McGwire, Not Dr. Frankenstein, Fills a Tall Order for Aztecs

If Dr. Frankenstein’s challenge in life were to create a prototypal drop-back quarterback, he would probably pop out of his laboratory with a creature standing about 6-feet-3 and weighing about 220 pounds.

More specifically, he would probably have curly dark hair.

Even more specifically, he would probably be a lot like Dan Marino.

Dr. Frankenstein would never dream of creating the monster they have over at San Diego State.

When I was introduced to him for the first time Wednesday afternoon, I almost said, “Wait a minute. Not the tight end . I wanted to talk to the quarterback.”

If not a tight end, this guy could pass for a power forward or maybe a first baseman. He wouldn’t have to stretch too much to go to a Halloween party as the Washington Monument.

The only thing it seemed he could hardly pass for was a passer.

Dan McGwire stands 6-8, or about five inches taller than anyone had previously imagined a quarterback should be. No one has yet to counter SDSU’s contention that he is the tallest quarterback in major college football history.

In a way, I suppose that’s understandable. Folks tend to have their niches carved for them when they are youngsters. A physical education instructor sees a tall kid and envisions him collecting rebounds or snaring high throws at first base or being strong enough to block linebackers and tall enough to catch passes.

Throw passes? No way.

But Dan McGwire can certainly throw a football. He passed for 510 yards last Saturday in a 38-27 victory at Utah. It was the biggest passing day of his life, high school or college, and came just in time to regenerate interest and hope in a football program that had started the season 0-2-1.

With McGwire, it’s not so much a question of where to go from here as much as how he happens to be here in the first place.

To start with, his older brother happens to be one of Wednesday’s heroes in the American League Championship Series. It might have seemed logical that Dan McGwire would follow Mark McGwire into baseball.

“Actually,” he said, “I found baseball very boring. Too much standing around.”

He enjoys baseball now . . . as a spectator. In fact, his brother’s game was on a small black-and-white television across the room as we talked.

However, the game of baseball inadvertently was what caused him to become what he is in football.

When McGwire was playing (and pitching) in Little League baseball, one of his friends was Lou Baiz. It just so happened that Lou’s father was Bob Baiz, the football coach at Claremont High School.

“He saw that I had a strong arm,” McGwire said. “He correlated baseball pitching to football passing.”

It makes sense. Smart man, Coach Baiz. And he had a pretty fair offensive coordinator named Rick Dutton, who took McGwire’s raw skills and applied them to throwing a football.

“My style,” McGwire said, “is the way Coach Dutton taught me.”

McGwire was 36-3-1 as Claremont’s quarterback, passing for 6,559 yards and 65 touchdowns. He was also a basketball star, but football was where he was headed.

“After my junior year,” he said, “I knew in my heart that I wanted to play football in college.”

After getting lost in Iowa for a couple of years--any Southern California kid would have to be lost to end up in Iowa--McGwire is on track with the Aztec attack.

And it is interesting to contemplate the possibility that this may be the most physically talented man who has ever played the position at SDSU. Remember that people such as Brian Sipe, Dennis Shaw and Craig Penrose have been Aztec quarterbacks, and Todd Santos, vintage 1984 through 1988, still holds the NCAA career passing yardage record.

“I’m not trying to be like such and such a quarterback,” McGwire said. “I just want to be the best that Dan McGwire can be.”

And how good might that be?

“I feel I haven’t reached my potential,” he said. “I feel I’m a good quarterback, but I want to be a great quarterback.”

Any particular timetable?

“I’m going to strive to be a great quarterback this year,” he said. “I’m getting more and more comfortable each game. I think the more time you play the more comfortable you get and the more comfortable you get the better you get.”

With this guy, the comfort zone and end zone may well be the same place . . . and that’s not too bad a place to be.

What’s more, Dan McGwire someday may reconfigure the prototypal concept of what a quarterback is supposed to look like. Coaches may come to understand that something can be said for being tall enough to see the length and width of the field and strong enough to cover it with passes.

Indeed, maybe the next Kareem-Abdul Jabber will be grow up to be a quarterback.