, Oklahoma. It couldn’t have been too remote, because he was one of the top-rated recruits in the entire country. He wound up signing with his home state Sooners, becoming an All-American and having a long career in the NFL. On this Sunday though, all our minds were on our stomachs, not the NFL. The amount of food we put away was worthy of a reality TV show. A wild guess is that the bill ran close to $2,000.
After dinner, I was introduced to my host, Coach Erickson’s oldest son, Bryce. He was a freshman quarterback for the Canes who was redshirting that first season. Bryce and I really hit it off, and we remain friends to this day. He was the classic son of a coach. He was personable, because he had to make new friends every time his dad took a new job, and he was a real student of the game. He also had good roots – his mom, Marilyn, grew up in Great Falls. Bryce was a great host and this trip was nothing less than epic. After dinner, we dropped our stuff at the hotel and then headed over to grab two fun-loving Canes defensive tackles for a night on the town. Warren Sapp was only a sophomore then, still two years away from being a first-round draft pick, while Dwayne Johnson was a seasoned veteran, having started on the 1991 title team, but still years away from achieving true fame as the movie star, “The Rock.” It’s amazing to reflect on the similarities between myself and these future stars even when we were just starting out. We all had the same drive, the same focus, and yes sometimes the unbridled confidence that can be considered an attitude problem, but in the end we all want the same thing, to be the best and to win.
We stopped by a music store – I remember this vividly because it was such a metaphor for how out of my world I was – and I bought Snoop Doggy Dog’s first solo album, called Doggystyle. My thinking was sound: The CD probably wouldn’t be in Great Falls for another month, and my mother wouldn’t let me buy it there anyway. We bumped that CD all over town that night. I remember feeling so free and uninhibited in this new and unfamiliar place. We headed to Dan Marino’s Bar and Grill for the evening and this was truly my first experience of how football players are treated differently. I don’t know if this was just Miami or the way it is all over the country, but we were waved in like royalty. I was 17 years old and there was no check of my ID or anyone else’s. The bouncer just gave a fist jab to Bryce and away we went.
This was like watching a movie, only I was in the middle of it. People would just come over and introduce themselves and buy us drinks and food. People were telling me how great I was and how I needed to be a Cane. What? Really? You know who I am? You’ve heard of Great Falls?
Bryce started introducing me to one beautiful and exotic looking woman after another. I’m not sure if it was the flannel shirt or my immaturity, but none of them seemed particularly wowed by me. When it came to hitting on the ladies, I had no game whatsoever. For me, it was the worst of all worlds – I’d either get really shy or very pretentious.
The night was a whirlwind and lasted into the early hours of the morning. I had my very first experience with alcohol, Bacardi Rum, and I was pretty anxious about it, but after the first one I had a second, then a third. I was off like a race horse. ‘When In Rome’ I guess. I didn’t anticipate coming back here so I figured what the hell, compromise your principles, just follow the crowd and be free. As we left the bar there was a limo waiting outside to take us away. Bryce was adamant that there would be no driving after drinking, so he magically summoned the limo. Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped to pick up a couple more Canes ballplayers and kept on drinking. In the midst of all the excitement, I somehow decided to announce to everyone that I was going to become a Cane. Cheers rang throughout the limo. And then I thought to myself, “What the hell did you just say?”
Christ, I was like a cheap imitation of Arthur, spouting off at the mouth about stuff I had no intention of doing. Unbeknownst to me, Johnson and a couple others decided to initiate me into their Cane gang when we got back to the hotel. They shaved lines into one of my eyebrows. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I was just being a blowhard. Plus, it felt great to be with a group of guys who were welcoming me into their club with open arms. The feeling was just like the one I had as a junior at C.M. Russell the year before when all the seniors, who I so wanted to impress, embraced me as one of their own. I didn’t feel that way with the guys in my own class during the just-concluded season and it was a void for me. While the warm welcome was great, the result – lines shaved into my right eyebrow – made me look like a goofball. At least no tattoos were involved.
I was so tired the next day during all the academic meetings, I grabbed one of the graduate assistants and asked if I could find a place to take a quick nap. I explained that I had a basketball game against the cross town rivals the following night and really needed to rest. He just looked at me and laughed and then walked me to his office and said I could crash on the couch for a few hours. I said thanks and we then introduced ourselves. His name was Eric Price.
Talk about irony. Here I was being recruited at one end of the country by Mike Price at Washington State and at the other end by a Miami Hurricanes staff that included Mike’s oldest son. It’s a small world sometimes, but football really makes it that way. Mike and Dennis were old friends who grew up together in Everett and now Eric was getting his coaching start at what arguably was the best program in the nation at the time. Years later, after Eric and I had become friends, he told me how he had been calling his dad throughout my Miami visit to tell him how much I was enjoying it. Eric had heard through the grapevine that I had declared my plans to become a Cane so he may have had a little extra incentive to keep calling his dad.
