What It Takes to be The Man

It wasn’t much of a decision last year for the folks of Hyden, a mountain hamlet of 375 people in eastern Kentucky.

They could either attend the annual festival of Mary Breckinridge, a local legend for her work with the region’s isolated poor, or drive 120 miles to the University of Kentucky to watch hometown hero Tim Couch play quarterback against Alabama.

“The whole county usually goes to that festival,” Couch said during a recent break between two-a-day practices. “But we had a game that day, and nobody showed up at the festival hardly because they were all here watching us.”

As Couch’s father, Elbert, would say, “Last one out of town turns out the lights.”

In Hyden, it’s all about keeping your priorities straight.

Couch is not the first cult-hero quarterback whose fame has overshadowed acts of philanthropy and public works. He’s only the latest.

“It’s kind of odd,” Couch says, “There’s a lot of kids out there that can tell you every pass I’ve completed and how many yards I have, but they couldn’t tell you who the governor of Kentucky is. It puts a lot of pressure on me to be a role model for those kids, but that’s something I want to do.”

Tim Couch is living, breathing, passing proof of how we can become obsessed with sports heroes, especially aspiring hills-to-riches quarterbacks.

Couch has been famous in Hyden since the day in eighth grade his junior high principal came running to show Elbert a recruiting letter from Minnesota basketball Coach Clem Haskins.

After setting national prep passing records as a four-year starter at Leslie County High, the state collectively held its breath while Couch considered his college choices.

You could say he buckled under the pressure, turning down offers from any number of college quarterback factories to attend Kentucky, where then-coach Bill Curry was running the option.

“Everyone was pulling for me to come here,” Couch says. “Not only my town, but all around the state. It’s hard to let those people down.”

When you ask Elbert if his son’s fame is totally out of whack, he looks at you blankly with a stare that strongly suggests, “What, are you nuts?”

Since when haven’t star quarterbacks been more newsworthy than the Congressional Record, or random acts of kindness, especially in entertainment-challenged states such as Kentucky?

The quarterback is the most celebrated and important position player in American team sports.

Kentucky Coach Hal Mumme says it’s because football is the sport most associated with war, the quarterback on the field analogous to the general in battle.

“The people that can rise to the top of that setting automatically have this distinction about them,” Mumme says, “kind of like the ancient warriors used to get.”

The Great American Quarterback is required to be a thrower, a leader and role model. When knocked down, he must get up. When under fire, he must keep his head as those around him lose theirs.

He gets too much credit in victory and too much blame in defeat.

We like our quarterbacks to be poised, preferably gritty. He should be part man, part mud and part myth.

The greats are so few and far between that we traipse the Appalachians to find them.

Quarterbacks such as Tim Couch are uniquely American, the cowboys of the late 20th century. It is no coincidence Denver quarterback John Elway’s swagger has been compared to John Wayne’s.

We love quarterbacks who rise from gravel-road poverty or the shadow of smokestacks. Joe Namath’s story plays better as the coal miner’s son from Beaver Falls, Pa.

It helps that Dan Marino’s dad drove a newspaper truck in Pittsburgh.

The modern-day quarterback is the alter ego for many American men, the vessel through which we live vicariously.

Elbert Couch couldn’t be more a part of his son’s stardom without being in his skin.

Elbert was raised outside of Hyden in a town called Thousandsticks. He lives in the house his wife’s father built.

Elbert was only a marginal player in high school, yet he and wife Janice produced a son who grew to be 6 feet 5 and 225 pounds, with an arm like a howitzer that would require a $5-million insurance policy to protect.

Of Tim’s talent, Elbert can only say, “The good Lord gave it to him.”

And to us.

It used to be said that in America, any young boy could grow up to become president.

These days, aspiring to play quarterback for San Francisco 49ers might seem a more noble calling.

Couch is everything we demand in a Great American Quarterback. He is quick, agile, thick of skin and smart.

If coaches put out an ad for quarterbacks it would read: dunces need not apply.

“That’s why you have to be a redshirt junior to start at Florida State,” Coach Bobby Bowden says.

Bowden is making an exception this season for starting sophomore Chris Weinke. Then again, Weinke is 26.

When we speak of intelligence, we’re talking about the ability to split defenses, not the atom.

“Football is not about books,” USC Coach Paul Hackett says.

