More Wesselmans Would Bring Happy Days to Luginbill, Aztecs

You meet John Wesselman on the street, and you think he must be related to the Cunningham family of Happy Days days. Freckled. Sandy hair. Wide eyes. You look around for The Fonz.

However, you see Wesselman in the San Diego State University football locker room after a game and you think the guy was in a street fight . . . and won.

What we have here, in essence, is a baby-faced assassin.

What we also have here is the prototype of the kind of football player around whom Coach Al Luginbill hopes to build a program of national consequence.

“John Wesselman,” said Luginbill, “is the epitome of what a San Diego State football player should be.”

The incredible thing is that I am not even sure what position the guy plays. After watching SDSU against Miami last Saturday, I came away wondering how many players had been assigned No. 39. They seemed to be everywhere.

As it turned out, it was he rather than they .

Wesselman is listed on the depth chart as a nickel back, but that certainly undervalues him. If you happen to be at the stadium for tonight’s game with Brigham Young, the only thing I can suggest is that you find Wesselman by looking for the ball.

“Some guys,” Luginbill said, “find a million reasons not to be there. He finds a million reasons to be there.”

Wesselman is neither particularly big (6-2, 210) nor fast, but he gets it done with a combination of work ethic and instinct. The former particularly appeals to Luginbill, but the latter is what makes it work.

“He has natural ability,” Luginbill said, “and he plays to it.”

Others of varying degrees of ability have abandoned the San Diego State program because Luginbill is a particularly demanding coach, but Luginbill’s approach played into Wesselman’s wheelhouse.

Tough? Disciplined?

That’s Wesselman.

“I’ve been like that since I started playing football,” he said, “even back when I was playing Pop Warner. I’ve always had very demanding coaches.”

He developed his idea of defense while playing at West Torrance High School, where he was Bay League back of the year in football, a basketball player who once scored 32 points in a game and a two-time league champion in the 110-meter high hurdles.

“Our defense was called The Swarm,” he said. “We had to have 11 guys on the ball after every play or we had to run laps.”

Consequently, Wesselman has become sort of a one-man swarm . . . or at least the King Bee.

And this is the way Luginbill wants it with all of his players. He preaches playing hard. It seems a cliche, but wanting a team to play hard and getting a team to play hard are not the same thing.

That’s one reason why a player such as Wesselman is so valuable.

“I would use him as an example of what we want here in terms of football players,” Luginbill said. “He’s a leader, but not by voice. He understands what the offense is trying to do and he understands what the defense is trying to do. In that sense, he’s like a coach on the field.”

For his part, Wesselman does not seem to think all this is so demanding.

“It is a big change though,” he said. “Coach Luginbill is a lot more disciplined. He demands a lot more of you on and off the field.”

Off the field?

“In studies,” Wesselman said, “and conducting yourself in public. If something happens to us, like we go out get into a fight, it ends up on the front page. He wants to protect the image of San Diego State football.”

In other words, Luginbill wants his tough guys to be gentlemen. There’s only one place he wants them to be tough.

“On the field,” Wesselman said, “you have to go 100% every play. If you don’t, he’ll get on you.”

Progress has been made. SDSU is 6-4-1 going into the season finale against BYU. For Wesselman, it is a career finale . . . at least as a college player.

“There are, what, 28 teams in the National Football League,” Luginbill said. “There’s a place for John on one of them. He’ll be playing someplace on Sunday afternoons.”

John Wesselman is the kind of guy who will make someone make room for him. You name it, and he’ll do it. Special teams? He’s on all of them at SDSU because they can’t keep him off. He won’t hear of it.

In style of play and attitude, there’s a guy he resembles more than anyone from Happy Days. That would be Hank Bauer, who parlayed toughness and intensity into a rather nice professional career hereabouts.

That’s it.

John Wesselman is a Hank Bauer with hair.