The real highlight of the trip wasn’t the partying. It was my sit-down interview with Coach Erickson after my nap. I walked into his office and quickly felt at home because the décor had a Northwest feel about it. The first thing he said was how nice it was to have a Montana kid looking at the program. He then took me by surprise when he said they’d like to turn me into a tight end. I was stunned, actually. I was a quarterback, I had always been a quarterback, and I always would be a quarterback. While I was taken aback by the idea, I must say I really respected his honesty. Some coaches will tell a kid anything. Coach Erickson was totally up-front with me. He then again caught me off guard when he brought up all the speculation going on about him possibly moving on to the NFL.
He was very up front with me. He wasn’t going to jump at any job, but if there ever was an opening with the Seattle Seahawks he’d take a hard look at it. His honesty blew me away. National titles aside, my view of him as a coach and person skyrocketed. The idea of playing for Miami, as a tight end, under someone other than Dennis Erickson, made about as much sense as wearing a flannel shirt in southern Florida.
My mom had been against this trip all along. As I boarded the plane for home, her words of concern were playing in my head. The big city, the glamorous program, and my impulsive personality seemed like a recipe for trouble. It was actually Coach Lubick from Colorado State who assured her that this trip would be okay. A few nights before I departed, he told her to let me go, let me enjoy myself and take it all in. “I guarantee it, he will not go to Miami,” he told her. They were both right in a way, I did get impulsive and caught up in the hype but I knew that I would never truly be happy there. I’m a Montana boy, a mountain and stream kid. I landed back in Great Falls in time to catch my last few classes of the day. In basketball we were playing Great Falls High, our arch-rival, that night. Their coaches tried to get me ruled ineligible for the game because I hadn’t attended all my classes that day. Right there in the span of about ten hours I had seen the best and worst of what athletics has to offer – Dennis Erickson, coach of the “renegade” Miami Hurricanes, being completely forthright with me about the future, and a high school coach resorting to petty nonsense to give his team an advantage.
It was a big day for me. In the morning, Coach Erickson had helped move me closer to a college decision. In the evening, I hit two free throws with two seconds left to seal our victory over the Bison and set off an impromptu celebration that spilled onto the court and eventually into the street. It was an interesting ride I was on, and it was only going to get more interesting.
Six weeks later, on letter of intent signing day, I learned why Coach Erickson envisioned me playing tight end. He signed two – yes, two – quarterbacks who were each rated among the top six high school QB prospects in the country, Scott Covington of Laguna Niguel, Calif., and Ryan Clement of Denver. The Canes’ cupboard at quarterback was now so full that Bryce Erickson decided to transfer to a junior college. It’s funny how things work out, how one decision on one day – by you or someone else – can completely alter the path you’re on.
My path was pointing toward Pullman, but there were still some exit signs, to Boulder, Fort Collins and Eugene, that I had to resist before fully committing.
THE CALL THAT CHANGED IT ALL
Somewhere amid a flurry of J.J. Stokes receptions and an avalanche of Brent Moss rushing yards, the telephone rang. My mom, in the kitchen, called to me in the living room, “Ryan, phone!” Right in the middle of the Rose Bowl. I thought, ‘Who would call somebody in the middle of the Rose Bowl?’
Clearly not a sports fan, I reasoned. It was New Year’s Day of 1994 and the Wisconsin Badgers were going to win their first Granddaddy ever. As I walked over to grab the phone, I kept my eye on the television. I didn’t want to miss a play. Football was not a sport, it was an obsession. When I said hello, the voice on the other end boomed back, “Hey Ryan, Coach Price.”
“Hi Coach,” I said, probably sounding a little surprised that it was him. He asked how I was and what I was doing. I told him I was watching the Rose Bowl. We talked a bit about the ball game and how things had been going for me. Then he said something I didn’t expect. “Ryan, I’ll make you a deal. If you come to Washington State, you and I will play in that game together!”
Just like that, in the blink of an eye, my mind transported me from the family living room in Great Falls to the middle of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It was probably a very simple, even gratuitous, thing to say and any coach could have said that to me. But no one else did. Mike Price did. And I bought in hook, line and sinker. I said, “Hell yes, coach – I would love that.” Ryan Leaf in the Rose Bowl. That sounded good, real good.
Of course, I had no idea at the time, and wouldn’t realize it for a couple more years, but Washington State hadn’t actually been to the Rose Bowl since 1931. I believed in Mike, and I know for a fact he believed in his heart that Pasadena was our destiny.