Paulson Wins Despite Losing : College football: Running back has made a name for himself at Oregon State, where victories are rare.

You take Oregon 126 out of Eugene and turn right on U.S. 20 to get to Bend, which may be why a 17-year-old Chad Paulson was a state secret in Oregon.

“I’ve always thought of the Pac-10 as the I-5 league,” says Clyde Powell, football coach at Mountain View High. “He was the kind of kid who didn’t get noticed much in high school. When you get off the interstate, you don’t get as much attention.”

From Bend, Powell’s mountain view is of the Cascades, and on the other side, in the Willamette Valley three hours away, is Corvallis, where Paulson, 21, is a senior halfback at Oregon State.

Paulson runs the ball well enough to average seven yards a carry and has gained 370 for the season, 1,241 in his career. He leads the Beavers with five touchdowns and catches the occasional pass, returns kickoffs, has punted once and has completed four of eight passes in three seasons, three of them for touchdowns. This on a team for which every pass is cause for a statewide celebration.

Powell’s memories of Paulson are snapshots.

“In one game, Chad had the ball and made a 45-degree cut and hurdled both a blocker and would-be tackler--hurdling, shifting and cutting all in the same motion,” Powell recalls.

It is a moment so frozen in time that he can’t remember if Paulson scored. He did, the move but a single part of a single play by an all-state back on a team that reached the Oregon high school playoffs.

Paulson’s career since has been a series of similar snapshots in a much different setting. The spectacular plays have been overshadowed by a program that has experienced little success.

Paulson has made virtually every practice, played in all but one game and, until this year, could celebrate a victory at week’s end only three times in as many seasons at Oregon State, the only school that offered him a scholarship.

He has dutifully reported to the weight room, watched film and gone to class. His academic success--he carries a 3.23 grade-point average with a political science major--generated a recommendation from school officials to apply for a Rhodes scholarship. The paper work went in Monday.

But the Saturdays were tough. Saturdays, when the inevitable happened at a school that last had a winning season in 1970.

“Everyone grows up watching college football on TV and sees the UCLAs and the USCs and the Washingtons,” he says. “You want to be on national TV, get national attention. You look across the line at Washington and know there are players who have three Rose Bowl rings. You have Oregon State media days and few people show up. It’s discouraging.

“But I wouldn’t trade my opportunity here for anything. I just wanted a college scholarship, and Oregon State provided one. It provided me an opportunity to get an education, and I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie with some good people.”

The down days require a trip to the office of Coach Jerry Pettibone or offensive coordinator Mike Summers for moral support.

“There are very few,” says Summers, who came in when Pettibone replaced the fired Dave Kragthorpe after the 1990 season, and brought Paulson--a defensive back as a freshman--back to the offense after seeing film of him running back kickoffs.

“Most of them are counseling sessions to support what he has done. The older players here are dragging around 20-something years of losing, and when you have players who give up everything on Saturdays and don’t see the fruits of their labor, it’s difficult.

“We explain and show the things they did well and make them understand that sometimes the mistakes of a younger player mean that a play isn’t a success.”

Fifteen or 20 minutes later, Paulson emerges and puts on a happy face because he knows he is being watched by Oregon State’s future.

“I make it a point not to show I’m discouraged on the field,” he says. “If people see it, it can drag them down.”

It’s beginning to pay off, too. The Beavers are 3-4 going into Saturday’s game against UCLA, with victories over Wyoming, Pacific and Arizona State.

“It’s exciting to have won as many games already this season as we won in the past three combined,” Paulson said. “It’s enjoyable to see so many things that we’ve done coming together.”

The future is brighter at Oregon State, but it’s a future that will be without Chad Paulson. Like every senior, he is nervous about his own future. Like every senior, he is looked at by NFL teams and would like to play. Unlike many, however, he is realistic about his chance to play pro football.

“I don’t think anybody says ‘Chad Paulson, future NFL running back,’ ” he says.

Says Summers: “He is big enough and fast enough. He could be valuable in the NFL in the right situation, but I don’t think that is one of his priorities.”

Law school is. He is looking at Arizona State, in part because after the snows of Bend and the rains of Corvallis, he yearns to spend some time in a warm, dry climate.

“But I would like to come back to the Northwest,” he says. “I would love to set up my own firm, representing people who otherwise can’t afford a lawyer.”