The School of Hard Knocks : Fountain Valley’s Arey Learns to Take Pass, Hit Together at SDSU

In his three seasons at San Diego State, the scene was repeated more times than Coach Denny Stolz could take.

Dennis Arey, a young and seldom-used wide receiver from Fountain Valley High School, would go up for a pass, get hit and come down without the ball.

The rap was that Arey was soft. And by the final preseason scrimmage of 1988, Stolz had seen enough.

For the third time in that scrimmage, Arey needed assistance after attempting to make a catch. He had taken a shot in the ribs from linebacker Tracey Mao on a pass across the middle.

As Arey lay in pain on the field, Stolz could take no more. In an uncharacteristic show of disgust and impatience, he told the trainers: “Get him out of here.” His tone almost sounded as if he would not have cared if Arey had been dragged off the field and out of the program.

With Arey’s reputation for frailty so ingrained, it could have been an incident that would forever hinder his college career. Instead, after some initial resistence, Arey has fought the unflattering image.

And, as demonstrated by the first two games, he has gotten results. He has 10 catches for 160 yards (a team-high 16.0-yard average). And he will be the Aztecs’ starting flanker Saturday when San Diego State (0-2) plays Cal State Fullerton (1-2) at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium at 7 p.m.

Yet this new chance is one Arey’s stubbornness almost prevented him from enjoying.

“I never thought I had a problem (with toughness),” said Arey, a junior. “It’s not like I don’t like to be hit or tackled. It just seems like whenever I would catch the ball and go down, people started talking.”

Arey tried to ignore the talk, but not until Stolz was fired in November and a new coaching staff took over was he forced to confront his reputation. The awakening came in his first meeting with the new receivers coach, Curtis Johnson.

“I heard he was afraid to catch the ball over the middle,” Johnson said. “I heard he was very scared. I heard he was fast (4.5 seconds in the 40-yard dash), and I heard he wasn’t really disciplined as far as running routes and doing what the coaches asked of him.”

The two had a talk.

“He told me, ‘I’ve heard some things about you, and if those things are true, you’re going to have to go see the Wiz,’ ” Arey recalled this week.

It was a reference to the Wizard of Oz. And it wasn’t a compliment.

“He said I had to get more courage,” Arey said. “He brings that up to me every once in a while. He says I have to prove it to him. I trying to do that every day.”

For evidence, look no further than the Aztecs’ 28-25 loss to UCLA last Saturday. Arey had five catches for a game-high 88 yards. Four were for first-down yardage, twice on third-and-long, but it was one that came up a little short that might have said the most about the change in Arey.

The catch came midway through the fourth quarter on third-and-31 from the Aztec 27. Arey went high on a pass across the middle from quarterback Dan McGwire, came down with ball and was sandwiched between three Bruin defenders.

The play gained 30 yards and set up a one-yard sneak by McGwire that kept a touchdown drive alive. But Arey’s reaction to the hit was just as important.

He got up with a helpful hand from a teammate and left the field without assistance.

“The first guy wrapped me, but the second guy knocked me right in the middle of the back,” Arey said. “It knocked the wind out of me. I remember trying to reach for the first down, looking for the marker.

“I already had stomach cramps from the humidity. And when I got off the field, I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in like 30 seconds. I just went to a knee.

“That is the challenge (Johnson) has been putting to me: I have got to catch the ball and, when I do, hop up and get off the field if I am hurt, or get in the huddle. Don’t let the other team know that I’m hurt.”

His propensity to stay down after a catch is something Arey said he has carried with him since his years at Fountain Valley.

“I got into the habit of every time I got tackled after a long play, I would always stay down, get my breath and then mosey back to the huddle,” Arey said. “I wasn’t hurt or anything, I just wanted a little bit of time.”

Arey considered it a harmless habit, not realizing that it contributed to the impression he was not tough enough. But it was just one of the factors that led the SDSU coaches to wonder if Arey might be too small or too frail to play major-college football.

When Arey came to SDSU in 1986 as a 17-year-old, he said he was about the same size as now (5-feet-11 and 180 pounds) but that he was not nearly as strong or mature.

He had had only one full season as a varsity starter at Fountain Valley. He caught one pass as a junior, playing behind Carl Harry, an all-Western Athletic Conference selection at Utah last year now a member of the Washington Redskins’ developmental roster. As a senior, Arey came into his own, catching 51 passes for 870 yards.

His career at SDSU also started slowly. He was redshirted his freshman year. He missed preseason camp and the first few games of the 1987 season because of hepatitis and wound up playing three games only on special teams. Last season began inauspiciously with that scrimmage performance; he played sparingly, finishing with nine passes for 157 yards and a touchdown.

He did little with the new coaching staff to dispel his image when, early in spring practice this year, he injured a hamstring.

Johnson again sat Arey down for a talk.

“He was shy on certain things, and I like guys with an aggressive attitude,” Johnson said. “He felt he was tough enough but he wasn’t.”

Arey said he finally accepted the criticism and dedicated himself to improving. The change has not gone unnoticed.

“Now he is starting to turn something negative into something positive,” Johnson said. “Guys used to kid him all the time about not having any heart. Now he proves it every day. Guys will fear him in the future because he is fast, and he catches the ball.”