On the Rebound : Disillusioned Football Players Who Leave Division I Programs for Smaller Schools Often Bounce Back Wiser for the Wear

Andres Washington looked forward to the glamour of big-time college football at Washington State University.

A scholarship offered not only a free education but a chance to compete in the prestigious Pacific 10 Conference.

For Washington, choosing Washington State over the smaller colleges that were recruiting him was easy. Hey, the school had his name on it.

As his plane flew north to the Pullman campus in the summer of 1985, Washington glanced out the window and saw a bright future with the Cougars.

Unfortunately for the linebacker from Pasadena High, there were a few things he did not foresee.

“Pullman is a lot different than Pasadena,” Washington said. “Pullman is like the Andy Griffith Show. I felt out of place there. I couldn’t adapt to the environment.”

After a redshirt year spent playing on the scout team, Washington returned to Southern California, eventually enrolling at Glendale College and becoming a standout player for the Vaqueros.

While he plays this season as a sophomore, he awaits another opportunity at the 4-year level.

Like approximately 19 other football players at Valley-area universities and junior colleges this season, Washington is a “bounceback”--a player who tried his hand at big-time college football then transferred to a junior college or smaller 4-year program when things did not work out as planned.

The reasons they leave their original schools are as varied as the players.

“You never know what’s going on in a kid’s head,” Cal State Northridge Coach Bob Burt said. “Sometimes they get sold a bill of goods by a school.”

Other times, they can’t handle being away from home for the first time. Or they have a personality conflict with the coach. Or the coaching staff that recruited them is no longer around. Or they have academic problems.

“Sometimes,” Valley College Coach Chuck Ferrero said, “They just aren’t ready for that end of the frying pan.”

The phone may ring or there might be a knock on an office door.

But regardless of how contact is made, when bouncebacks show up on the doorstep of a JC or smaller 4-year school, they inevitably carry excess baggage: Guilt complexes, feelings of failure and I’ll-show-’em attitudes are their most common souvenirs from the big time.

“They have to get over that feeling they have that deep down inside they were a failure,” Ferrero said. “They have to go to a JC after being wined and dined by big schools.

“We sit down and talk about it. You have to tell them it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It didn’t work out for whatever reason and you have to start all over again.”

Or as Moorpark College Coach Jim Bittner tells players: “If you go up and ask one girl to dance and she says no that doesn’t mean all the girls are going to say no.”

But even the chance to shake, rattle and roll in the spotlight again does not exclude players from what often are unfamiliar feelings of inferiority.

Sean Hampton, for example, was one proud running back when he signed a letter of intent to play for Hawaii after graduating from Sylmar High in 1987.

Last fall, Hampton flew into Honolulu ready to begin his collegiate career in the Rainbow Warriors’ tailback-oriented attack. But he wasn’t dancing the hula when he found that the coaching staff was switching to a pass-oriented, run-and-shoot offense.

“I made a commitment so I was going to try and make it work,” Hampton said. “The school was great.”

Nevertheless, Hampton decided to return home and attend Glendale College just 3 months later.

“It was kind of embarrassing,” Hampton said. “This is my community and Sylmar people expected me to go and do well. I felt like I was letting them down.

“When I first got back all I heard was, ‘Why did you transfer?’ and ‘Why did you leave?’ I had to tell the same story over and over again.”

So did Pete Tucker, who went to Arizona State on a scholarship and spent a few inactive semesters at UC Davis and Fresno State before resuming his career as a linebacker at Division III Occidental.

Coming out of Ocean View High in Huntington Beach in 1986, Tucker chose Arizona State over New Mexico State and Kansas.

“It was the Pac-10,” he said. “I thought it was the big time and I was attracted by the lights.”

Tucker’s enthusiasm for life as a Sun Devil dimmed during his 3-month stay in Tempe. Tucker said Division I football was not as difficult as he had anticipated. Neither, however, was the class load that the coaching staff recommended he try.

“I was expecting a little more freedom about what I could take,” Tucker said. “They didn’t want us to get too overwhelmed, which I could understand, but my plan at the time was to be premed and I would have been there 5 years anyway just to get my B. A.

“I was a little angry that it wasn’t more straightforward when I was recruited.”

The experience soured Tucker on the game--and on himself.

“The first six months after I left I felt incredibly down because when I looked back at what they offered me it was like the chance of a lifetime,” said Tucker, who plays linebacker for Occidental. “I questioned my ability and felt like I let people down--my high school coach, my friends, my hometown.

“When I started playing again and doing well, I realized I could be as good as I want to be.”

Hampton, too, has regained his confidence and is among the leading rushers in the Western State Conference this season. He runs with a punishing style that sends a message to the would-be tacklers and recruiters who are again chasing him.

“I tell myself every day,” Hampton said, “I’m going to show them I can do it.”

Many coaches believe that most bouncebacks’ troubles begin long before they actually arrive on a college campus.

The problem, they say, stems from pressure that begins in high school, in some cases before, where college scholarships to big-time schools are perceived as an ultimate stamp of approval.

“It’s really an ego thing,” Bittner said. “For some reason, somewhere along the way, it became the real measure of success. Did I get a scholarship out of high school?”

Bouncebacks agree.

“When you get out of high school and you don’t get a scholarship, it seems like you’re a failure,” Washington said. “I think every good high school football player thinks that.”

