For Gilmore, Long Road, Sweet Reward With Aztecs

Whenever Corey Gilmore considers his current status, he has to pinch himself.

Gilmore, San Diego State’s fullback, is the leading receiver for the Western Athletic Conference championship team, nearly certain to be selected in the NFL draft and has been voted team captain by his teammates.

Everything may be going well now, but things weren’t always that way.

For instance:

--Gilmore felt he was being pushed into football the first two times he played.

--His parents separated before his freshman year of high school.

--He was all set to attend UCLA on scholarship, but that ended when he broke his hand his senior year.

--He nearly quit SDSU’s team as a sophomore because of a dispute with the coaches.

Gilmore’s father, Art, was a running back with the New York Titans and Denver Broncos from 1960 to 1963 but had left football by the time Corey was born in 1964.

Shortly after Corey’s birth, Art wanted to see if his son was interested in football.

“I bought him a (foam) football to see how he would react,” Art said. “He picked it up, threw it down and that was it. . . . I never pushed him into any sport. The only thing I insisted was whatever you start, you have to finish it.”

Although Art didn’t push his son into football, friends and relatives did.

“People who knew my father played football were telling me to play football, like my father did, and get drafted,” Corey said. “At times, it was like people were pressuring me to do this. Everybody was just waiting for me to play.”

As a child growing up in Phoenix, Gilmore was always the biggest kid on the block. When he was 10 years old, he decided on his own to give football a try.

However, Gilmore was 19 pounds overweight for his age group so his father put him on a strict diet a month before the season was to begin.

“When it was time to weigh in, people told me not to eat or drink anything,” Gilmore said. “I really didn’t want to play then, so I drank the heaviest substance I could. I drank milk and ate bread, but I still made it by four pounds.”

After that season, however, Gilmore decided he wanted to concentrate on basketball. He received a scholarship to a private high school.

But when his his parents separated before the start of school, Gilmore found himself moving to Pasadena with his mother, Charla, and sister, Dee Dee.

At Muir High School, Gilmore played basketball his freshman year after being asked by coaches and saying no to playing football.

Before the start of the next school year, Jim Brownfield, Muir’s football coach, decided to give it another try, this time using a different tack.

“You’re darn near the biggest kid in 10th grade and you don’t want to play football,” Brownfield told Gilmore. “Maybe you’re just not any good.”

Gilmore took that as a challenge and went out for football. By the end of the season, he was on the varsity, and as a junior, Gilmore rushed for 737 yards, averaging 6.4 yards a carry.

The recruiters from several Pacific 10, Western Athletic Conference and Big Eight schools began paying attention, but Gilmore had set his mind on attending UCLA.

But in the third game of his senior season, he broke his hand and did not return until the playoffs.

“They (UCLA recruiters) had come to my practices for double days,” Gilmore said. “When they saw my hand in a cast, they stopped contacting my coach, coming to practice and sending me letters. That kind of hurt. If I would have been picked up by them, I would have been the first player from Muir to go to UCLA. That was important to me.”

When UCLA backed off, other universities did the same. That’s when SDSU, which had seen films of Gilmore from his high school playoff games, entered the picture with a scholarship offer.

As a freshman in 1983, Gilmore rarely had a chance to play, and before the first game of his sophomore year he was led to believe he would start at fullback. That did not turn out to be the case.

In the week before that season’s fourth game, Gilmore thought briefly about quitting but eventually stayed with the team.

Gilmore ended rushing only 19 times for 72 yards and caught 10 passes for 69 yards.

“What kept me going was thinking back to how my father and my head coach at Muir always said, ‘If you start something, stick with it,’ ” Gilmore said. “I figured things could only get better. Plus, I’m a Christian and I asked God to help me with my decision. He guided me here. I never turn my back on God because I know He’ll never turn His back on me.”

During the semester break that year, Gilmore returned to Pasadena for six weeks, where he says he regained his confidence and positive attitude just from being around his family.

Gilmore was still a reserve when his junior season began. He did start against Utah, rushing for 102 yards. But the next week against Oregon, he suffered a season-ending hamstring injury.

When Denny Stolz was hired to coach the Aztecs beginning this season, Gilmore considered it a new beginning.

“The football team emulates the coach,” Gilmore said. “Coach Stolz is real easygoing and easy to get along with. He tells you what you have to do, and he pulls no punches. Before, it was like the coaches would tell you one thing and do another thing.”

Stolz told Gilmore that he was SDSU’s fullback. In Stolz’s scheme, the halfback carries most often, but the fullback is frequently utilized as a receiver.

Gilmore leads the Aztecs with 48 receptions for 325 yards and a touchdown. He is the second-leading rusher behind Chris Hardy, having carried 103 times for 412 yards and a touchdown.

“It has been difficult with Hardy in the same backfield for Corey to be an outstanding player, because he doesn’t handle the ball as much,” Stolz said. “Corey has probably been as consistent of a backfield player as we’ve had this year.

“He’ll be drafted, and he may be one of the top two or three drafted from this football team. He doesn’t have the statistics, but the scouts know he’s a good one.”

‘What kept me going was thinking back to how my father and my head coach at Muir always said, “If you start something, stick with it.” I figured things could only get better.’

--Corey Gilmore