ONE THING ABOUT KRIEG . . . HE <i> IS</i> FOR REAL : Unlikely Quarterback Sneaked Up on the Seahawks, Then on the NFL

There are a few things you should know about Seattle quarterback Dave Krieg, the NFL’s top-rated passer after two weeks.

The first is that his name really is Dave Krieg and not Jim, as he was called here recently in one of the local newspapers.

And then there’s his last name. For the last time, it’s not pronounced Kreeeeeg, as in blitz. It’s Krieg as in Craig. Yeah, as in Jim Craig.

And yes, Milton really was the name of his college, not his long-lost uncle.

“You know, I like it the way it is,” Krieg said. “Everybody likes to be known and famous, but I have the element of surprise because people never take me for real. They’re not sure you’re a real entity. So you can sneak up on them and surprise them. And by the time they know, it’s too late.”

The San Diego Chargers might lend some insight. Last Sunday, while everybody was drooling over San Diego quarterback Dan Fouts’ 440-yard passing performance, Krieg was quietly throwing for 307 yards and five touchdowns in the Seahawks’ 49-35 win.

Krieg has made a living out of sneaking up on people. There are some who still think he took the starting job one day when the Seattle coaches weren’t looking.

Still, he’s always seemed more like a temporary, the quarterback the Seahawks kept around until they could find real help.

Before the 1984 season, the Seahawks nearly signed Canadian Football League quarterback Warren Moon. Before this season, Seattle took a long look at USFL refugee Bobby Hebert.

And this was after Krieg threw for 3,671 yards and 32 touchdowns last season. Only Miami’s Dan Marino threw for more scores (48).

But another thing you should know about Dave Krieg:

When you get to the NFL after playing at Milton College, you tend to be grateful. When you’re a free agent who got a tryout with Seattle only because your coach knew-a-guy-who-knew-a-guy, well, how can you complain?

You don’t. You just smile a lot.

“How do you explain this?” Krieg said as he looked around an office at Seahawk headquarters in Kirkland, Wash. “Everybody’s always looking for me to say something special, and I don’t. Maybe that’s why I don’t get any notoriety. This just happened and that’s it.”

When you hear the Dave Krieg story, you first react with suspicion.

When you read that Krieg grew up in the shadows of a paper mill in a smelly little town called Rothschild in Wisconsin, you pick up the phone and check it out.

“That’s pretty much right,” said Krieg’s dad, a Wisconsin state trooper. “There’s kind of an acidy-kind of smell in the air. When the wind isn’t right, you shut the windows. It’s getting better every year, but it (the paper mill) still puts out a foul stench.”

Great stuff. And is it really true that had Dave Krieg not made it in football, he would have ended up shoveling soot with his other buddies down at the paper mill?

“I don’t know what I’d be doing if I wasn’t playing football,” Krieg said. “But I’d probably be working in some factory or something like that.”

And what about all those stories about tiny Milton, an NAIA Division college that closed down back in 1982. Let’s get the facts on the yarn about about how Krieg’s coach, Rudy Gaddini, used to ride through town in his car the morning of a game, promoting the event by screaming at Milton pedestrians through a megaphone? Did the mighty Wildcats really play in a high school stadium? And is it true that Krieg started there as the seventh-string quarterback?

It is.

“I thought it was normal,” Krieg said of his alma mater. “We had to buy our own shoes. We’d leave for games and have a warm can of pop and a bologna sandwich and an apple. Then we’d take a bus and drive 3 1/2 miles to play football.”

“He is the American Dream,” said Gaddini, who lost his job when Milton closed and is now selling insurance. “But the biggest thing he’s done well, look at the hope he’s given all those kids who play for small schools. They’re saying, ‘My God, if he can make it, why can’t I?’ ”

Could there ever have been more of a long shot?

Krieg, the oldest of Myron and JoAnn Krieg’s three sons, was such an ordinary quarterback at D.C. Everest High School that he didn’t even make all-league.

Krieg’s high school coach, a friend of Gaddini’s, called the Milton Coach and asked if he’d take a look at his quarterback. Gaddini did, and Krieg made the three-hour trip south to Milton, situated near highways 29 and 56 between Madison and Milwaukee. He received $500 in financial aid (there were no scholarships) and had to fight his way through six quarterbacks to become the starter. Krieg did, and worked up some big statistics in four years.

But, remember, this was Milton, the school that, on one weekend back in 1963, played a football doubleheader against Lakeland. Some of the powerhouses on Milton’s schedule included Ripon, Eureka (President Reagan’s alma mater) and a teacher’s college.

And fans?

“You could probably put them in this room,” Krieg said. “Well, sometimes maybe we’d get 500 people. We had a pep rally every year for homecoming game. We had some cheerleaders, four or five girls. They did cheers, I guess; it wasn’t real well organized.”

