A GUTTY LITTLE BUFFALO : Neuheisel Was an Immediate Success at Colorado With Unusual Methods, but He Hasn’t Forgotten UCLA

BOULDER, Colo. —  You could ask around, make a few phone calls, dig through the archives, write to the Sporting News, but it is unlikely you would find evidence of Bear Bryant doing anything like this at Alabama:

On Friday, Aug. 16, as the Colorado Buffaloes wrapped up an afternoon session during two-a-days, a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream truck pulled up to the practice field.

You never saw 105 players run faster 40-yard dash times.

“Twelve flavors, all you could eat,” linebacker Matt Russell remembers.

So much for dinner.

“That was my dinner,” Russell says. “I had five cups. Cherry Garcia, something fudge, chocolate-chip cookie dough. I can’t remember what the other one was.”

You can bet it wasn’t nonfat ice milk.

Imagine for one second formep Arizona State Coach Frank Kush donning a wig and dancing like Carmen Miranda at a team function, or Vince Lombardi leading his Green Bay Packers down a river on an inner tube, or Woody Hayes standing atop a ski slope with his Ohio State Buckeyes, a week before the Rose Bowl, screaming, “Last one down’s a rotten egg.”

Yet, these were but a sampling of activities camp director Rick Neuheisel organized in his one-plus seasons as head coach at the University of Colorado.

Is this any way for a college coach to act?

“I have a theory about that,” Neuheisel says.

He has many theories.

Eleven days before his team’s opener Saturday against Washington State, Neuheisel is pacing his office in shorts and a T-shirt in what could have been a first reading for a boffo made-for-TV movie about this really cool blond, 35-year-old surfer dude who inherits a football team but still wants to hang with the guys.

Actually, Neuheisel had another script in mind.

“I always think of that movie, ‘Night Shift,’ with Michael Keaton,” he says. “Where he keeps saying, ‘I’m an ideas guy.’ I’m always going, ‘What if we try this?’ ”

In his first season, Neuheisel tried this, that and a few other things in leading the Buffaloes to a 10-2 finish and Nos. 4 and 5 rankings in the final national polls.

For starters, he was the winningest first-year coach in school history, and this season has his team poised to challenge Nebraska for the national championship.

Says who?

Says Neuheisel (oops, another coaching faux pas).

So, Dad, how’m I doing so far?

Of course, this was just the sort of innovative mind UCLA was nurturing when whiz-kid Neuheisel served as an assistant coach at Westwood for six seasons, the heir apparent to Terry Donahue.

Neuheisel was Bruin pedigreed, all right, a gutty little walk-on, as Donahue was, who came to Westwood as a holder for kicker John Lee and left as most valuable player of the 1984 Rose Bowl game.

After cleaning out waste baskets, running errands and, oh, tutoring Troy Aikman to greatness, Neuheisel would one day receive the baton from Donahue.

Except, to the dismay of Bruin fans, it didn’t quite work out that way.

“I thought I was going to be there my whole life, I really did,” Neuheisel says of UCLA. “I loved it. It was like being a member of a country club, a prestigious country club I could go to. I had a parking spot, everyone knew who I was, called me Rick.”

Things were going along fine until offensive coordinator Homer Smith decided to leave in 1994 for Alabama, Bryant’s old haunt.

Neuheisel, definitely the ambitious type, wanted Smith’s old job, oh, let’s say badly. Before he got the chance to ask, though, Neuheisel said Donahue told him he was “going in another direction.”

That direction was southeast, toward Texas A&M;, where Donahue plucked Bob Toledo, a likable, capable offensive coordinator.

It might have been the prudent move at the time, experience over youth, except that it ultimately cost UCLA the chance to hire Neuheisel, the best young coach in college football, when Donahue retired.

“I was hurt,” Neuheisel says of being passed over. “Now that I look back, I can understand why Terry did what he did. We can’t always make decisions that are popular. You have to make decisions that are best for the team. But Rick Neuheisel the person was hurt that he didn’t get an interview. I didn’t get an interview for the coordinator’s job.

“Terry, as he explained to me, he said he knew me, that he didn’t need to interview me. But yeah, my pride was stung. But my pride has been stung several times, and as Terry always said, you rise up and get it done.”

What Neuheisel did was rise up and get out, Feb. 28, 1994, taking an assistant position for Bill McCartney at Colorado.

Then two improbable events occurred: On Nov. 28, 1994, at 33, Neuheisel was named to succeed McCartney as head coach of one of the country’s top programs on a campus with a backdrop only slightly less stunning than the Bavarian Alps.

