Boose Well Worth The Risk

With a flick of the PC featherduster, several popular disparagements have been sanitized under the handy all-purpose label of “at risk.”

Parents fret about at-risk teens. Wire services helpfully flag stories with potential appeal for “at-risk” readers - no clear definition of which exists, though anyone with access to MTV or a Sony Play Station comes to mind.

And at Washington State University, there is a football program with the reputation as a haven for the at-risk - though some of those risks are, in truth, no risk at all.

We are thinking of Dorian Boose.

Certainly he is no risk athletically, as anyone who saw the big defensive end swallow a fumble last weekend against Colorado and run it 94 yards to the end zone will attest. Academically, well, if he doesn’t always run with the cum laude crowd, he does have an associates degree which in two years he’ll upgrade to another diploma.

So the risk is where? Socially? Spiritually?

Tell them where you met your wife, Dorian.

“In church, actually,” he said. “She used to sit behind me in the choir. During fellowship times, we used to shake hands for a long time and do goo-goo-eyed things. They’d have to tell us to sit down before we’d stop shaking hands. We’d say, ‘Oh, oh, we’ve got to sit down now.’ “

Uh-huh. Too long with the fellowship handshake. Keep your eye on this guy, pastor.

Yes, the Cougars have taken some chances over the years - necessary ones, coach Mike Price has decided, if they are to attract the kind of talent necessary to compete in the Pacific-10 Conference. There are a half-dozen players on the roster now who sat out a year as Prop 48 casualties, and another half dozen from the last signing period who didn’t qualify academically. Others took a junior college detour before winding up here.

We’ll not argue that all of them are - what did our old high school counselor call it? - college material.

Nor can we abide the mentality that equates Scholastic Aptitude Test scores with scripture, and applies an arbitrary standard to brand Dorian Boose not only as a risk but an unacceptable one.

“When you look at him as a person, as a guy who works as hard as he does and has his priorities in place,” said Larry Lewis, who coaches the defensive ends at WSU, “there is no risk. It’s going to work out.”

Heck, it already has.

On the periphery of the Cougar program, we’ve been hearing Boose’s name dropped for years as a player of potential impact, but actually he’s right on schedule. Three years ago, when he was recruited here out of high school, the Cougars didn’t really need him - the Palouse Posse was riding high in the Pac-10. Last fall, after he’d done his time at Walla Walla Community College, he was threatening to make a tough decision for Lewis and Price even tougher before a broken foot ended his season.

“Frankly, we didn’t want to play him last year,” admitted Lewis. “At that point, he’d improved enough that with some weight training, we knew he’d have two real good years if we could redshirt him. Otherwise, he probably would have struggled physically and now he’d be a senior.”

Let’s talk about the physical stuff because, well, obviously that’s what got Boose noticed in the first place. He stands 6-foot-6 and at Foss High School in Tacoma played everything but the tuba.

“I was more of a skill guy,” he said. “I played outside linebacker, DB, corner, safety, inside backer, receiver, tight end. I even punted. I led the Narrows League in punting.”

The one stat he couldn’t solve was the SAT. At the time, a score of 700 would have qualified him for a Division I scholarship.

“I kept getting the same score - 680,” he said. “It got discouraging. I wondered, if I couldn’t pass those tests, how could I possibly make it in school?”

Oregon wondered the same thing and bailed. That WSU didn’t abandon the cause pretty much made it a lock that, in time, Boose would be a Cougar.

“I knew when the chips were down,” Boose said, “they had me back.”

But first - after working at a Tacoma refinishing shop for a year - he would be a Warrior at WWCC, the rare college athlete who could start for both the football and basketball teams. Doing both kept him from adding to his 220 pounds, but his speed (4.5 in the 40) made it worth the weight. WWCC coach Mike Levens even let him run back punts on occasion.

“There can be some letdowns for a (Division I recruit) who comes to a JC,” Levens said. “One is looking at a full scholarship from a four-year school and then having to pay your way to come here. Dorian didn’t have an extra penny the whole time he was here, but he got by and never complained.

“And a lot of kids come and think they’ll just show up and play. Dorian didn’t have that attitude. He had his goals established and was pretty mature.” And now even more so. Lewis credits his marriage. Boose called the forced redshirt year “a blessing in disguise,” allowing him to get stronger and learn the system. Now up to nearly 280 pounds, Boose couldn’t be blocked in either spring or fall drills and only a smidgen of the speed has disappeared. Though the second 40 of that fumble return last week was a good deal slower than his first 4.7.

Still, it gave the Cougs one good memory to take away from an otherwise discouraging afternoon, with promise of better memories ahead. For Boose, that will include the birth of his first child; Brenda Boose’s due date is Nov. 26, three days after the Apple Cup.

“I tell the coaches I’ll have to wear a beeper at practice,” Boose said. “We’re pushing it kind of close.”

Just one of those risks you don’t mind taking.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review