After Many Detours, Ledieff Has His Life Back on Track : Football: Former La Habra linebacker weathered George Allen’s death, then transferred from Long Beach to Nevada.

Not much in the men’s shoe department at Nordstrom interests Dan Ledieff.

The former La Habra and Cal State Long Beach football standout is a rat all right, but he’s of the gym variety, not the mall type.

Ledieff has little use for anything in a wingtip with high polish. Cleats with caked mud are more his style.

There’s a time and place for everything, and Ledieff is spending many of this summer’s waking hours at the gym lifting weights and on the track running laps and stadium stairs. Whatever it takes to prepare himself for his final year of college football, he’s doing.

“I’m working out pretty hard, getting ready,” said Ledieff, 21, an inside linebacker who was slowed by a knee injury last season--he sat out two games--but started six of the nine games he played for Nevada.

When Long Beach dropped its football program after the 1991 season, Ledieff took his talents to Reno, where he joined the Wolf Pack in their first Division I season after a successful run in the I-AA ranks.

Both made the transition smoothly.

Nevada won the Big West championship, and Ledieff, a 6-foot-3, 245-pounder, was sixth on the team in tackles (27 unassisted, 30 assisted), recorded three sacks and had the team’s only safety.

“He’s our best pass-rusher and one of the top two or three players on defense,” said Ken Wilson, Nevada’s defensive end coach. “He was already playing at the Division I level when we got him, so he was a ready-made product.”

On the field, definitely. In the classroom, he was starting from scratch.

For that reason, this summer’s preparation is as mental as it is physical.

“We’re getting him to focus on academics,” Wilson said.

Ledieff has never been an honors student, but his grades dipped dangerously low during the football season, causing his coaches to wave the red flag.

“Dan’s athletic ability was never a question,” Wilson said. “Dan’s academic ability was the only question.”

A question that Ledieff is in the process of addressing. He has returned to the Reno campus several times this summer to take classes that he expects will put him on schedule to graduate in three semesters.

“It’s a bigger thrill for us when our players get their diploma than when they make it to the NFL,” said Wilson, who boasted an 83% graduation rate for players.

Ledieff is not unlike many college players. He dreams of a professional career but is getting his academic act together as a contingency plan.

“I’m trying to get my grades up,” said Ledieff, who is a fire science major and wants to be a firefighter.

Ledieff has had to grow up quickly since his 1990 graduation from La Habra High. He accepted a scholarship to Cal State Long Beach because he wanted to learn from the late George Allen.

Then Allen died on Dec. 31, 1990.

“He was the whole reason I went there,” Ledieff said. “He was a great motivator and a great friend. After he died, I felt kind of cheated out. A whole lot of things go through your head. ‘What will I do? Maybe I won’t play football anymore.’ ”

Some players quit. Ledieff briefly considered it, but knew in his heart that wasn’t what he wanted.

Willie Brown took over for the 1991 season, and life went on.

Then the program was dropped.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Ledieff said. “I know if Coach Allen hadn’t died they never would have dropped it.”

The 49er players who wanted to continue playing, reluctantly found themselves going through the same, often messy recruiting process they endured as seniors in high school.

For two days after the announcement was made, legions of recruiters turned the college gym into what Ledieff described as a three-ring circus.

For the Whittier native, options that were open to him when he was at La Habra resurfaced. San Diego State had originally courted him and again inquired. Arizona State showed interest; Pittsburgh and Nevada called.

“We had recruited him as a freshman,” Wilson said. “As a player with Division I experience against schools in our new conference, he was more valuable to us than he would have been as a junior college transfer or just out of high school.”

Nevada won out over Arizona State--the Sun Devils wanted him to be a redshirt for one season--and Ledieff had a week to get organized, get packed and get north.

In retrospect, the folding of 49er football wasn’t all bad for Ledieff.

“I miss my friends, but not the program,” he said. “Nevada’s great. I like the coaches, the discipline and the town. They really get behind the team.”

Going from a 2-9 program to one that won a conference championship ring--Ledieff tilts his ring so it catches the afternoon sun and the eye of admirers--was a welcome change.

“I wanted to win, that was very important,” he said. “I wasn’t that enthused after Long Beach folded, but as soon as (Nevada) started to win, it sparked me right up.”

Then a loved one died.

Early in the season, Ledieff was told four hours before a game that his grandfather in Oregon had died.

“I didn’t have a very good game. I lost my focus,” he said.

But Ledieff didn’t turn his losses into a personal pity party. He picked himself up, never bothered to dust himself off, and plodded on.

“He has been through some adversity, but he’s tenacious,” Wilson said.

When Ledieff first arrived in Nevada, the coaching staff believed he would compete for a starting spot, but wasn’t convinced he’d earn it right away.

His performance in the Wolf Park’s opener against Wyoming convinced them otherwise.

“He answered a lot of critics that day,” Wilson said. “We realized he could play for us. He was the only one in that game who hadn’t played for us before.”

Because of his ability to play inside or outside linebacker and the flexibility it gives the staff to place people around him, coaches aren’t sure where they will use Ledieff this fall.

But he will play.

“We’re not sure where, but he will start for us,” Wilson said.

And Ledieff’s ready to get started.

“I haven’t proven anything yet,” he said.