Gary Rogers finally getting his turn at WSU

Published 11:24 pm Tuesday, April 29, 2008

He could have quit. He could have transferred.

Gary Rogers did neither.

He stuck it out. He stood on the sidelines for three years as a backup quarterback, lending support to the starter and the team.

Everyone wants to be a starter. Rogers no less than anyone else.

In this age of instant gratification, no-one would have blamed him if he had chosen to quit the team or transfer to another school.

That’s the way we are today. We’ve got to have everything now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.

Gary Rogers was different. He could wait. Oh, he would compete, too. He would compete hard.

But if he couldn’t win the starting job, he would take his place on the sideline on Saturday afternoon and be ready in case he was needed.

But walk away from Washington State?

No. Never.

“I knew that my hard work and my time waiting would pay off,” he said. “I’d keep pushing.”

Now, nearly four years after he entered WSU, his perseverance has paid off. The former Kamiak High School all-stater will be the starting quarterback for the Cougars when fall camp opens.

“He has prepared himself well for this opportunity,” said his former high school coach, Dan Mack. “He’s done everything he needs to do.”

First and foremost, he honored his commitment. “Going back to his senior year (in high school), he had opportunities to play at other places,” Mack said. “But he loved Washington State. He always wanted to be a Cougar.

“As hard as it was for him to stand on the sideline, he is a young man of his word.”

An admirable trait to have, a trait that was instilled in him at a young age.

His father, also named Gary, told him, “Your word is everything.”

It took.

“He never thought about leaving,” Linda Rogers, the quarterback’s mother, said. “He’s gotten a great education and he’s made friends for life.”

And now, he has the most important job on the team. A job that demands so much of a young man. A job that puts him squarely in the limelight. A job that he’ll get too much credit for when the team wins and too much blame for when it loses. A job that he has prepared for the past four years, or ever since he came into WSU in the fall of 2004, a year in which he red-shirted.

“It was tough standing on the sidelines for three years, knowing I could go out and produce numbers,” Rogers said by telephone recently. “Overall it’s made me a better quarterback. Once my time comes (to play), I think it’s going to show the time I’ve put into it.”

Ironically, most of the time he put into preparing for the job was done so on another coach’s watch. Bill Doba, who recruited Rogers, resigned after the 2007 season and was replaced by Paul Wulff, who had enjoyed a successful reign at Eastern Washington University after a playing career at WSU.

Though Rogers had never started a college game, he seemed the likely candidate to replace Alex Brink, who had been the No.1 guy the past three years and was drafted Sunday by the Houston Texans of the NFL.

“We really wanted to give him that opportunity,” Wulff said of Rogers. “Gary has been here and deserved that opportunity and he did a good job with it this spring.

“He picked up things the quickest of everybody, and as he continued to move through the spring, he did some really good things.”

As did Kevin Lopina, a redshirt junior who transferred from Kansas State in 2006.

“We want to have a couple of quarterbacks we have a chance to win with,” Wulff said. “Both of those guys are still going to get a lot better.”

Some things about Rogers that impressed the new coach: He’s a quick study. He has a strong arm. He runs well for a big guy.

“He’s very nimble,” Wulff said. “And I think he’s a tough kid.

“The bottom line is, he needs to help us move the chains.”

At 6-foot-6, Rogers won’t have a problem spotting his receivers downfield. And when he does get knocked down, the knockers could be in for a jolt as well.

“He’s cut,” Mack said. “He spends a lot of time in the weight room.”

Strong work ethic then? “Second to none,” said Mack, who still has a good relationship with Rogers and speaks to him throughout the year. “He takes a lot of pride in his craft.”

One more thing that speaks highly of Rogers. “He’s a selfless human being,” Mack said, “with a competitor’s heart.”

Mack watched the final scrimmage of the spring, and felt that Rogers “looked confident and had a real fine grasp of the offense.

“For a kid who hasn’t played much, he looked like he had stepped in and done his homework.”

His homework, of course, included learning a new offense, and if the Cougars run it as well as Wulff’s Eastern teams did, WSU fans could be treated to some explosive performances this fall. In four of the past seven years Wulff was coach there, Eastern finished in the top six in total offense in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, including leading it in 2001.

“Our goal is to find a way to run the ball first,” Wulff said, “be as balanced as we possibly can be. I’d love to be 50-50 in a perfect world, but there’ll be situations where we throw it more than we run it. Ultimately, we’ll be wide open.”

Rogers knows that he has to keep getting better and promises not to get complacent for “there will be competition.”

He’ll spend the summer in Pullman working out and he anticipates a large turnout of teammates. Like, “everybody.”

As with any quarterback, he’ll be expected to lead and Wulff would like to see him do so “through his actions.”

“He is not a man of a lot of words,” his mother said. “He learns a lot by listening.”

He has had a lot of time to listen and learn, and now it’s his time to play and perform.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time,” Rogers said. “I’ve been waiting a long time to get out there and play that first game.”

It doesn’t get any better than this: He’ll be making his first varsity start in his backyard — Qwest Field, Aug. 30, against Oklahoma State.

It’s the reward for not quitting. For not giving up. For not saying, “Gotta have it now.”

It’s the reward for honoring a commitment.