College Sports, June 1996


Bad Breaks Haven't Slowed Notre Dame Quarterback RON POWLUS' Quest For Perfection in a Place That Accepts Nothing Less

- by David Seigerman



If Ron Powlus had one complaint about his personal Fortress of Solitude, it would have to be the gas mileage. Twenty highway miles per gallon can make for one expensive getaway vehicle, especially when the owner has frequent need to get away. But affordability is of little concern when the pressure comes. Like campaign-trail politicians and substitute teachers, a quarterback must anticipate an attack before it arrives, before it blasts through this protective pocket and swallows him alive.

Fortunately, Powlus is a quarterback with wheels. And a stereo system. When it comes time for Powlus to scramble from the worst pressure he faces as the Notre Dame quarterback, his refuge is his Ford Explorer, the one his parents sent him back to school in midway through his freshman year, the one with the four-wheel drive that his mother demanded so she wouldn't have to worry when her son drives home during harsh Pennsylvania winters. Most people have a hard time finding the busy part of South Bend, Ind., any time other than a football Saturday, but sometimes the Explorer is the only place where the Notre Dame quarterback can escape. He closes himself in, settles into the cushy captain's chair, fiddles through the all-you-can-stomach country music buffet that is northern Indiana radio and slips his Ford into drive.

He doesn't cruise to get anywhere in particular, the mere act of driving is enough. It doesn't matter if it's the four-lane capillaries (arteries would imply a much larger system) that makes up South Bend or those winding, restricted-vision rural highways that take travelers uphill from the Susquehanna River, through Berwick, Pa, and deposit them in the Appalachians. Heck, it could be the 8 1/2 hours of interstate that connects Ron Powlus, Notre Dame quarterback, to Ron Powlus, son/friend/neighbor/hero. Inside the Explorer is Powlus' autocracy, a world with comfortable headroom in which he is in total control.

"I like to go for rides and spend time being alone with myself," said Powlus, titling his head in surprise at the redundancy of his own words, as if hearing them reaffirmed their importance. "People think I'm nuts, but it gives me time to get away. There's nobody asking me questions, nobody bothering me, nothing going on but exactly what I want to go on, what songs I want on the radio, what I want to think about, what I want to look at. I don't have anybody asking, 'How's the arm?' or what I think of the team. It's just me, by myself, and I don't have a lot of those places or times left."

If that sounds a little cynical for a 21 year old, it would be justifiable. Few athletes face more pressure at a younger age than a Notre Dame quarterback, and few Notre Dame quarterbacks have ever endured what Powlus has in his first three years of college. Did Paul Hornung play every game of his career on national television? Was John Huarte lavished with dozens of High School Player of the Year honors only to arrive on campus as a freshman saddled by predictions that he would go on to win two Heisman Trophies? Did Joe Montana ever return to his dorm room after a national magazine disclosed his e-mail address to find that there wasn't enough memory left on his drive to perform even the basic task of opening one of the 600 new messages from fans in cyberspace.

But do not misunderstand Ron Powlus. He does not dislike the pressure or even wish it away. He knew exactly what he was getting into from the moment he stepped onto the tree-lined quad and saw the spire of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart pointing skyward like some perpetual "We're No. 1" sign. Through every subsequent minute of that whirlwind tour of Midwest campuses he took as a high school junior with his dad, his coach and a teammate. Powlus weighed every school that followed against his love-at-first-sight with Notre Dame. And even after he figured out years later that he really had not known what he was getting into by accepting a scholarship to play quarterback at Notre Dame--that his life would become more intense than any warning could ever have prepared him for, Powlus still has never entertained even a fleeting thought that he would be happier playing football somewhere else. If you want to bathe in sunlight, you have to acknowledge the risk of getting burned, and it remains Ron Powlus' plan to emerge as college football's golden boy.