The first-year USC coach tells of the time Joe Montana came to his house in 1983, Hackett’s first year as quarterbacks coach of the 49ers.

Montana was playing a concentration game with one of Hackett’s kids, the object of which was to match flash cards from memory.

Hackett says Montana took one look and matched every card in a matter of seconds.

“He had a photographic memory,” Hackett says. “You give him a game plan, and 20 minutes later he could regurgitate the whole plan back to you. This was the greatest player to play the position. He was beyond the realm of other people.”

The demands of the quarterback far exceed those of his teammates.

“Not even close,” Bowden says.

As a freshman, UCLA quarterback Cade McNown used to place late-night calls to Coach Bob Toledo to hash over nuances of the offense.

“I don’t know if there’s more pressure on the quarterback [now],” Toledo says. “There’s always been pressure. But there are a lot more demands. The game has changed so much defensively. What you know is so much more important. Unless you’re smart enough to pick it up, you’re not going to play.”

Hackett agrees.

“The key has always been quarterbacks,” he says. “UCLA is picked to win this year because they have the best quarterback.”

Quarterbacks have become so important that they can often become the tail that wags the dog.

Elway was drafted by the Baltimore Colts out of Stanford in 1983, refused to sign, and ultimately leveraged his way to Denver.

And when the future of a star quarterback recently was at stake in Kentucky, well, let’s just say men and mountains were moved.

You see, Bill Curry did a foolish thing after securing the much-prized Couch, refusing to revamp the offense for the young phenom.

Couch played sparingly as a freshman.

An old-schooler who played for Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers, Curry thought young quarterbacks had to pay their dues.

For this 1960s belief, Curry was fired.

In his place, Athletic Director C.M. Newton hired Mumme, a little-known coach from Division II Valdosta State in Georgia who pretty much vowed to throw the ball every down.

Now this was progress.

In Mumme’s offense last year, the sophomore Couch scorched opponents for 3,884 yards and 37 touchdowns, enough to keep the conversation flowing at the Hyden Diner.

Couch, you must understand, is the biggest thing to hit Kentucky since electricity.

He has a chance, as a junior, to complete the improbable sojourn from Hyden to Heisman.

“It’s overwhelming,” says Elbert, director of transportation for the Leslie County School District. “Beyond my wildest dreams.”

Couch’s fame has swept through the state like a brush fire.

“He is more popular than the governor, to tell you the truth,” Kentucky receiver Kevin Coleman says of Couch. “Sports here comes before church. It’s crazy, it boggles the mind.”

Couch signed his first autograph at age 17. To avoid being noticed in public, he’ll sometimes wear sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled tightly over his head.

It almost never works.

Couch is so down-to-earth nice he tries to accommodate all. He says “I don’t ever want to get above my raisin’.”

So while Couch at times craves anonymity, he understands his fame comes with a price.

“Sometimes I get tired of seeing myself in the papers and on TV, so I know other people are,” Couch says. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but if I keep on going out and playing the way I’m capable, I know that’s always going to be a part of my life.”

It isn’t always easy for the quarterback. Teammates can be jealous of his attention.

“I was a little skeptical,” tackle Kris Comstock says. “This guy was getting a lot of hype.”

Couch lived up to the hype last year by posting nine 300-yard games.

He won over teammates in the huddle with his confidence and certain mountain catch phrases such as “Are we gonna score? Does a cat like cream?”

“You can’t just come in and be a leader,” Couch says. “You have to go on the field and go to battle with those guys every Saturday and show those guys you’re willing to go through the pain and take the big hits and step up and make the big throws anyway. After my first game last year, they knew what I was going to be about.”

In that first game, a 38-24 victory against rival Louisville, Couch completed 36 of 50 passes for 398 yards and four touchdowns.

While Couch’s fame might seem highly disproportionate to some, an affront to society’s faceless working heroes, Couch also sees the larger picture.

He has long admired how Elway has handled his relationship with the ravenous fans of Denver. Couch knows how the mood of a city can rise and fall with his performances.

Couch understands that his success has meant real hope to real people in Hyden, the tiny town he put on the map.

“There’s not a lot of positive things where I’m from,” Couch says. “We have a real high unemployment rate, things are just not real good there. It’s not a high class of living, so people really take a lot of pride saying I’m from their hometown.

“And I take a lot of pride being from that town. They all just rally around me.”

Last one out of town turns out the lights.