Luke Falk avoids big head by ignoring big headlines

PULLMAN – If you’re a friend of Luke Falk’s, please don’t send him this article.

Then again, if the Washington State quarterback is truly your comrade, then you knew not to anyway.

Now that the Cougars are winning – three consecutive Pac-12 victories – and they’re doing it with a hyper-efficient passing offense – 16 touchdowns against two inconsequential interceptions in the aforementioned wins – Falk is starting to gain some national notoriety.

ESPN.com placed the quarterback atop its Pac-12 quarterback power rankings for the first time and national writers and TV analysts are beginning to take notice of the small-town quarterback (Logan, Utah) who plays in familial Pullman.

He just doesn’t pay any attention to them.

Falk handles the trappings of fame by shunning them, and has issued an edict to friends and family members not to send him the sorts of laudatory articles and slideshows, highlights and lists that can only serve to distract him from the focus that has brought him success in the first place.

In fact, he’s enlisted their help in keeping his head suitably shrunken.

“My friends are pretty cool with keeping me level headed,” Falk said. “My buddy after the Oregon State game was like, dude, what the heck? Two picks?”

There are times when a starting Pac-12 quarterback cannot avoid the media, of course, such as WSU’s weekly Monday press conferences, when Falk is frequently one of three players presented to reporters for interviews.

The Cougars do provide some media training in the form of group presentations on best interview practices, and as Falk has become more practiced he has started to lean more on interview techniques, pivoting questions into opportunities to repeat the program’s stock phrases and mantras.

Falk’s first experience with the media wasn’t a positive one, and while it does not color his perception of all reporters, it did teach him that it’s far worse to be burned than to say little.

When he was a sophomore in high school, his family was featured on a CNN special called “Extreme Parenting.” The Falks weren’t in love with the portrait it painted of a family that was simply trying to give Luke Falk the best avenue to pursue his desired football career.

“I look at that and say, ‘what was I doing?’” Falk said. “I think (the media) can be too positive or too negative. I know what I think of myself and what I think of my team, and so I don’t need to read any of that stuff.”

There is one part of the fame, he likes, however.

College athletes are expected to occasionally carve out extra time in their already busy schedules to shake some hands, sign some autographs and be unimpeachable faces of the program for boosters and role models for the program’s younger fans.

Mike Leach says that, while it’s not exactly why he got the starting job, “he’s perfect for that part of it.”

After games, Falk always walks over to the fans lined up along the sideline and shakes hands for a few moments. Hunter Goodman, the Washington Secretary of the Senate, was on hand for the Oregon State game and his young son, Grayson, got to hang out with Falk in the Cougars locker room afterward.

For Falk, who grew up an autograph-hounding fan of the Utah State Aggies, and especially shooting guard Jaycee Carroll on the basketball team. For him, it’s fun to be on the other side of the hero-devotee relationship.

“The position that we in as football players, you can make a real positive impact on kids and at that age they really look up to you as people they want to be like,” Falk said. “I always wanted to be like Jaycee, and so I think you can have a positive impact on kids and the more time you can spend around them.”

It’s a nice sentiment from a player who is gaining young fans every week. Just don’t let him know we told you about it.