CHENEY – Clarence Farmer refuses to discuss the past.
“I don’t want to rehash that,” he said. “That’s over and done.”
Nevertheless, reporters try to get him to talk about it. I tried earlier this month at the Seahawks training camp.
We were walking off the field after the final practice of the day when I brought up the subject of his tumultuous career as a running back at the University of Arizona.
“That was a crazy time in my life,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything because it’s over.”
I understood, but I had to ask. It’s part of his story, and to not ask him about it would have been negligence on my part.
I respect him for not wanting to relive it. You find guys who carry a grudge and are only too willing to take potshots.
Farmer could have ripped his old coach at Arizona, John Mackovic. But what good would it have done? So, he’s let it go. Publicly, anyway.
He’s begun a new phase of his life. The only thing living in the past could do is muddy his mind.
He doesn’t need that. This is about his career. About making the Seahawks. About playing in the NFL. About making a bundle of money.
Lord knows, he has enough challenges without having to address any old, outside issues.
It doesn’t mean they’ll go away, especially if he makes the team. Or someday becomes a star.
Then it’ll be how he made it despite the rocky times he went through in college. And despite not being taken in the 2004 draft, which, no doubt, had to do with those rocky times.
“Exactly,” Farmer said.
That’s as close as he came to talking about the past, though we did brush up against it one other time.
I asked him what he thought he was capable of doing in the NFL. “Hey, that’s for me to know and for everybody else to find out,” he said.
Reminded that we found out something about him when he led the Pac-10 in rushing as a sophomore, he said, “They got only glimpses. That’s how I look at it.”
How good was he in college? He left Arizona as the sixth-leading Wildcat rusher of all time (2,530 yards).
“He was unbelievably physically gifted,” said John Moredich, who covered the Wildcats for the Tucson Citizen.
Former UA assistant coach Scott Pelluer, now on the University of Washington staff, has seen some outstanding running backs in his time – guys like the Huskies’ Corey Dillon and Willie Hurst – and puts Farmer “right there with the best of them.”
Pelluer, who spent two years at Arizona as the linebackers coach and special teams coordinator, inferred that Farmer was vastly underused. “I thought he was a real talent,” Pelluer said. “He needed to have the ball 30 times a game.” Instead, in 33 games during his four-year playing career (he didn’t redshirt), Farmer averaged less than 16 carries a game.
Imagine what he might have done had he not missed eight games as a junior because of a season-ending knee injury or been kicked off the team with four games remaining in his senior season.
“If he were (playing) under Stoops,” Moredich said, referring to new Wildcats coach Mike Stoops, “he’d make All-American.”
As it was, Farmer’s most noteworthy achievement was earning first-team All-Pac 10 as a sophomore when he led the league in rushing with 1,229 yards and almost 6 yards a carry.
One image of Farmer that sticks in Pelluer’s mind: “He made four or five runs where he’d started one way and everything was all jammed up, then he turned around and went the other way and scored.”
So what’s so unusual about that?
“I’m a running back,” the 6-foot, 218-pound Farmer said offhandedly. “I’m supposed to score. In the heat of the battle, running backs score, receivers catch, quarterbacks throw and hand off the ball, and the defense hits. The game is that simple, but it’s more complex. But my object is to score and to keep the chains moving.”
They say when his mind was completely on the game, he could do about anything he wanted to do.
“Pretty much,” he said. “Pretty much.”
Whooey, is this kid cocky or what?
“I consider myself confident,” he said. “Now other people’s perceptions of my confidence, that’s their opinion. But I know what I’m capable of doing and I have the heart to believe in what I’m doing. That’s just my take on it.”
His take on his relationship with Mackovic, he wouldn’t get into. But from everything you hear and read, they didn’t hit it off at all. Didn’t like one another.
“He didn’t quite jibe with the head coach,” Pelluer said, “and he didn’t get along with the running backs coach (Jay Boulware).”
Pelluer, on the other hand, regarded Farmer as a “great kid.” And Farmer’s teammates reportedly liked and respected him. “He was one of those kids who would tell Mackovic exactly what he thought,” Pelluer said. “There was no doubt he was a leader on that team.”
Farmer wasn’t the only player who had issues with the head coach. Two years ago, the UA had a revolt on its hands as more than 40 players met with the school president to air their complaints about Mackovic over mistreatment.
Mackovic promised to do better and apparently did, but he ultimately got fired after a 1-4 start last year. Three games later, interim coach Mike Hankwitz dismissed Farmer from the team for tardiness.
Now, Farmer has another chance. This one’s about career. Fame. Money. And all that good stuff.
He acknowledges that he faces a big challenge in making this team. “It’s a numbers game,” said Stump Mitchell, the Seahawks running backs coach. “If it happens for him, I’m happy. If it doesn’t happen for him, then I have three other talented tailbacks.
“But he is a talent, definitely someone I would like to coach because I think this kid can do some great things.”
He isn’t the only one who thinks “this kid” can do some great things. “I’m grateful that I’m here,” Farmer said. “If I play on the practice squad, that’s still a step in the process of becoming a great back. It’s that simple.”
Just merely confident, eh?
I mentioned to him that I’d heard he can do a backward flip from a standing position.
And jump over a five-foot barrier without a running start.
“I can kick a backboard, too,” he said.
I didn’t ask him to demonstrate.
The look in his eye and the way he said it convinced me.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.