John Blanchette: New arrival makes name for self with special delivery

For a second, the notion occurred to ask Andrico Hines if he felt like Wally Pipp.

Just as quickly, reality set in.

Wally Pipp? Kids these days don’t know who Wally Cleaver is, much less Wally Pipp.

But what’s in a name? The Spokane Shock’s starting quarterback may or may not know the history of the poor sap whose legendary headache opened the door for Lou Gehrig and his even more legendary streak of consecutive games. But Hines certainly understands the psychology of Pippdom.

“I might be worried about my job next week,” Hines laughed.

A winner’s laugh.

Indoor football gives you a little bit of everything – although we could do without the penalties being “sponsored” by the local credit union. But we could do with more of what the Shock gave us Saturday night at the Arena, a true Frank Merriwell moment. Or was it Chip Hilton?

Again with ancient names, sorry.

In this case, the Shock’s version of Frank/Chip/Lou was a stubble-faced innocent named Justin Rummel, perfectly cast for the role in that he hails from Ingalls, Ind., population 1,168, and that he’d arrived here in the big city just about 10 days ago.

If only he’d stepped off a Greyhound bus with a cardboard suitcase, the story would have been perfect.

But close enough. When Hines went down with a pulled hamstring in the second quarter against the Central Valley Coyotes – after a spectacular 34-yard scramble to the 1-yard line that a holding penalty wiped out – the Shock’s fortunes in this important af2 showdown against one of the 78 teams they were tied with in first place rested with the understudy who’d been through all of five practices.

Good practices, it seems.

All Rummel did was throw for five touchdowns – including an 18-yard game-winner to Kelvin Dickens as time expired – to give the Shock a 66-63 victory, dazzling a crowd announced at (but not amounting to) 10,484 and restoring a little faith for those who’d seen Spokane lose two of its last three games in the Arena.

“With our crowd,” noted Shock coach Adam Shackleford, “you don’t want to be known as a good road team.”

Actually, you want to be known as a good bang-for-the-buck team, and the Shock were all of that in their highest-scoring game of the year, one of those haymaker-for-haymaker deals that Spokane probably didn’t have any business winning after the Coyotes scored their go-ahead touchdown with 15 seconds left.

But then Antwone Savage – who had returned only the opening kickoff because of a balky hamstring – told Shackleford he wanted the last one, and somehow managed to bust it back to the CV 18. Then rather than play it safe, Rummel fired a just-right ball that allowed the 6-foot-3 Dickens to leap over 5-9 Aleric Clark and collect the pass as the clock struck :00 – which means an incomplete pass would have left no time for a tying field goal.

“My initial read was to go to Savage on a corner route,” Rummel said. “But I saw K.D. cross my face and I just threw it to the other corner. I knew if he caught up to it, that was the spot it needed to be.”

Much like Rummel was in the spot he needed to be, even if he’d never heard of Spokane before Shackleford called him upon his release from a Detroit Lions passing camp shortly after the NFL draft.

A record-breaking Division III quarterback at Earlham College – he majored in “business and non-profit,” which will serve him well in the $200-a-game world of af2 – Rummel was no stranger to Shackleford. While coaching at his alma mater of Anderson University in Indiana, Shackleford had to watch Rummel “tear us up for four years.

“I don’t think he ever threw for less than 400 yards against us,” Shackleford said. “He was a great quarterback on an average team. We weren’t happy with our backup so as soon as he was available, I made the call.

“The first day he came in he ran the scout team and threw two or three touchdown passés and I think earned the respect of his teammates,” Shackleford said.

And it’s obviously mutual.

“Andrico did a great job with me this week, helping me with reads and preparing me to step in,” Rummel said. “He told me as soon as he got hurt, ‘I’m only as good as my backup.’ So that meant a lot to me and gave me confidence to go in and do what I could do.”

Shackleford made the point no fewer than half a dozen times in his postgame remarks that “there is no quarterback controversy” and that Hines, when healthy, would start. But he also told Rummel when he summoned him to Spokane that he’d get a chance to compete for the starting job.

“From outdoor football to arena is a huge difference – your reads come a lot quicker,” Rummel said. “But being at the Lions’ rookie camp and seeing that level, it made me think that arena might be more my style. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it.”

Is it anything like explaining Wally Pipp, Frank Merriwell or Chip Hilton to Generation Y? Then we know the feeling.

But Justin Rummel explained them all Saturday night.