TUPATALK: Remembering Weber State

Last week I alluded to my experiences at Weber State (Ogden, Utah), after writing an article about Damian Lillard’s elite Formula Zero basketball experience/community to which Bartlesville’s David Castillo was only one of 20 student-athletes nationwide invited.

Lillard — one of the NBA’s All-Time greats — attended Weber State many years after I did.

Back in my era in the 1970s and 1980s, it was still a college (Weber State College), but would not too many years later became a university.

I’m amazed, in looking back, at how much sports played an impact on my time at WSC.

I still remember when Mike Price came on board as the new football coach, I believe in 1980.

He announced at a press conference that any student was welcome to come and try out. I took more than a pause to think about it.

One of my fondest dreams since age 13 had been to play on a football team. In my early ninth-grade year, I slimed into the junior high head coach’s office and mumbled I would like to play football.

He told me they didn’t have any more uniforms.End of story. I went and signed up for a speech/drama class and played the character Gandalf in the Highland Junior High’s 1971 stage version of the “The Hobbit” — 30 years before Peter Jackson would bring many of those characters to the big screen in “The Lord of the Rings,” movie trilogy.

Between my sophomore and junior years in high school, I spent the entire summer taking a summer school football class — required for first-year players — to try to make the team. I made it all the way up to the first couple of days of two-a-days, but a combination of things ended my quest.

I ended up as one of the team’s managers.

To put a little framing to my desire to play (and star) on the gridiron, I have to go back to a night in my sophomore year while I lie in the darkness of my bedroom. I clenched my fist and — in irresolute determination — vowed I would do whatever it took to play football.

But, I had struck out — a shortcoming that has bothered me the rest of my life.

So, on that day at Weber State when I heard that Mike Price sought student fodder as walk-ons, I genuinely considered it — even though I was 24, or so, not in the pink of shape, and had had two major surgeries on my right knee.

But, common sense prevailed. In addition to the physical risk as far as another knee injury, I worked at a full-time job (swing shift, putting together medical I.V. sets) to put myself through college, plus I took a full load of classes every quarter (we didn’t have semesters then).

I won’t say it was the wrong decision to forego my final “opportunity.” But, I envisioned myself with all my heart of trying to do it.

Years later, I would get to know Price on a semi-friendly basis. That occurred in the mid-1980s, after I had completed four years of active duty in the Marine Corps and returned to WSC for more journalism training and a chance to work for the student newspaper.

Part of my assignment was to write football previews for the Wildcats. That entailed me calling up Coach Price for his pregame observations.

He proved to be extremely courteous and very funny. As WSC — which Coach Price had slowly transformed into a strong I-AA power — prepared to play I-AA bully University of Nevada-Reno, I asked Coach Price if the Wolf Pack had any particular weaknesses the Wildcats might be able to exploit.

He didn’t hesitate.

“They haven’t had much work on their kickoff return game,” he said.

One other experience concerning Coach Price stands out.

The town had its own local channel on the cable TV menu. Part of its programming was a half-hour coaches show revolving around Coach Price.

As part of one of his shows, the song “All You Need Is A Miracle” was featured as a video of a dream sequence of Weber State beating in-state power BYU.

Of course, the chances of that happening seemed about as possible as launching a pogo stick to the moon. For one thing, I didn’t know that BYU ever scheduled Weber State during those years.

But, Coach Price believed.

Not too many years later, he made his head coaching home at Washington State. And, on a fate-filled game day, Price coached the Washington State Cougars past the BYU Cougars.

That proved to me to be an important lesson — never be afraid to dream big because you just never know what circumstances fate might create.

More later about some other WSC sports memories.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: TUPATALK: Remembering Weber State