Heacock stayed for teammates

From the outside looking in, don’t be surprised to learn Ryan Heacock is still playing football for the Idaho Vandals.

There seem to be many reasons for him to toss his receiver gloves into the garbage, hang up his cleats and walk away. But he’ll be there Saturday when the Vandals play their home opener against Cal Poly.

The former Central Valley standout was a walk-on back in 2003 when Tom Cable was the coach, had a promising start under Nick Holt, played sparingly last season when Dennis Erickson took over and now finds himself a backup for Robb Akey’s youthful Vandals.

So why did he stick it out?

“For my teammates,” Heacock said.

That point is reaffirmed when Heacock said his most memorable moment is a 45-41 win at Eastern Michigan in 2004, when he didn’t catch a pass.

“We haven’t had a lot of wins, but Eastern Michigan was probably my favorite time,” he said. “Winning that on the road was probably the greatest feeling I’ve had.”

That’s the type of player wide receivers coach Luther Carr discovered when he arrived.

“The best thing about him is he’s a team player,” Carr said. “We’re his fourth coaching staff. It would easy for him to have a negative attitude about this whole thing, a negative attitude about the school, a negative attitude about everything he’s gone through. He hasn’t had that.

“He wants to win. He wants the program to do well. He’s proud of himself, he’s proud of his teammates, he’s proud of his family. He brings all that out on the field. That’s what he’s playing for. He loves the game. He doesn’t want to let anyone down.”

Not that Heacock’s career has been without challenges.

“It’s been fun, yet it’s been mentally grueling,” he said. “Every new guy that comes in I like better than the last guy. Every coach has his own philosophy and every offense is different, but I’ve liked them all. For me learning a new offense isn’t difficult. It’s a little frustrating, but I’ve enjoyed it.”

Heacock played in 10 games as a redshirt freshman, catching 10 passes, including the Vandals’ lone touchdown and the two-point conversion, in a loss at Washington State. The past two seasons he’s caught a total of five passes.

“Every year is a new challenge, to see if I can get better, to see if I can beat out the next guy,” he said. “Every year they bring in someone new and that’s a challenge.”

Along the way he has learned his role on the team.

“I have good hands, I like to catch the ball and I like to help the other guys, coach the other guys up,” Heacock said. “Like I said, offenses come easy to me. Other guys have trouble with them, so I feel it is my role to be the leader, use what I’ve learned in the past to help these guys.”

The first lesson he imparts came from his position coach on Holt’s staff, Chad Brown.

“He said to know that I’m a guy that can do it. To have our receiving corps as a unit helps the team out more than anything,” Heacock said. “Having people upset by playing time, I’ve been through that, too.”

He believes the Vandals are pointed in the right direction after seven straight losing seasons.

“The big thing we have is the closeness on the team,” he said. “We got rid of people that were cancers on the team, always whined. … We had a lot of quitters. We’re all one unit now.

“Trusting the guy next to you is a big part and I think now everybody is trusting the guy next to him. It’s a lot better.”

That doesn’t mean he is content to be a backup.

“He does a lot of things right,” Carr said. “He’s very dependable, he understands and knows the wide receiver position … and he knows the playbook. I feel very confident putting him in the game and I feel very confident when he’s in the game. Those four years of experience paid off.”

Another benefit of sticking around is being reunited with half-brother Patrick Libey, the secondary coach. Libey is a former walk-on Vandals linebacker-turned defensive captain who was a senior when Heacock arrived.

“Through all of this, it led him to be able to come coach here,” Heacock said. “That was a great thing to have happen.”

“It’s something I’m going to enjoy because it’s not going to last much longer,” Libey said. “I would have never thought I would have the opportunity to come back here when he’s still here, so I’m enjoying it.

“I’m always keeping an eye on him. I’m focused on the secondary, but I like to see him have success.”

Heacock will graduate this year with expectations of becoming an accountant, but in the back of his mind he’s considering more schooling to eventually become a teacher.

“After all the coaching changes, I’ve kind of decided I wanted to be a coach because all the knowledge I’ve gotten,” he said. “I don’t want to coach college. I’ll let the ‘bro’ do that. I want to go the high school route. I don’t know if I could stay away from athletics.”

He’s already proven that.