A TURN FOR THE BETTER : Cary Caulfield’s Broken-Field Run Ends at CLU

Odysseus was the original “man of many turns,” but Cary Caulfield also has undergone an odyssey in search of a team and home. Caulfield’s quest, like Odysseus’, has been marked by disappointments, wrong turns and pitfalls.

Now a sophomore starting linebacker at Cal Lutheran, Caulfield began his football odyssey five years ago at Canyon High.

Although he would have been the premier player on nearly any other high school team, Caulfield was overshadowed because he played inside linebacker alongside Randy Austin, now a tight end at UCLA. The pair led Canyon to 14-0 records in 1984 and 1985, but recruiters flocked to Austin, who at 6-foot-3 is three inches taller than Caulfield and also excelled at tight end.

“It was like a coaches’ convention on the sidelines,” said Brigham Young assistant coach Claude Bassett, who recruited both Canyon linebackers. “They’re all watching Randy Austin and being impressed with Cary Caulfield. The opinion of most people when Caulfield and Austin were seniors was that Austin needed Caulfield’s heart and Caulfield needed Austin’s size.”

Canyon won a CIF-record 46 consecutive games with Austin and Caulfield overpowering ballcarriers.

“They were certainly the best pair of inside linebackers I’d ever seen,” Canyon Coach Harry Welch said. “It was a wonderful dynamic duo. They were different, but I thought they complemented each other extremely well.”

A strong student, Caulfield wanted to go to Princeton but didn’t score well enough on the verbal portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Instead he went to West Point. It was his Troy, a place where boys are molded into warriors. It is also an incredibly demanding place where one-fourth of all cadets leave before their four years are completed.

“I don’t know why I went there,” Caulfield said. “I went on the recruiting trip and didn’t like the place. . . . You’re just in the army. It was a really difficult life. I guess I’d been kind of protected as a child.”

Recruited for the football team, Caulfield dressed for varsity home games and played junior varsity. Academy life was so grueling, though, that Caulfield found football practice the most relaxing part of his day.

“I did some soul-searching and decided I didn’t want to live that life in the army,” said Caulfield, who was facing a five-year service commitment after graduation. “You call home and people don’t understand how difficult it really is.”

Odysseus emerged from Troy victorious; Caulfield lasted little more than a few months at West Point and left a disillusioned, disappointed young man.

“I think he just wasn’t ready,” Justin Caulfield said of his son’s experience at Army. “I didn’t like the idea that he quit, but I still love him.”

Brigham Young was one of the few Division I universities to express interest in Caulfield when he was a Canyon senior so he went there after leaving Army in the fall of 1986.

A few months working at a supermarket had convinced Caulfield that, despite his experiences at West Point, he still needed a college education. He entered BYU in the fall of 1987 with the tacit understanding that he would earn a scholarship if he performed well.

For Caulfield, though, Division I football was like the enchantress Circe, enticing yet ultimately dehumanizing.

“At BYU the guys were a lot bigger,” Caulfield said. “At West Point, the guys were small but strong, but football is third there on your depth chart of priorities behind the military and academics. At BYU, football came first. It wasn’t school or anything else. It was just football, and that was probably wrong because my grades suffered.”

Despite starting in Brigham Young’s 1988 spring game, Caulfield did not receive the scholarship he expected.

“What (BYU Coach) LaVell Edwards told me was that I was too short to invest any money,” said Caulfield, who is 6 feet, 236 pounds.

“I was very, very loaded,” Bassett said. “He was complementary and very comparable to those kids, but I didn’t think he was better so I didn’t scholarship him. Had Cary Caulfield stayed here, this year he’d have been the first backup.”

Caulfield was tired of complementing other linebackers, though, and Brigham Young’s tuition was a strain.

The football odyssey continued. Caulfied went looking for another school, another team, another home, but not without misgivings.

“I didn’t know if I wanted to transfer again,” Caulfield said. “I thought about my family. I thought it was getting embarrassing to them that I kept changing schools. I don’t go to any of my old high school games anymore because people think it’s real funny. They always ask me, ‘Where do you go now?’ ”

At Cal Lutheran, Coach Bob Shoup had displayed the patience of Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, waiting for Caulfield. Shoup now weaves his defense around Caulfield.

“I guess you could say we were consistent,” said Shoup, who recruited Caulfield at Canyon, offered to take him after he left Army and had a scholarship waiting for him when he left BYU. “He’s going to be a pivotal type of player. He’ll be on kickoff teams, point-after touchdown, punting, start on defense, call signals, probably tape ankles. He’s become crucial to our success.”

Although he had redshirted the previous season at BYU and did not play varsity at Army, Caulfield was forced to redshirt again during the 1988 season at Cal Lutheran. The payoff was three years of eligibility, although he is only a few units short of being a junior academically.

“He said his goal was to make me wish he was eligible, and he has done that,” said Kyle Tarpenning, the Cal Lutheran defensive coordinator.

“Pound for pound, Cary Caulfield is as good as any linebacker I’ve ever seen,” Bassett said. “I very firmly believe he’ll be a Little All-American.”

Caulfield has a lot going for him.

He is strong--his bench press of 475 pounds is 15 pounds more than the strongest man on the Notre Dame football team can bench.

He is fast--he ran a 4.66-second 40-yard dash after a summer of speed work.

And he is an intelligent football player.

After inside linebacker Ken Steward, Cal Lutheran’s leading returning tackler, was declared academically ineligible during preseason practice, Caulfield assumed even more importance in the defense.

In Cal Lutheran’s opener at Sonoma State, Caulfield intercepted a pass, recovered a fumble, completed a pass out of punt formation, made seven tackles, punted and tipped a pass that was intercepted.

Caulfield has gone from being a major-college player who thinks of the Trojan War as a possible bowl game against USC, to a small-college player who sees games against the likes of Sonoma State and St. Mary’s as the most important in his world.

His odyssey has ended. Austin is third string at Division I UCLA; Caulfield is first string at soon-to-be Division III Cal Lutheran, but he has finally found a home.

“People here have a lot of heart,” Caulfield said. “It’s not like BYU where it’s like a job. People here play because they want to play. I don’t see Division I football to be cracked up for what it seems. I think this is it here for me.”