Then, in late 1995, Donahue announced he was resigning as UCLA coach after 20 seasons.

Neuheisel, who won raves with McCartney’s leftovers his rookie season, heard through the grapevine what was coming next.

Sure enough, hours after Donahue had announced his retirement, UCLA Athletic Director Peter Dalis was dialing area code 303.

“Actually, it was one of those things I was kind of dreading,” Neuheisel says of the impending call. “I didn’t want to ever have to say no to UCLA.”

But Neuheisel said no.

The alma mater that had spurned him had come crawling back, which was sort of an ego boost, but by then it was too late.

“I still bleed blue and gold,” Neuheisel says. “When I race in here in those November weeks, to watch the USC-UCLA game. . . . I mean, there’s still kids I recruited on that team. I don’t want anyone to feel that I was ever less than appreciative about the opportunity to go back. It just wasn’t the right timing.

“You just don’t say, ‘Thanks, I’m out of here’ to a university that went out on a limb like the University of Colorado did for me.”

Colorado did that. Neuheisel, bright as he was, was as green as they come when he took over a national power.

Yet, Neuheisel always knew where he was going. He remembers sitting in UCLA staff meetings and having most of his ideas, some of which he admits to being “out there,” shot down by Donahue.

Neuheisel knew things would be different when he got his chance.

This is how different: In his first camp last summer, during the depths of sweltering two-a-day practices, the rookie coach led his freshmen into Boulder Creek for some impromptu white-water rafting.

“There’s a creek that runs right through our practice field,” Neuheisel explains. “It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out, that’s not a bad idea. That was fun. A blast. It’s easy. And, why not?”

Why not? Because coaches are supposed to be feared, not splash partners. They are supposed to wear ties, talk down to players, let them know who’s boss.

A coach is not supposed to play guitar and sing “You Are My Sunshine” on his weekly radio show, or have secret plans to turn his weekly television show from the staid “Roll the tape on that second quarter, Bob,” into football’s version of “The Tonight Show.”

Coaches are not, heaven forbid, supposed to lead their team down treacherous mountain slopes on skis mere days before the Cotton Bowl game.

They aren’t supposed to take their teams to the Boulder Reservoir before camp and set up volleyball nets, barbecue pits, and pass out horseshoes.

Or do the limbo.

Coaches are supposed to, well, act like coaches.

“I have a theory about that,” Neuheisel says again.

The theory is that much of coaching mythology is bunk, a byproduct of the military-industrial complex.

“Kids were used to a military upbringing,” he says. “So when they became players in college, it was normal to be chastised. Training camp and boot camp were synonymous.”

Neuheisel thinks you have to change with the times. Fewer of his players are sons of war veterans and march to a different beat.

“If you watch mass media, everything about today’s society is to question why,” he says “It’s the MTV generation.”

So, his players want to know why they are doing wind sprints?

Neuheisel tells them why.

“I’m an explainer,” he says. “I explain why we’re going to do what we’re going to do and what’s in it for them. There are some coaches that don’t believe you have to do that.”

Neuheisel thinks if you throw enough pizza parties, pairing up the wide receiver from Washington, D.C., with the defensive tackle from Sacramento--who might never have become friends otherwise--they might form a bond that will come in handy when it’s fourth and one against Nebraska.

There is a misconception, though, that Neuheisel’s players don’t work as hard, a myth that is debunked after watching them practice.

“I think that’s the biggest misconception,” Russell says. “We really work hard out here. We work just as hard as we did for Coach McCartney on the field. [Neuheisel] is just a little looser, tries to give us some things to do off the field.

“He gives you something to look forward to. You always know there’s some light at the end of the tunnel. That’s always nice, when it’s not just a grind.”

Yet, you could see how an athletic director could get a little edgy.

Neuheisel won’t forget the look on Bill Marolt’s face before his coaching debut against Wisconsin, an era that began with Neuheisel boldly predicting victory.

“The AD is as nervous as he can be,” Neuheisel recalls of Marolt, who has since left to become head of U.S. Skiing. “It was like, ‘What have I done?’ He just gave the keys to this brand-new car to this kid, and he’s going to wreck it, and he just knows. You can just picture that dad waiting up at night: ‘The Corvette’s gone, oh God, what have I done?’

“I’m watching this pained expression every time I do something a little out of the ordinary.”

Fear not. Colorado won the opener, 43-7, and nine other games, including a 38-6 pasting of Oregon in the Cotton Bowl.

Neuheisel’s two losses were to Nebraska (forgivable) and Kansas (not so forgivable).