"The expectations were outrageous when I got here, but I loved it. I wanted to do everything people wanted me to," Powlus said. "I wanted to win the two Heismans and two national championships and never lose a game and set 15,000 records. I said, 'Fine, bring it on, bring it all on. Bring on every prediction you have. Let me know what you want, I'll do it.' I'd rather people say I was going to do great things than expect bad things."

Who could possibly have expected bad things from Ron Powlus? He had a perfect senior season at Berwick High, both personally (2,943 passing yards, 31 passing touchdowns, plus 677 yards and 20 touchdowns rushing) and as the main ingredient for a team that went 15-0 and won an actual state title to go with a mythical USA Today national crown. He was the first high school football player ever to speak on the floor of the Pennsylvania State Senate. He shook the congratulatory hand of President Clinton. He and his teammates were guests of honor at Scranton-Wilkes Barre Red Barons minor league baseball games and tossed footballs with the drivers before the Pocono 500.

He was considered the best quarterback entering college in 1993--the best college-bound player period--and was going to the country's most visible program to write his own chapters into a book of achievement that often borders on fiction. And he was well on his way to challenging the imaginations of even the fightingest of Irish supporters. "Sure, I can see leprechauns dancing around the stadium . . . but a true freshman starting quarterback for Notre Dame? You've gotta be pulling my shillelagh."

But sure enough, there was Ron Powlus, on campus only a few weeks and already scaling the depth chart like he was running the bleachers. He phoned his father, Ron Sr., early into two-a-days and said, "Dad, I'm second-team but I'm starting to take more snaps with the first unit." Then came more snaps with the starters and more up-dating phone calls and then more and more of both until finally Powlus had all but officially surpassed senior Kevin McDougal as the first-string quarterback. "Then the Wednesday before their last scrimmage, he called me and told me, 'Dad, I'm starting against Northwestern.' Coach [Lou] Holtz had pulled him aside after practice and told him." Ron Sr. said, "That Saturday is when it happened."

What happened is Ron Powlus crashed to earth. The pressure--talking strictly in a sense best explained by a physics expert--got to him. During a series against the first-team defense in that final scrimmage, the irresistible force of Jim Flanigan and Bryant Young introduced the freshman to the immovable object that was the ground and the something that had to give was Powlus' collarbone. "If he would have landed on his back or his belly, he would have gotten right up and walked away," Notre Dame head trainer Jim Russ said. "but, at the last minute, he turned or they turned him and he twisted enough to break his collarbone. It was just perfect positioning for it to happen like that." Strange, but even in tragedy, the kid was somehow perfect.

For someone whose medical history included little more than a a sprained ankle, the injury was nearly unbearable, not so much from the pain but from the disappointment. He'd gone from rookie to starter to sidelines just like that. "That was tough on him," said senior nose guard David Quist, Powlus' roommate this school year. "He came in here being the savior for Notre Dame football."

You don't hear that word tossed around that campus too often, but Powlus' arrival drew second-coming reception. The only problem was he couldn't substantiate the hype. A small break in his right clavicle--not career-threatening by any stretch but most definitely season-costing--and suddenly he had no way to prove himself to the coaches who recruited him or the fans who devoured all recruiting paraphernalia that mentioned the kid from Berwick with the thunder-shaking right arm. He had no way to respond when the first critics began to circle above the wounded savior.

"The first time I heard something bad about me, it was like, 'Oh man, how can he think that? I've got to talk to this guy and change his mind about me,'" Powlus recalled.

There was to be no mind-changing until his sophmore season, and then there was to be plenty. In his first college game, Powlus tied a school-record by throwing four touchdown passes against Northwestern. He went on to set a Notre Dame record with 19 TDs in 1994 and helped the Irish complete more passes than in any previous single season.

Ahhh, but this is South Bend, and the only numbers that truly mattered were 6-5-1--the Irish's second season of single-digit wins since '87. Suddenly, the savior became the scapegoat.