Chris Hale, a defensive back from Monrovia High who transferred from Nebraska to Glendale to USC, said many regrettable choices are made because of pride.

“It’s a personal thing,” Hale said. “Nobody wants to think they’re not good enough.”

Peer and parental pressure are major contributors to the scholarship-equals-success myth.

“Some of these kids are under tremendous pressure from their parents to get a scholarship,” Crespi High Coach Bill Redell said. “They equate that with success, which is wrong. It’s like measuring a person’s success by how much money they make. It’s not necessarily a true indication.”

The media’s build-up and expectations also contribute to the problem. Much attention is focused on the industry that is recruiting.

Newspaper stories detail and trumpet high school seniors’ top 10 college choices. Scouting services and slick publications attempt to forecast the future. To be left off a preseason All-American team or “Players to Watch” list can mean being left out.

“When you’re coming out of high school, the big thing is to be known,” said Mike Meehan, a Cal State Northridge defensive lineman from San Diego who made stops at Cal State Long Beach, Chula Vista’s Southwestern Junior College, the University of Cincinnati and Southwestern again before joining the Division II Matadors. “A scholarship is a free education. If it’s a decent school, you go.”

Most area coaches, aware of the something-is-better-than-nothing and bigger-is-better attitudes, say they do not discourage players from accepting scholarships to larger schools and that they stress an open-door policy if the player later changes his mind.

“I tell kids, ‘If you’re going to a school you really want to go to, you ought to go there,’ ” Bittner said. “But if you’re going there simply because they’re offering you a scholarship--and especially if it’s the only school offering a scholarship--you’re probably making a mistake.”

What if there is no scholarship? Coaches almost unanimously recommend against attempts to walk on at Division I programs with hopes of later earning a scholarship.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time its a dead-end street,” Glendale Coach Jim Sartoris said.

Said Bittner: “You’re nothing but cannon fodder for the first team.”

Still, the lure of an opportunity to play in a big-time program is not easy to ignore, especially for local players weaned on the triumphs of schools such as USC and UCLA.

When Reggie Smith graduated from Montclair Prep in 1986, he felt the best place for him to continue his education and career was at USC, where Ted Tollner was the coach.

“I talked to Coach Tollner and he was honest,” Smith said. “He said it was going to be tough and pretty much on me whether I got a scholarship the following year. I felt I was good enough to play there.”

Apparently Tollner’s staff thought so too. Although Smith was a redshirt, he was part of theTrojan contingent that traveled to the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla.

Last season, however, Larry Smith took over the USC program. Reggie was moved from tailback to defensive back and was mostly relegated to working against the starters with the scout team.

After the spring game concluding spring workouts, he decided to transfer to a junior college.

“I didn’t think they had plans for me as soon as I wanted,” said Smith, who is a starting defensive back for Valley. “I think I eventually would have played. Coach Smith said he hoped that I would stay and he made me feel real wanted, but it was really just time to move on.”

Larry Hatley, the Foothill League Lineman of the Year at Burroughs High last season, said he turned down partial scholarship offers from Pacific, San Diego State and St. Mary’s and decided to accept an offer from UCLA to try out for the Bruins as a walk-on.

“I always loved UCLA,” Hatley said. “It was a dream of mine to play there.”

Hatley, a center, said he initially worked with the scout team and handled snaps during specialties drills for a few weeks last summer.

As the workouts wore on, however, Hatley was given less responsibility.

“I asked an assistant coach about what was going on and he told me I’d probably never play there,” Hatley said. “I thought, ‘Oh, God, what do I do now?’

“I was in complete shock. Then I was really depressed for a while and thought, ‘Why play anymore?’ ”

Hatley eventually enrolled at Pierce College and is starting for the Brahmas.

“If you have a chance to get a scholarship, walking on is really stupid,” Hatley said. “Now that I look at it, I sort of wish I did take one of those small scholarships.”

Bouncebacks make up only a small part of a team’s roster each year, but most coaches believe that players on the rebound can be invaluable to their programs.

“There isn’t any glamour here,” Sartoris said. “There are no big stadiums full of 75,000 people. They have to adjust to the smallness and it forces them to get their priorities squared away.

“After they get over the downer part . . . they kind of show the way through their actions and mature attitude.”

That maturity makes many bouncebacks ideal leaders.

“It’s like a guy coming back from war,” Hale said. “Everybody understands that he’s been there.”

Said Cal Lutheran Coach Bob Shoup: “There’s just something about a person who sails around the world. When you get back, you talk to the landlubbers and you’re an expert at that point.

“There’s nothing like a guy who’s been at another program who says, ‘Hey, I like it here.’ That can really help your younger players.”

The desire to aid those approaching a college decision for the first time is also something that bouncebacks seem to share.

Feedback from a bounceback can prevent others from making similar mistakes. And bouncebacks vow not to make the same mistake.

“I think I made the right decision to transfer to a junior college and I’m happy where I am right now,” Smith said. “I miss the friends I made at USC, but I’m playing here and I have a chance to go somewhere.

“The experience will help me when the time comes to move somewhere else.”

Washington, too, said the bounceback experience has prepared him for his next decision.

“I’ll look at a school that’s in an urban area and check out the coaching staff a little more,” he said. “Now I know what I’m looking for. I think I’ll make a better choice next time.”