HOLIDAY BOWL : SDSU vs IOWA : 3 Days to Go : Lauter Finds His Place in the Sun : Aztec Safety Has No Regrets About Getting Out of Washington

Steve Lauter remembers opening an envelope with a Washington postmark.

Enclosed was a newspaper clipping of University of Washington football players carrying Coach Don James off the field after the Huskies’ 28-17 victory over Oklahoma in the 1984 Orange Bowl. There also was a note that read: “Sorry you missed out.”

Lauter, a safety who made the All-Western Athletic Conference first team as a senior this season and will play in the Senior Bowl, has no idea who sent the envelope, but the message was clear.

Football players at Washington usually go to bowl games. Football players at San Diego State usually do not.

“When I left Washington, Coach James said, ‘You’re going to regret this,’ ” said Lauter, who transferred from Washington to SDSU in 1983 because he was tired of the Northwest rain and yearned to return to the sunshine in Southern California, where he grew up and was a star at Hacienda Heights Los Altos High School.

“I haven’t regretted anything,” said Lauter, whose team is preparing to play Iowa in the Holiday Bowl Tuesday night. “You can’t beat being in the Holiday Bowl. Washington hasn’t been conference champ since I left. . . .

“My dream was to play in the Rose Bowl. My brother (Danny) went to the Rose Bowl with UCLA, but going to the Holiday Bowl means more to me. Making a winner out of San Diego State, which came from nothing, means more to me. Going to the Holiday Bowl with San Diego State means more than going to a big school that is known and wins every year.”

SDSU won the conference to earn a berth in the Holiday Bowl, and in the Aztecs’ 10-3 win over Brigham Young Nov. 29, the victory that clinched the WAC title, Lauter made a key defensive play that set the tone of the game.

On its first drive, BYU had a second down and 13 at the SDSU 17 when Lauter intercepted a pass over the middle at the nine-yard line. The Aztec defense then proceeded to keep the Cougars out of the end zone the rest of the night.

“He’s (Lauter) been able to be in the right spots at the right times,” said Ron Mims, Aztec defensive back coach. “He has excellent instincts for being around the football. He makes things happen.”

Lauter intercepted another pass against BYU to finish the season as the team’s leader with four. He ranked second among the Aztecs in tackles with 112 and forced two fumbles, as well as recovering two others.

“Steve is real confident in terms of what has to get done on the football field,” safety Mike Wilder said. “He’s taken on more of a role this year.”

Being named first team all-conference as a safety this year is the culmination of what has been a rocky collegiate career. He was a first-team high school All-American as a wide receiver in 1981.

As a senior at Los Altos, Lauter caught 95 passes for 1,475 yards and 22 touchdowns, played defensive back and was named Southern Conference co-Player of the Year along with teammate Blake Smith.

Lauter’s father, Bob, was an All-Big Ten linebacker at Northwestern and played one season with the Philadelphia Eagles. His brother, Dan, was a defensive back on the UCLA team that lost to Washington in 1982, the year Steve was a redshirt freshman for the Huskies.

After being recruited by Washington, USC, UCLA, Nebraska, Arkansas and San Diego State, Lauter chose the Huskies, who were ranked No. 1 for part of the season and ended up playing in the Aloha Bowl. Lauter said he was told by the coaching staff that he would start at wide receiver the next season.

But . . .

“I wanted to get out of Seattle,” Lauter said. “It rained too much. It was miserable and cloudy every day. It’s a nice place to visit, but I didn’t want to live there.

“I had some really good friends from L.A. up there (Washington),” Lauter said. “They all said this place is dismal and they were going to leave, but I’m the only one who did anything about it. . . . That summer (after his freshman year), I called him (Coach James) on the phone and he wasn’t happy. He didn’t release my scholarship.”

When Lauter contacted San Diego State, he was told that it would be happy to have him. He sat out the mandatory year after transferring and worked to pay his tuition for that first year.

Lauter told the SDSU coaches that he would be willing to play either wide receiver or defensive back. He enjoyed catching the ball, but he also liked to hit.

“As a receiver I used to block and crack back a lot,” said the 6-foot 1-inch Lauter, who weighs 195 pounds. “I used to get a thrill out of that.”

Lauter, a speech communications major who plans to graduate in May and hopes to play pro football, is an intense player who likes to return punts in a crowd.

One time after being hit by five tacklers on a punt return, Lauter is said to have returned to the sidelines saying: “This is bitchin’. I want more.”

He is a daredevil who enjoys skiing and motocross, and wants to learn to fly.

Ever since he became a starting safety as a sophomore, Lauter has been one of the top hitters on the team. He earned honorable mention All-WAC honors as a junior, but really came into his own this season.

He likes playing defensive back, but always has had dreams of catching the ball instead of deflecting it.

Before the start of each of the past three seasons, Lauter asked the SDSU coaches if he could play receiver. Even last spring, when new Coach Denny Stolz arrived, Lauter asked if he could switch positions.

“Coach Stolz said, ‘We’ll see, We’ll see.’ He said, ‘Right now you’re playing safety.’ ”

That’s where Lauter played. And that’s where he has excelled.

“Now I love playing free safety,” Lauter said. “You get to roam and you are pretty much free. I think DBs control the tempo of the game. They intimidate the receiver. And the receiver is thinking I can’t be intimidated. I learned to love defensive back.”

Mims, the defensive back coach, says that despite being a receiver much of his career, Lauter has a “defensive mentality. He’s a great hitter, and a lot of receivers don’t think like that.”

Like many of his defensive teammates, Lauter got off to a slow start this season, but he became an integral part of an Aztec defense that improved considerably since allowing 45 points to UCLA in the third game of the season.

“Steve was not producing well early in the year,” Mims said. “It took him a couple of ballgames to become relaxed, to adjust to the system and not to revert back to what they used to do here.”

The new coaching staff brought in a new defensive philosophy.

“Our philosophy is to be able to do a few things good rather than a lot of things mediocre,” Mims said. “I think the kids really responded to the coaching.”

The SDSU players responded to the changes so positively that the team is going to the Holiday Bowl for the first time.

The Holiday Bowl isn’t the Orange Bowl. Nor is it the Rose Bowl. But for Lauter, it’s an exciting finish to his collegiate career.

“I have no regrets,” Lauter repeated.

But he does occasionally wonder who sent him that letter and clipping from Washington in 1984.

“I would just tell them, ‘I’m sorry you’re not in San Diego.’ ” he said.