No problem, Powlus thought. With a year underhis belt, he would make 1995 the year Notre Dame returned triumphantly to the top. Though the season started with a then-stunning loss to Northwestern, the Irish slowly came together. By the time they dismembered USC, 38-10, it was obvious Powlus was comfortable in the dirver's seat and he had Notre Dame cruising in the right direction.

"You want to have confidence in every facet of your team, and in the USC game, we did," Powlus said. "When a team is unselfish like that, it doesn't matter who has the ball. It was fun. Everything flowed so nice."

The joy ride didn't last long. In the third quarter of Notre Dame's last home game, Powlus went down awkwardly as he was sacked by Navy's Fernando Harris. At first, he thought he'd separated his left shoulder, but he was able to move the joint normally as he lay on the Notre Dame Stadium grass waiting for the trainers to reach him. Then he lifted his hand to see if perhaps the injury was in his forearm or wrist--that's when he noticed that part of his upper arm was not moving in concert with the rest of the limb. X-rays later showed a fracture in Powlus' humerus about four inches above the elbow. Once again, it took a perfect landing for Powlus to avoid a joint injury and the kind of ligament damage that usually accompanies one. This was described as more of a "car-accident injury," just an old-fashioned broken bone--once again, there was no danger to his career but, once again, his season was over prematurely.

"It was more fustrating this time because things were going so good," Powlus said. "I was a lot more a part of this team this time than I was the first time."

This time had been different, Instead of watching from the wings as his teammates--in name only, really, because the freshman hadn't completed the bonding process before being sidetracked by the first injury--came within reach of the national championship he was supposed to lead them to, he played an active role from the sidelines. He became Thomas Krug's biggest fan and spoke with his replacement after every series during Notre Dame's regular-season-ender against Air Force and its heartbreaking Orange Bowl loss to Florida State. "It ws really important having him there for me because it made everything normal," said Krug, the No. 1 quarterback while Powlus missed spring practice who will return to his reliever's role once Powlus returns to health. "It was the same team going out to play football, and it was one of us playing and the other one there to talk to, only it was the other one playing and the other one talking this time."

This time, Powlus hasn't questioned Russ' rehab program. Or at least this time he's smart enough not to get caught. After the initial injury, Russ was running on the Loftus Center track when he spotted Powlus tossing a ball with a teammate. Every lap Russ took, he peered over and saw the freshman throwing more and further than before. Eventually, Russ took a detour to explain rather colorfully to his patient that such activities were off-limits. "He didn't understand my cautious advice," Russ said. "He wasn't being defiant; he was saying, 'Gee, I feel good. I want to try some things.' But there was a learning process--how do you act when you're hurt? There was a lot of frustration and anxiety, but he's past that now. He is really a perfect patient."

There's that word again--perfect. Maybe it takes a perfect kid to remain unshaken first by all the positive things that happened in high school and then by the misfortune that has cluttered his college career. Maybe it's that Powlus has the perfect temperment to ride the rollercoaster and, as everyone looks on, keep his balance and not walk away queasy.

But then it's easy not to be shaken when you're supported by a strong foundation. Roots run deep in Berwick, a one-time industrial town surrounded on all sides by coal country. Immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Russia and the Slavic countries settled together several generations ago and many families--including Powlus'--have been fixtures ever since. It's a town where careers are passed from father to son, though many more sons have managed to avoid the path leading from Crispin Field, the Berwick Bulldog's home stadium, across the street to the American Car & Foundry factory that belches black smoke and yellow flame from its belly even as the country's best high school football team practices no more than a makeable third-down conversion away.