Then came Krieg’s senior year, when he passed for 1,818 yards. The pro scouts continued to stay away in droves.

But Krieg, for whatever reasons, thought he could play.

“I always had aspirations to at least get the chance to be a professional football player,” Krieg said. “I never thought it was a big deal coming from Milton. It didn’t bother me. It didn’t mean I was going to make it, but I wanted to at least get a chance to try.”

Gaddini, who had become Krieg’s public relations man, sent letters everywhere.

He sent one to Dick Mansperger, who was then the Seahawks’ director of player personnel. Gaddini had met Mansperger at a football coaching clinic.

It was a letter Gaddini won’t soon forget:

D ear Mr. Mansperger: I am writing you in regards to one of our outstanding football players, Dave Krieg, who, incidentally was number one in the State of Wisconsin in total offense in 1978 and 1979. . . . I feel that he should be looked at because he has the ability to play professional football. . . . Please have someone from your organization check this athlete out . . . .

Mansperger asked for film clips of Krieg and was impressed enough to send out a scout.

Krieg got his chance at the Seahawks’ 1980 training camp. But no one was really expecting much.

Myron Krieg patted his son on the back and wished him luck.

“I told him you’d better be in peak condition or else you’ll make a fool out of yourself,” Myron Krieg said. “I told him that he had to be ready, that he was bucking the odds.”

Was he ever. And yes, he’d need a few more breaks. Krieg made the team his rookie season only because reserve quarterback Steve Myer injured his back during an intrasquad scrimmage.

But by the 1982 season, Krieg had won the starting job and played two games before injuring his thumb, forcing him out of the lineup until the last game of the season.

Coach Chuck Knox and his staff arrived in Seattle in 1983.

Ken Meyer, who had come with Knox from Buffalo to become the Seahawks’ quarterback coach, said there was something about Krieg that made him special.

“If you took individual parts of him and try to measure him against other quarterbacks, he wouldn’t measure up,” Meyer said. “But when you put all the parts together, he can play the game. He can make other people around him play better than they are capable of playing. It’s an intangible. He’s got that something inside of him.”

That something was enough to knock starter Jim Zorn, a longtime favorite in Seattle, out of the lineup and all the way off the team (Zorn was released earlier this season).

Krieg can boast that he’s won 21 of his 31 starts with the Seahawks. Last season, his 32 touchdown passes ranked seventh best in NFL history.

And he keeps getting better.

And Seahawk coaches still scratch their heads and wonder how?

“You know,” Meyer said, he has the ability to seek levels with everybody. “For a quarterback, that’s probably one of the greatest things you can do. He can play cards with (tight end) Charle Young, play dominoes with (wide receiver) Daryl Turner and just talk football with (wide receiver) Steve Largent. And they’re all different. You can’t be above anybody else on the team if you’re the quarterback.”

Krieg attributes much of that to upbringing.

He brought to Seattle a big chunk of the Midwest. There’s no hiding it--Dave Krieg is very Wisconsin, right down to his flannel shirts and jeans. You won’t find Krieg in a suit and tie very often.

Once, after a game against the Green Bay Packers in Milwaukee, one of Krieg’s friends stopped by the Seattle locker room to drop off a case a beer for Dave.

During the off-season, he hangs out in Rothschild and fishes with his buddies. Krieg was out snowmobiling when news hit the house the the Seahawks had decided against signing Warren Moon.

Yeah, Krieg is down to earth. Sometimes, too down to earth.

Meyer recalled a time he called to chat with Krieg during the off-season (you know how quarterback coaches are).

“Dave’s mom said he was out fixing the car,” Meyer said. “She said the tailpipe had broken and he was out there wiring it up. And I could just see my quarterback wiring up a tailpipe and the thing falling on his hand and him breaking his hand or losing a fingertip. I said ‘Mrs Krieg, that boy makes enough money, he can buy you a new tailpipe. Tell him to take it down to Midas.’ ”

Somehow, Krieg finds it impossible to act like a star.

“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “You keep looking around for reasons why this all happened to me. But there are things I learned from being from a small town that have helped me. It taught me to be humble. I was never going to feel arrogant.”

Well, maybe someday when they get his name right.

DAVE KRIEG’S CAREER STATISTICS

YEAR TEAM G ATT. COMP. PCT. YDS TD INT. LG 1980 Seahawks 1 2 0 .000 0 0 0 0 1981 Seahawks 7 112 64 .571 843 7 5 57 1982 Seahawks 3 78 49 .628 501 2 2 44 1983 Seahawks 9 243 147 .605 2,139 18 11 50 1984 Seahawks 16 480 276 .575 3,671 32 24 80 1985 Seahawks 2 57 38 .667 543 8 0 40 TOTALS 38 972 574 .591 7,697 67 42 80