Foster was one nobody wanted

His instincts on Mason Foster’s potential had long since proven accurate.

Still, as Al Avila, Foster’s high-school football coach watched his former player pull off the Miracle Heard Round Montlake on Saturday, he recalled the days when he couldn’t get college recruiters interested in his star player.

“I’d tell people, ‘Man, this kid can play. Why is no one taking a chance on him or looking at him?’ ” Avila said. “They just wouldn’t bite. He was like the best-kept secret around.”

Foster’s not a secret anymore. Not after Saturday, when the junior turned in one of the most memorable plays in Huskies history. His 37-yard interception of a deflected pass with 2:37 left lifted Washington to an improbable 36-33 Pac-10 victory over Arizona.

The interception was the No. 2 Play of the Day on ESPN’s SportsCenter and helped earn Foster the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Week award.

Foster doesn’t mind the attention, but he also remembers those days when he wasn’t getting any.

“Coming from a small city where a lot of guys didn’t make it, I try to take it upon myself to show that we can do it from Seaside,” he said.

Until coming to UW, Foster lived his entire life in Seaside, which has a population of about 32,000 on California’s Monterey peninsula. He grew up in a tight-knit family, with both of his grandmothers living two blocks away.

“He was real blessed to have a strong family background,” Avila said.

Avila remembers seeing Foster in youth baseball leagues.

“He was a little, pudgy kid hitting baseballs all over the place,” the coach recalled of the player who is now 6-foot-2, 244 pounds. “But then he just grew into his body.”

Foster played wherever Seaside needed him, including playing quarterback as a senior. He passed for two touchdowns and ran for another as the school of 1,100 won the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Central Coast Section small-school championship.

Still, despite earning an armload of high-school honors, college recruiters were skeptical.

Yet former Husky assistant Tim Lappano, remembering a few past sleepers from the Monterey peninsula, decided to check out Seaside.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I asked his coach who was recruiting him and he said nobody,” Lappano said two years ago. “I saw the kid physically and I said, ‘Wow, this kid’s a Pac-10 football player.’ ”

No other Pac-10 school offered Foster a scholarship until word spread that UW had. Even nearby San Jose State, where Foster’s father had gone to school, wasn’t initially sold. Only when Mason Foster gave an oral commitment to Washington, did the Spartans finally make an offer.

“I had good years all through high school and they didn’t want to take a chance on me,” Foster said. “I lived 30 minutes down the street and they didn’t offer me a scholarship.”

Defensive coordinator Nick Holt thinks Foster’s experience as a high school quarterback helps.

“They are football smart and they understand concepts better than most,” Holt said.

Saturday, it paid off in a play that should be remembered as long as football is played at Washington.