Timm Rosenbach: Quarterback in Waiting : Cardinals: Rookie from Washington State eager to display his talent in the NFL.

Quarterback Timm Rosenbach of the Phoenix Cardinals stands on the sideline wearing a baseball cap and carrying a clipboard as he charts the game while awaiting his chance to play.

He has had only one chance, completing seven of 14 passes for 81 yards with no touchdowns and one interception in the fourth quarter of a 37-14 loss to the Rams last month at Anaheim Stadium.

The rookie quarterback runs the scout team in practice, mimicking the quarterback the Cardinal defense will face. Last week, it was Mark Rypien of the Washington Redskins, and this week it has been Raider quarterback Steve Beuerlein.

Third on the depth chart behind Gary Hogeboom and Tom Tupa, Rosenbach is the highest-paid third-string quarterback in the NFL, earning a reported $5.3 million over five years.

But Cardinal fans are eager to find out how good Rosenbach is.

With Phoenix all but eliminated from the NFL playoffs, fans have begun to clamor for Rosenbach, Hogeboom’s heir apparent.

Is it tough for him to sit and watch?

“When you’ve never sat on the bench before, it’s like your freshman year in college,” Rosenbach said. “You sit there and take a lot of notes but you don’t get a chance to execute.”

Although he hasn’t played much, Rosenbach retains the cocky demeanor that marked his college career at Washington State.

Quarterbacks are usually taught to spout cliches for the media, but Rosenbach is a free talker.

“He’s a little smart-alecky for his own good; I think they call that cocky,” said Jim Walden, who coached Rosenbach for two years at Washington State. “But that was never a problem. It was a good thing about him.”

After wearing No. 3 in college, Rosenbach said he planned to wear No. 6 in the NFL because he was going to be twice as good in the pros as he was in college.

Brash and outspoken, he has been compared to Jim McMahon, the San Diego Chargers’ quarterback.

“I guess there are some similarities between me and McMahon, but I’m not a Jim McMahon wanna-be or clone,” Rosenbach said. “He’s him and I’m me and hopefully I can make it on my own.”

Rosenbach has good credentials.

In 1988, he passed for 3,097 yards and 24 touchdowns in leading Washington State to its best season since 1930 with a 9-3 record and an appearance in the Aloha Bowl.

After Coach Dennis Erickson left for Miami, Rosenbach left for the NFL. He was the second player taken in the supplemental draft last July behind quarterback Steve Walsh of Miami.

Would Rosenbach have stayed in college if Erickson had stayed in Pullman, Wash.?

“He made his decision before I even thought about leaving,” Erickson said.

After watching Rosenbach work out last June, some scouts were skeptical that he had the tools to be an NFL quarterback.

“There’s a lot of (talk) going on about that,” Rosenbach said. “If you talk to some guys, they’ll tell you that I had a bad day, and some guys will tell you I did great. Scouts are scouts. They only know so much, the guys who know what they’re doing are coaches.”

Rosenbach missed all of training camp because of a monthlong holdout and it put him behind at the start of this season.

Rosenbach has one primary regret, that his father, Lynn, didn’t live to see him play in the NFL.

Diagnosed as having soft-muscle cancer in 1983, Lynn Rosenbach had his arm amputated in an effort to halt the spread of the disease. Doctors told him he had a 50-50 chance of survival if he didn’t have the amputation and a 95-5 chance if he did. The cancer went into remission for two years, but then 11 tumors were discovered on his lungs.

The illness drew father and son closer. The reason he enrolled at Washington State was to remain near his father, a WSU athletic department official.

While Lynn Rosenbach battled for his life, Timm competed for his job as Washington State’s starting quarterback after throwing 24 interceptions as a junior.

Thinking he had no future as a quarterback, he was ready to move to safety until his father talked him into sticking it out.

Timm won his contest, but his father lost his own, more serious fight.

After a courageous struggle, Lynn Rosenbach died on July 1, 1988.

“It was rough, but fortunately football practice started so close after my dad died that I was able to get my mind onto other things,” Timm said. “You don’t ever forget about someone you’ve been with for 21 years of your life. Physically they’re gone, but mentally they’re always with you.”