It wasn’t a perfect first season, but it was close. In the fourth game, against Texas A&M;, star quarterback Koy Detmer tore knee ligaments and was lost for the season.

While panic clouds began to form, Neuheisel was quietly prepping a little-known sophomore named John Hessler, who led the team to a 6-2 record.

If you want to know if Neuheisel can coach, ask quarterbacks.

“If he’s not the best, he’s close to being the best quarterback coach in the nation,” says Hessler, who returns to the bench behind Detmer this year. “He takes a guy like me and turned me into a pretty darn good quarterback. That shows what he can do. He brought me a long way. I’m a 100% different quarterback than I was before.”

David Norrie, the former UCLA quarterback who will do commentary on Pac-10 games this fall, says Neuheisel is “one of the five best minds in the game right now in clock offense, maybe not just in college football. Rick is not going to waste a play.”

Neuheisel, the ideas guy, will need a few bright ones to make the quantum national championship leap past Nebraska, which resides next to Colorado in the new Big 12’s rugged Northern Division.

Neuheisel takes on his the challenge with relish, comparing it to the underdog days when USC had UCLA’s number--remember that?

--in the cross-town rivalry.

Colorado hasn’t defeated Nebraska since 1990, but Neuheisel is cooking up a plan.

“I go back to the SC rivalry,” he says. “SC had its way with us. They’d beaten us ‘87, ‘88, we tied in ‘89, and they beat us in ’90.

“So, in ‘91, I went to this Westwood breakfast club and we performed an exorcism. I put on a black cape, and I had this dry ice in this caldron, and I went through some humorous lines--hum-de-dum--using names in the room.

“We were no longer going to think that only bad things happen when we play SC. Obviously, that had nothing to do with us winning the next day, but there’s something about just approaching it from a different standpoint. I know my players are going to play as hard as they can against Nebraska. I just don’t want them to play scared.”

*

Neuheisel says he wishes Toledo, the new UCLA coach, the best of luck, and you believe him. After he lost out on the coordinator’s job, Neuheisel stuck around for a month to help translate the offense to Toledo.

Neuheisel always spoke fluent Bruin.

After his first-year success at Colorado, there was the natural urge to scream across the Rockies to Westwood, “Take that!”

“All of us are human,” Neuheisel says, “My buddies back in school were saying, ‘You showed them, blah, blah blah,’ and for a moment you’ll say ‘Yeah.’ But the truth is, life’s too short to be thinking of that.”

Neuheisel has a future to protect too. Think of it: Toledo could lead UCLA to great success the next 15 years, retire a hero, and Neuheisel would be 50 and still the most viable candidate for the job.

Then again, UCLA might need him sooner.

“I might have been back there in a heartbeat,” Neuheisel says, bemoaning his timing.

The young Buff is content for the moment. He recently signed a one-year deal reportedly worth $450,000, with an annuity that could make the deal worth $1 million in five years.

Neuheisel is happily coaching and happily married. His two tow-headed boys, Jerry, 4, and Jack, 2, shadow him after practice.

As scenery goes, Boulder isn’t exactly Starkville, Miss., so you can picture Neuheisel planning camp-fire trips for the next 30 years.

But there is a part of Neuheisel that wants to leave the door to UCLA ajar. Things change, so do coaches, and memories fade.

Neuheisel said no to UCLA once and has worried ever since that the rejection might have come off as cocky, which was never his intention.

“There’s always a feeling, ‘Well, you’re never going to get another chance,’ ” he says. “I don’t know. In the aftermath, after it came out that I was not returning, the undercurrent was that some people were disappointed.”

Dalis, in fact, said publicly, “I am disappointed he is not interested in this position.”

So now Neuheisel wonders: “If something happens five years from now, will they want me back?”

Dalis could not be reached for comment to ponder that question.

Norrie, however, who was the conduit between Neuheisel and Dalis during negotiations, said he thinks Neuheisel will be forgiven.

“There was going to be stress if Rick turned down the job,” Norrie says. “But I think the community at UCLA has respect for Rick’s energy, and his football mind, and continue to realize he’s going to be on the cutting edge.”

Neuheisel isn’t so sure.

“I don’t know,” he mulls. “I might have blown my only shot. But I couldn’t do it then because I’m very happy where I’m at.

“You never know down the road. What you don’t want to do is burn bridges. And I certainly don’t want to burn bridges at my alma mater, because it was a time in my life I’ll always cherish.”

* NATIONAL OVERVIEW: C6

* NATIONAL SCHEDULE: C8