Second in a series
The 1980 class of the BYU football team was Most discussions about the 1980 BYU team are usually centered on one of two things: the Holiday Bowl or Jim McMahon's amazing season in which he broke 70 NCAA records.
What is often lost in the discussion is that the recruiting class of 1980 was, in my humble opinion, the best recruiting class that ever suited up for BYU, before or since. It's simply unmatched.
Two members of our class are in the College Football Hall of Fame and were named consensus All-Americans (Steve Young and Gordon Hudson). Of course, Steve is also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a two-time league MVP and a Super Bowl MVP.
Five members of our class were drafted to the NFL, three of them No. 1 picks — Young (Tampa Bay), Hudson (Seattle) and linebacker Todd Shell (49ers).
Four members of the 1980 recruiting class played in Super Bowl XXIII — two per side, just for balance: Young and Shell with San Francisco and linebacker Leon White and punter Lee Johnson for Cincinnati.
Leon White was drafted in the fifth round to Cincinnati and played six years with the Bengals.
Shell played six years and won two Super Bowls with San Francisco after they drafted him with the 24th overall pick in the first round in 1984.
Hudson played two years in the USFL but injuries limited him to only one in the NFL for Seattle, who used a No. 1 pick in the supplemental draft, 22nd overall, to take him.
Fullback Bruce Hansen from American Fork played a year in the NFL as a free agent with New England.
I was drafted in the 10th round by the Cardinals, later with the Packers and Eagles in eight NFL seasons and went to two Pro Bowls.
Steve played 15 years in the NFL and two in the USFL. He was named to seven Pro Bowls.
But Steve wasn't even the longest-tenured NFL player in the recruiting class of 1980.
That would be punter/kicker Lee Johnson, who was drafted in the fifth round by Houston and played 21 years in the NFL. Brett Favre is now in his 20th, for perspective.
Members of the 1980 class also made up the core of the 1984 national championship team: DE Jim Hermmann, LB Leon White and OL Robert Anae were captains on that team. Lesser known but no less valuable were O-linemen Keith McCullough, David Wright and Scott Robinson, WR Kurt Pendleton, father of current starting LB Jordan Pendleton and father-in-law of Austin Collie. There was DL Brad Smith, TE David Mills and RB Waymon Hamilton, who was the most highly recruited player in our class. Every one of them started for BYU during their careers.
Halfback Kelly Smith, a 1980 freshman class walk-on from Beaver, Utah, caught the game-winning TD against Michigan in the Holiday Bowl that clinched the national championship.
I share all that to describe how ultra-competitive, and the atmosphere was charged when and charged the atmosphere was when we first gathered as freshmen.
Every practice was cutthroat; no one wanted to get beat, drop a ball or miss a block. It wasn't even the coaches that we feared, although offensive coordinator Doug Scovil and wide receivers coach Norm Chow could stare a laser beam through your soul for a missed assignment. No one wanted to draw Jim McMahon's ire. Or disappoint LaVell Edwards. It was a dog-eat-dog environment that required your best every day. Frankly, a few withdrew and left school or just simply walked out of camp.
Though there were days when I certainly wanted to do that, I had little to return home to.
My father was a high school security guard and my mother worked 12-hour shifts as a seamstress. Together, they never made more than $25,000 a year. I left home with their hopes and prayers that I'd make something of my life. I was very much aware of that and carried with me the burden of their dreams.
Because my dad worked for the public school system, he had to find summer jobs. He and I would canvass wealthy homes in East Mesa and Scottsdale, Ariz., with fliers of our fledgling landscaping business. We had a mower, an edger and clippers to trim bushes; ours was a skeleton two-man crew.
One day, I vividly remember my father getting berated by a man in the posh suburb of Paradise Valley, who wasn't happy with our work for some reason. While I pretended to tinker with the mower, my dad stood there nodding politely, apologized profusely then reached into his shirt pocket and returned the man's check. To my amazement, the man kept the check. It couldn't have been more than a hundred dollars, but it was a sizable amount to us.
My dad is the toughest man I've ever known, yet as a boy, it was difficult for me to watch someone emasculate him in my presence. I was embarrassed for him and wondered why he didn't just punch the guy in the mouth.
But over the years, as I matured and had more empathy for his circumstances, my dad was never more dignified and gallant than at that moment. On our quiet drive home that afternoon, he said to me softly in Tongan, "Alu o ako." "Go to school." He didn't have to elaborate, I knew exactly what he meant and why he was saying it.
