Plummer May Be Best Player Nobody Ever Really Wanted - Chargers: Linebacker took advantage of opportunity and proved his detractors wrong to become one of the team’s best defensive players.

Gary Plummer wasn’t good enough to play in the National Football League, but nobody got around to telling him.

Ron Lynn, the Chargers’ defensive coordinator, said it best about the veteran inside linebacker: “Ever since he got here, we’ve tried to replace him, and every year he makes us play him.”

Plummer, 29, is one of those coach’s dreams who scoffs at the odds stacked against him and plays beyond his God-given ability. Since being picked up as a free agent in 1986, he has made more tackles than any other Charger and has led the team in tackles both last year and this.

“Everybody is looking for the great athletes, and Gary isn’t in that category,” Lynn said. “He’s 6-2, 240, not 6-5, 260. He doesn’t run a 4.0 in the 40. There’s nothing physical you can point to and say he’s a star. It’s what comes in the package.

“When I first saw him, I could tell he had something in him that was a little different. He had a little glint in his eye, a kind of set in his jaw.

“He’s extremely competitive, and he has better skills than he’s given credit for. He has some quickness and toughness, and he’s a perpetual-motion guy. Other coaches are finally becoming aware of what a good player he is.”

If you are looking for a story of a guy who made it the hard way, you won’t find a better subject than Plummer. He was a player nobody wanted.

When Plummer graduated from Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, he couldn’t get a college scholarship. After playing two years at Ohlone Community College in Fremont, which no longer fields a football team, he was still without a scholarship.

Plummer went to California as a walk-on and finally got a scholarship in his senior year, but then he was unwanted again. If he hadn’t received a couple of breaks to go with his great determination, he never would have come close to the NFL.

The two best things that happened to Plummer were Lynn’s presence as Cal’s defensive coordinator and the brief existence of the United States Football League.

Lynn heard about Plummer from a friend who happened to be the father of one of Plummer’s friends. Lynn’s friend was Andy Fodor, whose son, Bob, played with Plummer in high school. After Plummer’s two years in junior college, the elder Fodor told Lynn that he might be worth a look at Cal.

“No one came close to my school (Ohlone) until Lynn came down,” Plummer recalled. “He gave me the obligatory information about Cal, and he said he might be able to get me in. He said, ‘If you do well, we’ll get you a scholarship.’

“He shifted me to nose guard, because I was too small to be a major-college linebacker. That was the most devastating point of my career, because at nose guard you’re just out there for camp fodder. It takes years off a guy’s career.

“I got by, but after starting in my junior year, I still didn’t have a scholarship. I ran out of money and said I’d have to leave, and the next day they suddenly came up with a scholarship.”

Asked if he would have gone through with his threat to quit, Plummer said, “No. I would have just borrowed some money to stay.”

When the USFL was founded as a spring league in 1983, Lynn and Mike Haluchak, now the Chargers’ linebacker coach, moved from Cal to the Oakland Invaders. It was only because of Lynn that Plummer got trials first with the Invaders and then with the Chargers.

Recalling Plummer’s first venture into pro football, Lynn said, “When he came out of college, everybody figured he had gone as far as he could. He was too small to play the nose in the pros, but when I went to the USFL, I called him and said, ‘Let’s take a run at it.’ We figured he might make it as a backup linebacker.”

Backup? None of that for Plummer. He won a starting spot at linebacker and made 162 tackles in his rookie season. After the USFL folded in 1986, he was declared a free agent in time to join the Chargers late in training camp. Two games into the season, he was a regular. He finished with 98 tackles and 2 1/2 sacks, and recovered three fumbles.

Lynn’s statement about always trying to replace Plummer was illustrated last year. Despite having started regularly in his first two seasons and making 160 tackles, second only to fellow linebacker Billy Ray Smith, Plummer was relegated to special-teams duty when the 1988 season began.

No matter. Thanks to Plummer’s unquenchable desire, his tenure on special teams lasted just two weeks. He wound up with a team-leading 118 tackles, 28 more than the runner-up, free safety Vencie Glenn.

Now Plummer is a fixture. Going into Sunday’s game against the Colts in Indianapolis, he again has a lopsided team lead in tackles with 105. Defensive end Leslie O’Neal is almost out of sight in second place with 73.

In case most people who have followed Plummer’s career are surprised by his success, they have nothing on him.

“If there hadn’t been a USFL, I’d be teaching in the Fremont school district,” he said. “That’s what I went to Cal for. I was majoring in physical education, so I figured I’d finish there and get my teaching certificate.

“When the USFL started and I got a chance to try out, I left school in December of my senior year. I’ve always intended to get my degree, but for me, pro football is a full-time job. I’ve had to improve every year to make the team, so I put in a 40-hour week working out in the off-season.”

Plummer was already playing in the USFL when the NFL held its 1983 draft, but he doesn’t think this was the reason nobody picked him.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t have been drafted anyway,” he said. “I just didn’t have a big enough reputation.”

But Plummer did have a reputation as far as Lynn was concerned, and when Lynn joined the Chargers’ staff in 1986, he sent for his longtime favorite.

“Having coached Gary in college and the USFL, I knew he could compete with these guys,” Lynn said. “We needed another linebacker, and since we were installing a system he knew, we figured he’d probably be better at it than some of the other guys.”

Better indeed. Plummer has been a revelation.

Then why did the Chargers put him on special teams last year and start the season with Chuck Faucette in his place? Faucette is no longer around.

“Gary plays so hard that late in the season he gets worn down,” Lynn said. “But one thing I’ve learned in my coaching career is never to give up on Gary Plummer.”

Characteristically, Plummer took his demotion to special-teams status in stride.

“There’s no way I’m in football all this time without Ron Lynn and Mike Haluchak,” Plummer said. “That’s why when they told me it was time to make a change, I didn’t fight it. Now I’m going to be the special-teams player of the year.”

Plummer cited two other disappointments that were tougher to take.

“The first was not being recruited out of high school,” he said. “Then when I was in junior college, George Seifert (now coach of the San Francisco 49ers) was on the Stanford staff and came around to look at me. He laughed in my face when he saw me. He said, ‘You can’t be Gary Plummer. You’re way too small.’

“That was the final blow right there. After that, I was ready to throw it in and go to work. But the upshot of the whole thing is that seeing Seifert laugh in my face motivated me.”

Plummer began lifting weights, which he had never done before, and managed to pack on 25 or 30 pounds. When Lynn offered him a walk-on shot at Cal, he was ready.

In a way, Plummer is still unappreciated. He hasn’t been to the Pro Bowl and he hasn’t been an all-pro. He isn’t even the highest-rated linebacker on his own team. Smith is the one who gets most of the ink.

“I understand that,” Plummer said. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. My career correlates with life in general. Only the people who can handle setbacks make it in life.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be blessed with stubbornness. If somebody tells me I can’t do something, my strong desire is to prove them wrong.”

Plummer recalled that when he was in his first training camp in the USFL, he was the lowest-ranking linebacker on the Invaders’ roster.

“I had my bags packed waiting for the day they would get rid of me,” he said. “Still, I kept plugging away.”

He stayed, of course, and he started the opening game.

Of his role as the Chargers’ leading tackler, Plummer said, “I have to give credit to the guys up front. If they do well and play off the blocks, it’s easy for me. I’m relentless in my pursuit, and good things happen when you run to the ball.”

Perhaps more important, Plummer does his homework.

“I spend as much time as anybody in the league looking at film,” he said. “Football is not just a physical game. You have to have it up here, and that’s my saving grace.”