Football is also a matter of legacy in Berwick, though Powlus represents perhaps the most notable break in tradition in town history. His father once wore No. 99, the jersey awarded to the star fullback, the proudest position at Berwick before coach George Curry arrived and started churning out college-caliber quarterbacks faster than the AC&F turned out railroad cars and tanks for World War II. Until a special Saturday tryout for all seventh-graders hoping to one day play quarterback for the bulldogs, Ron Powlus Jr. was ticketed to be fit for No. 99. "What happens in these towns is that whatever the father played is what the kid winds up playing," Curry said. "I knew Ron's dad was a great fullback, but I told Ronnie to go home and tell his father he's no longer a fullback. I was gonna make him a quarterback."

Powlus flourished so quickly in his new position that his father quit his job as football coach at a nearby high school, taking over the basketball program instead so he'd have football Fridays free to watch his boy. Powlus' mother, Susan, helped form The Mom Squad, which brought sandwiches and sausages and cakes on the road trips for their yes-sir, no-ma'am sons to eat in the parking lot before driving back home together to Berwick. His sister, Christine, even scheduled her wedding around a Bulldogs home game.

You don't come from such a place only to fold in the face of adversity when you leave the city limits. So, when Powlus suffered his second injury and had an 11-inch rod inserted along the broken bone, he didn't think twice about the overreaction that swept the nation of Notre Dame fans. He didn't flinch when he received mail asking him why his bones were so britttle and advising him to drink more milk. Was there so much as a double-take when he opened envelopes and various herbal remedies spilled out? Not a chance. Such was life under the microscope for the Notre Dame quarterback, the life he had chosen for himself and remains unfailingly glad he did.

"As a Notre Dame football player, everybody is watching you and cares about what you do. They don't even have to be a football fan, but they watch what you're doing," Powlus said. "Notre Dame is news, one way or the other."

That means for every incident blown way out of proportion (Powlus slammed his helmet to the ground during the Boston College game only to read in two local newspapers the next day that he'd kicked it off the wall of the stands in a fit of anger) There's another incident blown way out of proportion. "Somebody stopped me in Loftus once and asked me for a picture with their kid. Two weeks later, they send you a newspaper clipping from their hometown and there's a big article with the picture about how you took time out of your day for them," Powlus said. "It's definitely blown out of proportion, but that's why we're all here at Notre Dame. We all want to be part of something huge."

That may sound strange coming from a student whose responses to a 20-question survey in an upper-level consumer relations class labeled him a genuine, card-carrying introvert--his responses were a perfect 20-for-20. Then again, this is the quarterback hand-picked to lead his high school (done) and college (not yet) teams to national championships. "I'd like to get some of those feelings on this field that we had at Berwick," Powlus said. "In high school, we went into every game thinking, 'How dare this team come in here and think they could beat us. How dare they?' It was like they insulted us by even showing up. There was a feeling of greatness every time we walked onto the field. I think this team here has to get that attitude."

If anyone can deliver the goods, it's Powlus, who signs so many balls and t-shirts and cap brims for fans and friends and friends of fans that Quist compared him to Santa. This fall, though, it will be Powlus on the receiving end of a special present--the Irish offense, giftwrapped and tailored to fit perfectly his special abilities. "We're not going to showcase Ron Powlus, but utilizing his talents better will give us a better chance to be successful," Holtz said.

They don't break tradition often in SouthBend, either. But how often do you have a Ron Powlus at your disposal? How often do you have a kid who once, as a 10-year-old, pegged a rabbit with a nerf football from 30 yards away, a kid who only got in trouble when he'd bomb his mother's birdhouses with snowballs from impressive distances, a kid who in less than two full seasons already ranks among Notre Dame's all-time leaders in passing yards and touchdowns?

When you have a kid like that, you over-haul your pedestrian offense into a fully loaded, all-terrain cruiser, you hand him the keys and say, "Take me home, son."

"Berwick was perfect, but that was such a long time ago and I can't wait to get back to that situation," Powlus said. "I'm planning that this year is the time. It's time for me to get back on top, for Notre Dame to get back on top, for every one of these players here to get back on top, for Coach Holtz to get back on top. It's time for the Notre Dame football program to realize where it should be."