When LaVell Edwards came to my high school for his initial recruiting visit, my dad was also there because he was the school security guard. After LaVell made his scholarship offer official, my dad reached across the desk to accept on my behalf with a handshake, then a hug and said in his broken English, "Goach, my zon weel be All-American." LaVell just smiled. I was mortified.
Though I sometimes struggled with self-esteem and on occasion, the English language, I was always confident in my athletic ability, in part because of the grueling training my father put me through as a boy in his quest to make me the heavyweight champion of the world. My dad is 5-foot-10 and even now at 70, he's still built like a college fullback at 220 pounds. Not expecting me to be any bigger, he taught me to fight, ironically enough, "Philly style."
Joe Frazier, who hails from Philly and has become a friend, was the model. Short, stocky and powerful, Mike Tyson also incorporated the same style in winning the title years later. The tactic wasn't sophisticated. Engage and smother the opponent quickly to remove his height advantage, disrupt his timing and slowly take his will. This required hours of work and training on my footwork to effectively cut off escape routes and exit strategies by methodically moving forward, never retreating, all the while firing shots from the core — meaning my legs and midsection — to the opponent's torso and then the head. Many of my matches ended early because I became extremely proficient at it from running five miles daily and doing thousands of push-ups and sit-ups. The routine was so regimented that it fostered in me a single-minded focus — at least, athletically.
I was a classic counter-puncher, so making people miss was my forte. I was taught to bob and weave, turn the shoulder slightly to avoid the jab, then dip inside to pull the trigger with the left hook.
The job description is nearly identical for returning punts. You gotta have the nerves of a cat burglar and perhaps his stupidity, be fearless in the face of oncoming traffic, look the ball in and then bob and weave to make defenders miss.
Near the end of my freshman year, the team's punt returner and starting halfback, Homer Jones, pulled his hamstring. Because the ball is live on a punt and so many decisions have to made instantaneously (Is it catchable? Do I fair catch? Do I let it bounce into the end zone? Do I have room to make a play? etc., etc.) and field position is so critical, it's typically not a job given to college freshmen or NFL rookies.
The most important characteristic in a punt returner — more so than speed and quickness — is sound judgment. He's gotta make good decisions.
So it was rather fortuitous when LaVell handed me the job of returning punts and kicks just before the Holiday Bowl. Unbeknownst to Coach Edwards, I was already in the process of making an important decision: whether to serve a mission or stay and play.
I had planned to tell LaVell in January when I returned to school. And of course, after the Holiday Bowl.
From the opening kickoff of Holiday Bowl III, it seemed as if we were running in sand and SMU was on a tartan track. By late in the second quarter, we were trailing 29-7. We somehow held their vaunted "Pony Express" offense for one series and forced them to punt just before halftime. I retreated 45 yards or so to give myself plenty of room anticipating a booming punt. Instead, the punter shanked it short about 30 yards. As it bounced, it took an unusually high arc and by then, the SMU players had all turned their backs to me and circled the ball, waiting as they always do, to follow the roll until it dies.
In an instant, I calculated it was only a few minutes before the half and we were so far behind it wouldn't matter much if I were to muff it, but if I could catch the ball in full stride as it descended without their knowing as their backs were to me, I may just score. Or, I'd get flattened, fumble and they'd recover.
I went for it. Caught it in stride as the SMU defenders were all standing flat-footed in a semi-circle.
Eighty-three yards later, I was dancing in the end zone — never mind we were still trailing badly 29-13.
The ending of the game is well chronicled. My contribution was just as important as Jim McMahon's and Clay Brown's, just not as memorable — which is the way it should be.
Though I had been prayerful and studious in my pursuit of an answer whether to serve a mission, I was suddenly overcome with pangs of doubt because of my Holiday Bowl heroics.
Those doubts lingered after the bowl when I received a hero's welcome by nearly everyone in my hometown. I had finished the Book of Mormon and had gained a conviction of its truths. But my commitment to serve a mission would still waver slightly, it seemed, each time someone commended or lauded me for my performance in the Holiday Bowl.
When I returned to Provo in January and shared my dilemma with Coach Edwards and equipment manager/team chaplain Floyd Johnson, I was stunned to receive an unbelievable offer.
An audience with the prophet: President Spencer W. Kimball.
Stay tuned.
Vai Sikahema is the sports director and anchor for NBC10 Philadelphia and host of the "Vai & Gonzo Show" on ESPN Philadelphia Radio. He is a two-time All-Pro, two-time Emmy Award winner and was a member of BYU's 1984 National Championship team.
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