Ex-Servite Standout Tackled Injury, Attitude Head-On : Football: Nebraska sophomore Mike Petko has matured and earned a starting spot at linebacker for the 6th-ranked Cornhuskers.

TEMPE, Ariz. —  When Kevin Steele became the inside linebacker coach at the University of Nebraska last spring, his first job wasn’t to coach football players, but to try to discipline one.

“My first assignment was Mike Petko,” Steele said.

It seems Petko, a freshman linebacker, was stirring up quite a fuss in Lincoln, Neb., a city where it’s only supposed to stir on football Saturdays.

As Petko remembers it, he was leaving a bar in Lincoln one night when he bumped into a guy who apparently didn’t care much for linebackers.

Or maybe he just didn’t like Petko’s brash attitude, mohawk haircut or his earring.

Petko, 6-feet-3, 240 pounds, exchanged a few not-so pleasantries with the fellow. And before you could say misdemeanor assault, someone was laying on the ground, minus a few teeth.

It wasn’t Petko.

“I think I knocked out about eight of his teeth,” Petko said. “He had to have some plastic surgery too.”

Assault charges were eventually dropped against Petko, who said he was only defending himself.

Still, Steele knew he had a problem. When they met, Petko was engrossed in a copy of the book, “The Boz.”

“He treated that book like a Bible,” Steele said. “He had that wild haircut, wore polka-dot balloon pants and wild sunglasses. His dialogue was very much that brash linebacker style.”

Petko, the California bad boy from Servite High School, was making quite an impact at Nebraska.

He was the second-leading tackler on the junior varsity, but also was among the leaders in eye gouges.

Steele wasn’t impressed.

“I felt like Mike was at a crossroads in his life,” Steele said. “He was trying to play a role of what he thought the linebacker image was supposed to be.

“The first thing I did was clarify what his role was. I told him if he lived his life to the extreme, with the wild haircuts, the wild dress and earrings, he would be recognized by people, but they (would) grow tired of him.”

“I like to think of myself as causing more injuries (than he suffers). I like to see guys’ eyes roll back in their heads when I hit them. It gets me charged up. I like to turn it up and get wild a little bit. You play tough man’s football here in the Big Eight. I busted a few fingers my senior year at Servite, but here I average one a game. I found out the real meaning of pain when I came here.”

--Mike Petko

It has been nine months since Petko met Steele, and Petko’s talking tough while preparing for Nebraska’s Fiesta Bowl game Jan. 1 against Florida State.

After all, he’s starting at linebacker as a sophomore. And that’s not an easy accomplishment when you play for the sixth-ranked team in the nation.

But Petko has changed. His mohawk haircut and earring are gone. “The Boz” is tucked neatly on a bookshelf back in Lincoln. There are no more fancy clothes, although he has added one new piece to his wardrobe--a knee brace.

Petko had heard all of Steele’s speeches about maturity and staying out of trouble. