A Real Catch

It will be alone, next spring, a fishing pole in hand, sitting on the banks of a faraway Montana stream, that the realization will hit Ryan Leaf:

He is the big fish out of water.

His luring and baiting already have begun.

Last Sunday, the day after Washington State beat Arizona, 35-34 in overtime, the star junior quarterback for the 7-0, 10th-ranked Cougars went out for a burger and fries in Pullman.

“I’m pulling up in the McDonald’s drive-through and the guy goes, ‘Aren’t you Ryan Leaf?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ and he says ‘Yeah, really?’ and I said, ‘Yep, I do eat too.’ It’s kind of funny. But that’s just the way it is, being in the spotlight as a college quarterback.”

The spotlight can’t miss Leaf. At 6 feet 5 and 240 pounds, he is a college football Sasquatch, the latest and maybe greatest pea-shooting passer to lumber out of the Great Northwest.

Leaf is a modern-day Roman Gabriel, a pillar in the pocket.

“He can make the off-balance throw with someone hanging on him with still a lot on it,” says Arizona Coach Dick Tomey, who watched Leaf pass for 384 yards and three touchdowns against his team last Saturday.

Leaf has the arm strength, the size, the hell-bent attitude and the best Heisman campaign going--a single leaf mailed out to 600 Heisman voters.

What Leaf won’t have for long is quiet time.

His rise this season for the surprising Cougars has riveted NFL scouts, some of whom are projecting Leaf as the second pick in next spring’s NFL draft behind Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning--should Leaf forgo his senior season.

Leigh Steinberg, agent for football stars, estimated for the Seattle Times last week that Leaf would be worth about $7 million if he chose to come out after his junior season.

“It blows me away to hear all these things about me being picked second, making seven, eight million signing bonus, something like that,” Leaf says in the Washington State football offices. “How can I go from this poor college kid one day and the next day get a check for $7 million. How’s that going to affect me? I don’t know.”

Leaf saw none of this coming. Unlike his idol, former Washington State star Drew Bledsoe, whose skills were honed by his high school-coach-father, Leaf is the oldest of three boys, the son of a non-intrusive insurance man from Great Falls, Mont. Leaf’s mother is a registered nurse.

This is not the Todd Marinovich story. For one, we know Leaf eats Big Macs.

Leaf was an average kid, in an average town, minding his average Montana business, sneaking off to his favorite fishing hole. The difference was he kept growing and growing and throwing and throwing.

It used to be the great quarterbacks rose from steel towns in Western Pennsylvania--Joe Montana, John Unitas, Joe Namath, Dan Marino, George Blanda, Jim Kelly--but the new mecca is the Pacific Northwest, which is fast-forwarding quarterbacks to the NFL faster than logs down skid road.

“It’s the water,” Washington State Coach Mike Price chuckles.

Tumwater.

In the last decade, Washington State has spawned Leaf, Bledsoe, Mark Rypien, Timm Rosenbach. Washington has produced Mark Brunell, Chris Chandler, Hugh Millen and current star and NFL prospect Brock Huard.

John Elway was born in Washington. UCLA quarterback Cade McNown is from Oregon; former Arizona State star Jake Plummer is from Boise, Idaho.

There is a definite ruggedness here that is conducive to making quality quarterbacks, although Price says it’s the region’s highly competitive and sophisticated high school coaches who are responsible for the proliferation.

“They’re up on all the clinics, new phases, new things,” Price says. “They run the newest offenses and defenses and are continuously upgrading. It certainly isn’t the weather. You’d think Arizona would produce as many of those types [quarterbacks] that California or Washington does.”

One success story begets another.

Leaf followed Bledsoe, the No. 1 pick of the 1993 NFL draft by the New England Patriots.

“Knowing Drew played under this system, this coach, was a first-round draft pick and is a superstar in the NFL, that’s a pretty good calling card for you to come,” Leaf says.

Leaf was not as polished as Bledsoe, says Price, or as even-keeled. Leaf plays the game like a linebacker and is not afraid to speak his mind or flail his arms.

Leaf did not appreciate having to redshirt in 1994 or wait his turn behind incumbent Chad Davis in 1995.

“He’s not a laid-back guy,” Price confesses. “But I’d much rather say ‘Whoa’ than ‘giddy-up.’ ”

Leaf’s devotion to the game is unquestioned.

“If standing on your head for 10 minutes a day would help him, he would do it,” Price says.

After last year’s 5-6 campaign, Leaf and his teammates decided to do something about it. The quarterback and his five returning receivers stayed in Pullman this summer to work out together.

For more than a month, the six players conducted self-supervised 7 a.m. offensive drills in Martin Stadium.

“There were a lot of days I didn’t want to do it,” senior receiver Kevin McKenzie says. “A couple of days I didn’t show up. But we knew it was necessary for us to be the team we wanted to be.”

The team has turned out to be the best in Pullman since the 1930 Rose Bowl squad. Leaf has thrown for 2,269 yards and 22 touchdowns this season while his quintet of receivers has been dubbed the “Fab Five.”

Over the summer, Leaf improved his vertical jump to 35 inches, and his bench press to 320 pounds--both Washington State quarterback records.

“It has a lot to do with attitude,” Price says. “I know he’s big and he’s got an arm and all that other stuff, but, man, it’s attitude. That guy wants it. No one on this team works harder and spends more time preparing for a game than Ryan Leaf.”

Tonight, the Cougars prepare for their biggest test of the season so far, against defending Pacific 10 champion Arizona State in Tempe.

In many ways, Washington State has mirrored Arizona State’s fairy-tale season of a year ago--lacking only a 7.0-magnitude victory such as the one the Sun Devils handed No. 1 Nebraska.

There were close wins over UCLA and USC to start the year--the first time Washington State has defeated the L.A. schools in the same season--and then last week’s comeback win over Arizona in overtime.

“This is a destiny type of thing,” Leaf says. “It does remind me a lot of the Arizona State team of last year. But we’re a long way from where they went and what they did.”

Leaf doesn’t want to look that far ahead. He wants to beat Arizona State, then Southwestern Louisiana, then Stanford, then Washington.

Then some team in the Rose Bowl.

He knows next spring he’ll be facing the decision of his life. Will he declare for the NFL a year early, as Bledsoe did, or follow the bold lead of Manning and return for his senior season?

Leaf hasn’t spoken to Bledsoe lately.

“He’s got more things on his mind than to think of some snot-nosed college kid back in Pullman,” Leaf says.

Leaf has sought advice from a new faraway friend: Manning.

After Washington State beat UCLA on Aug. 30, Leaf called Manning in Knoxville. The Volunteers were playing UCLA the next week and Leaf thought he could offer some advice.

“We don’t play each other,” Leaf reasoned. “We might as well be friends out of this.”

Leaf wanted to know what it was like turning down millions from the NFL to play an extra year of college.

Leaf says he and Manning talk once a week.

“It’s going to be the exact same decision, because I’ll have my degree too,” says Leaf, a broadcasting major who will graduate in the spring. “It took a lot of guts to turn down millions and millions to pick up a scholarship check every month to play college football. I’m trying not to think about it.”

Leaf does most of his serious thinking alone, while he’s casting a fly.

“It’s a little place outside Great Falls, no one’s ever around there,” Leaf says. “It’s just a creek running down the middle of the mountains. You’re all by yourself. It’s a nice place to be when you want to get away from things. The thing is, no one can touch you. There can’t be a reporter out there, there can’t be anyone talking about football. It’s just you, the Montana mountains. You hear the water rolling around you while you’re fishing. It’s secluded, and spiritual, just something that’s real special.”

Leaf knows fame has it price.

He has worked it all out in his mind, his love for football outweighing his dislike for the limelight.

“I think it’s over-extraordinary,” he says about the fuss over him. “I think it’s overemphasized. People make too big a deal about me. I don’t look at myself and think I’m that special. All the attention, I wish could be put on the team tenfold somehow.”

Price says he and Leaf will sit down at the end of the season and discuss his future.

Leaf already is trying to give away the signing bonus he does not yet have.

“I can send my brothers to college,” he says. “I can buy my mom a new house. I can give back to the program that made me what I am. I can give back to my high school, things like that. I wouldn’t know what to do with all that money. I’ve lived on $400 a month in college. I’ve lived on it fine.”

Price knows, in Washington, great quarterbacks come and go. When Leaf walks out the door, though, Price may linger in the archway for one last look.

“Ryan is by far the best quarterback ever to come out of the state of Montana,” Price says. “He has a chance to be the best quarterback to ever come out of Washington State.”