According to Timm’s mother, Lynn Rosenbach had a premonition that WSU would have a successful season.

“Right before he died, Lynn said, ‘I know that the Cougars are going to a bowl game,’ ” Rosie Rosenbach said. “It was incredible. I guess it was mental telepathy.

“I think Lynn’s death and his courage were such an inspiration to the community and to the kids on the football team. . . . I’ll always think that the spirit of that season had a lot to do with Lynn.”

Did Rosenbach dedicate the season to his father?

“I told the guys on the team that I wasn’t going to dedicate the season to him because I played for him anyway,” Rosenbach said. “There was no point in dedicating it to him. That’s what he would have wanted me to do.”

But Rosenbach felt a void because his father wasn’t alive to share his success.

“I went from my father’s death into a great bowl game and the Heisman voting (finishing seventh),” Rosenbach said. “And now, all of a sudden it was a letdown because there was nobody there. Of course, my mom was there, but my dad was such a big part of my life.”

Rosenbach decided it was time to leave Pullman, because there were too many painful memories.

“Timm really missed his father, and I think it was tough being around me all the time,” Rosie Rosenbach said. “Although I wasn’t crying all the time, I think it had a big effect on him. When he went to college, he said he was staying home for his father, and when the time came, he would leave. That was his time to leave.”

Rosie Rosenbach recalled that when Timm was born, he weighed in at just under nine pounds.

“We were going to name him Timothy,” she said, “but he was such a big baby that he didn’t seem like a Timothy, so we just added an extra M.

“He was always really well-coordinated. I happened to be his pre-school teacher, and at 5 years old he could outrun and outjump and outskip everyone.”

Athletics apparently must be in his genes.

A football star at Western Washington, Lynn Rosenbach became a high school football coach, then spent 10 years at Olympic Junior College in Bremerton, Wash. He moved into athletic administration at Washington State, and was named to the Washington Coaches Hall of Fame.

Timm starred in football, track and baseball at Pullman High School. He started as a running back, then was moved to quarterback as a senior.

“I switched him to quarterback because we didn’t have one,” said Ray Hobbs, retired Pullman football coach. “He did a super job for us. He ran a couple of quarterback sneaks for over 50 yards for touchdowns.”

Rosenbach led Pullman to a 10-2 record and a spot in the semifinals of the State playoffs, then was recruited by Arizona State, Weber State and Montana, as well as Washington State. Walden, then coach at Washington State, had an advantage recruiting Rosenbach.

“It’s hard for me to think of Timm as just another player, because my son, Murray, played on his high school team and he and Murray were best friends,” Walden said, “Murray and Tim were Mr. Cools around school.”

While other colleges wanted Rosenbach as a defensive back, Walden saw him as a quarterback.

“The first time I watched Timm throw was when he was just goofing around at one of our practices, and I thought, ‘Boy does that kid have a gun (arm),’ ” Walden said. “He was raw, but I thought I could train him to be a good quarterback.

“I knew he was going to be a five-year project. I knew he’d sit out a year, then I’d train him for a year; he’d make mistakes a year, and then we’d have two great years out of him.

“That was the master plan, he just didn’t know it. He had all the tools, but it was going to be a learning process because you just don’t come into the Pac-10 and be an all-learned quarterback with one year of high school experience. It’s just not done. We planned on one bad year and two great years.”

Walden, however, wasn’t around to reap the benefits, leaving for Iowa State.

Erickson replaced Walden, junking the veer for a passing offense and installing Rosenbach as the starting quarterback.

“Our first year was the first year that he played at all, and he struggled a little bit,” Erickson said.

Depressed after throwing 24 interceptions, Rosenbach met with Erickson and said he didn’t want to play quarterback.

“I told him that he had a great future and could play in the NFL,” Erickson said. “I think he’ll be a great pro. The problem this year was that he signed so late. I think you’ll see him play more in the last three games because they’re out of the hunt. I can’t speak for the Cardinals, but I think he’s their quarterback of the future.”