He’s a Reluctant Role Model : Mark Templeton Just Won’t Take All Those Compliments

Mark Templeton of Cal State Long Beach has had to put up with a lot of guff during his football career. Broken bones, player of the year awards, compliments, records, fame.

But through it all, he has managed to remain true to himself. True to the overrated, underachieving player he knows himself to be.

Never mind the teammates who say he’s just about the greatest guy in the world, or the high school coach who says Templeton renewed his faith in the youth of this nation.

And while you’re at it, pay no attention to the words humble, sensitive, unselfish, talented, loyal and sincere when discussing him with friends, coaches, etc.

And forget the NCAA, which counts the fullback as the top pass catcher in Division I this season with 30 receptions in three games.

He’s heard it all before--and it’s all a lie.

“If you listen to those people, you’ll be horribly misinformed,” Templeton said Tuesday.

“It’s just that if you get interviewed, people think you deserve to be in the newspaper,” he said. “You open yourself up to a lot of criticism when you don’t live up to your clippings.”

Templeton’s manner is not news to those who know him. Ted Mullen, who coached him at Foothill High School, remembers Templeton missing the ceremony that honored him as the 1981 Southern Section 3-A Player of the Year because, “He was dedicated to tutoring some Indian children in Arizona instead. His dad had to pick up the award,” Mullen said.

Templeton wasn’t teaching Indians at the time of the awards. That came in the summer. He actually missed the presentation because he was counseling at a church camp in Big Bear.

Templeton credits Mullen with everything he has attained as a running back. Mullen was hired at Foothill in 1981, Templeton’s senior season. He immediately converted Templeton from a defensive back to tailback.

That season, Templeton rushed 323 times for 1,864 yards and 24 touchdowns. He set 15 school records and led Foothill to a 13-1 season. In the Southern Conference championship game against El Modena, he rushed for 100 yards and 3 touchdowns as Foothill won, 31-24, in triple overtime.

“Mark was our horse that season. He did everything we asked and more,” Mullen said. “Everyone on the team loved him. That’s not always the case when a guy carries the ball more than 300 times.

“But there was no jealousy over Mark. You have problems with some kids, and you expect that in high school, but you hate it. So when you run across a kid like Mark, it makes up for it all. It reaffirmed for me why I got into coaching.”

Though Mullen swoons, most colleges did not. His arrival at Cal State Long Beach was not the result of a high-pressure sale.

“They asked me to come down, so I kind of showed up one day,” Templeton said. “I looked around and said, ‘OK.’ That was it.”

Since that trumpeted arrival, Templeton has become Long Beach’s all-time leading receiver with 193 receptions to date. He is first on the all-time Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. list and seventh on the NCAA’s.

He needs 22 receptions to set the all-time mark of catches by a running back. The mark is held by Darrin Nelson, formerly of Stanford and now with the Minnesota Vikings.

If Templeton continues on his 10-catch-a-game pace, he will become the NCAA’s all-time leader in receptions, period. Tulsa’s Howard Twilley holds the record with 261.

Though Templeton will say he has piled up stats by being “the dump guy, the guy they throw to when they can’t get it to a real receiver,” he has averaged more than eight yards a reception in his college career.

Not that everything has been great for Templeton in college. In 1984, he broke his right leg early in the season. When asked about the injury that year, he said the leg wasn’t slowing him, but his attitude was. How do you have an attitude about a broken leg?

“Well, I guess the leg had something to do with it, “ he said. “I just don’t like excuses.”

Still, he caught 59 passes that season. In 1985, hampered by a pinched nerve, he caught 62. He set the 49er record for receptions in a game with 15 against UCLA last week.

“He’s the best running back I’ve seen catching the ball since Todd Christensen,” said Long Beach Coach Mike Sheppard, who was an assistant at BYU when Christensen, now the Raiders’ tight end, played running back. “He’s not extremely fast but he’s elusive in the open field. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone tackle him one on one.”

Said Templeton: “Elusive is another way of saying I’m slow.”

Templeton says the records and the recognition mean little to him. He doesn’t think much about it, and he doesn’t talk much about it. He doesn’t seem to talk much at all.

But tell that to his friends, particularly teammates Don Hiti, Steve Rahon and Mike Prescott, who shared a Huntington Beach apartment with Templeton for a year.

“We ragged on each other constantly,” Templeton said. “I loved it.”

But that’s not exactly how the fellas see it.

“It was like three rowdy guys and Mark,” said Rahon, a linebacker.

Hiti, a defensive lineman, said: “The only thing that gets Mark wild is if there’s no ice cream in the freezer. He’s as straight an arrow as they come.”

Said Sheppard: “Mark is the kind of guy you want your son to grow up to be like.”

Well, someone had to say it. Heaven knows Mark Templeton wouldn’t have.