Stage-setter

Rick Worman never quite felt completely at home during his three-year stay at Eastern Washington University.

A first-year transfer from Fresno State, Worman arrived on the EWU campus in the fall of 1983, hoping to recharge a flagging college football career that had been short- circuited that spring when Fresno State coach Jim Sweeney brought in his son, Kevin, to take over as the Bulldogs’ quarterback.

Upon arriving in Cheney, Worman quickly realized he had little in common with his Eastern teammates, many of whom had grown up in small towns in the Pacific Northwest. He and offensive lineman Dave Flutts, a transfer from USC, were the only players from southern California.

“I can tell you, I wasn’t really close friends with those guys at the time,” recalled Worman, 44, who recently wrapped up his first season as quarterbacks coach for the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Eskimos. “It was a little different feeling for Dave and myself.

“Being the only two players from southern California, we didn’t have any high school memories to share like those other guys, who were always talking about playing against each other in high school.”

Still, Worman and Flutts managed to somehow find a common competitive ground on which to stand with their small-town teammates. And as seniors, in the fall of 1985, they helped the Eagles and their legendary coach, Dick Zornes, put together a masterpiece of a season that was painted on a canvas of turmoil.

Worman remembers the unrest that cloaked the campus as many of the school’s administrators locked horns with then- president H. George Frederickson over his decision to loosen the university’s purse strings and take the former NAIA institution up to the NCAA Division I level in hopes of becoming a member of the Big Sky Conference.

Eastern, after joining the D-I ranks and finishing 7-2-1 in 1984, was snubbed by the Sky that following spring.

But come the fall of ‘85, Worman and his teammates kicked open the BSC’s door by putting together a 9-3 season that included a wild 42-38 win over Big Sky regular-season champion Idaho in the Eagles’ first-ever NCAA Division I-AA playoff appearance.

It was an unlikely triumph that not only avenged a 42-21 regular-season loss to the Vandals, but also proved to the Eagles’ many doubters that they deserved a chair at the NCAA’s Division I table.

And it produced Worman’s most cherished memory of his days in Cheney.

“That game was a summary of our whole season,” recalled Worman, who burned the Vandals for 354 yards through the air and three touchdown passes – including the game-winner to Eric Riley with 12 seconds left – in that memorable rematch.

“Everybody doubted us coming into the playoffs, just like they had doubted us coming into the season. But we all had this big chip on our shoulders to prove that we could play

“Personally, I had a lot to prove – to myself, first and foremost, and then to my coaches and teammates. Here I was, still the new guy who nobody really knew. And to be able to go onto that stage and compete with those guys in their arena is still my greatest memory.”

The Eagles found themselves in a seemingly hopeless situation against UI when the Vandals kicked a field goal to take a 38-35 lead with just 63 seconds left in the game.

“We were down but we weren’t out, just like we had been so many other times during the regular season,” Worman said. “And there was never any doubt – in any of our minds, at least – that we were going to be able to go back out and score on that last drive.”

The Eagles’ decisive drive started inauspiciously with Worman firing back-to- back incompletion from his own 10-yard line. But on third down, he connected with Jamie Townsend on a nifty little screen pass that turned into a 73-yard gain. And on the next play, from the Vandals’ 17, Worman avoided a heavy rush and hit Riley with the winner.

“The play most people remember was the screen pass to Jamie,” Worman said, “but what was most interesting to me, personally, was the touchdown pass I threw to Eric to win it.”

Worman recalls rolling toward Idaho’s bench in an effort to avoid a defender and getting the pass off just before being knocked out of bounds and into the arms of Vandals coach Dennis Erickson.

“Basically, Dennis caught me,” Worman explained. “He was obviously disappointed for his team that we had scored right then, but he looked and me and said, ‘That was a helluva throw, kid.’

“The guy was a true professional, and he told me after that game that if there was ever anything he could help me with to let him know. He was actually the one who encouraged me to look to the CFL as an opportunity, because it had worked out for his previous quarterback, Ken Hobart.”

The Eagles lost to Northern Iowa in the quarterfinals of the playoffs the following weekend and Worman went on to play professionally for three different teams during a six-year career in the Canadian Football League. He threw for 8,577 yards and 55 touchdowns. He later spent several seasons as an assistant coach and scout in the CFL before serving one year (2002) as head coach of the expansion Fresno Frenzy in the arenafootball2 league.

He returned to his alma mater two years ago when he and his teammates on that 1985 team were inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.

But nothing he accomplished on the football field since leaving Eastern has left as lasting an impression as what the Eagles were able to do his senior year.

“Eastern Washington had never even been in the (NCAA Division I-AA) playoffs before, let alone win a game against the Big Sky champions,” said Worman, who is single and still lives in Fresno, Calif., with three teenage children from a previous marriage. “That was a big hurdle, and it’s the thing I’m most proud of, looking back.

“I would like to think we helped set the foundation for a number of the successful seasons that followed at Eastern Washington. And I think we helped prove that the Eagles were capable of competing at the I-AA level – which they still are today.”