This Eagle has landed
Sometime during the Eastern Washington football season Ryan Phillips will do something special.
If Hollywood had a hand in the script, that sometime would be Saturday when the Eagles play their home opener.
Phillips, a senior cornerback, deserves a reward for the scenic route he took to get to Cheney – two stops at junior college between aborted enrollments at Pac-10 and Big 12 schools.
“My mom told me to keep a positive attitude,” Phillips said. “Everything happens for a reason, so there is a reason why I’m supposed to be here.”
He may not know what the exact reason is yet, but there really couldn’t be a better place for the Seattle native to be on Saturday than Woodward Field because Sherryl Cox can be there to watch her son in the 6 p.m. game against Central Washington.
Before and after the game the two can draw strength from each other because Saturday is the two-year anniversary of the death of Ryan’s sister, Keena Cox, from a blood clot at the age of 27.
“It’s tough. I look at her death for inspiration,” Phillips said. “I have her name tattooed, I wear a necklace with her picture on it, on the back it says her name, RIP and One Love.
“We were always close. We had a single parent and she always looked out for me, especially with the girls.”
Sherryl Cox saw the bond between Phillips, now 21, and his sister.
“Sometimes I think he went to her before he came to me,” Cox said. “He is determined now, more determined now, to be successful educationally and athletically.”
Phillips got the news when he was a sophomore at Mt. San Antonio College in California.
An academic non-qualifier out of Franklin High School, Phillips originally went to Southwest Oregon College, the plan being to get his grades up and go to Oregon State. Once he enrolled at Southwest, which doesn’t offer football, he had to get his AA degree before he could transfer. Oregon State coaches pointed him toward California.
Phillips, as one of at least a dozen Mt. San Antonio players to get a Division I scholarship, was going to follow an OSU coach to Texas Tech. Then the coach got a job in the NFL and a correspondence course was slow to clear. Tech, a school on semesters, allowed Phillips to look for a school on quarters, giving him more time to get his AA.
“He just showed up,” EWU coach Paul Wulff said. “We didn’t even know Ryan. He just showed up during practice one day (a couple games into last season) and came into the locker room.”
Eastern running back Reggie Witherspoon, a lifelong friend of Phillips, explained the situation to the coaches
“We listened to his story … he seemed like a wonderful kid,” Wulff said. “After we got the details we said, ‘Heck, yeah.’ We knew he was a good JC player but we didn’t see film. We really didn’t know but he signed with Texas Tech.”
Phillips said, “I wasn’t really disappointed. At first when everything was taking place I had expectations to play in the Big 12, which is one of the best conferences in the nation. I was getting excited about that.”
The frustrating part was waiting. Then there was another curve ball once he was cleared to play in Eastern’s seventh game – his first appearance was at running back.
“They had injuries,” Phillips recalled. “I wanted to come in and be a team player. … My first love is corner. I love the style of play, being aggressive and making the big-time play.”
In seven carries he picked up 56 yards and caught a pass for 11 yards.
“We just knew he was a very fluid athlete with a lot of natural skills,” Wulff said. “At the time we real desperate and we had to have him at running back. We always figured once we got healthy he would move to his true position.”
He added 29 yards on four carries and began returning kicks in his second game before switching to defense. As the third corner he had 10 tackles and an interception in the last three games and his big kickoff return set up the game-winning touchdown against Montana State.
But he wanted more. After spring practice he was recognized for his work in the weight room. That carried over to the fall and he unseated two-year starter Jesse Hendrix in the lineup.
“It was determination,” Phillips said. “It didn’t have anything to do with me thinking I was better because I signed with Texas Tech or anything like that. All it had to do with is the fact I wanted to show I could play at the position I wanted to play.”
Phillips is 5-foot-10, 190 pounds, giving him an inch and 25 pounds on Hendrix.
“He’s a little bigger, more physical,” Wulff explained. “He plays with a little more strength. He can do more things to receivers some of our other guys can’t.”
But there hasn’t been any disruption in team chemistry.
“He’s a great guy,” Wulff said. “He’s pretty darn mature. He gets along with everybody. So far he’s shown excellent leadership for the short time he’s been here. He’s not a selfish player. He’ll do anything to help the team. When you have players like that, there is very little animosity.”
Phillips said, “We all have our competition, who is going to make the big play. But it’s friendly competition, not against one another. Isaiah (Trufant, the other cornerback) and I live together so we talk about it all the time and Jesse is always over at the house. It’s not anything as far as a battle or individual grief towards one another, we just decided to let the best man win. It’s about winning and trying to go to the playoffs.”
EWU started 0-2, something which Phillips wasn’t expecting. That’s why he’s itching to make a play to help turn things around.
“If I get the ball, look for something spectacular,” he said.
“I’m praying that he does,” Cox said. “Not only this weekend, but every weekend.”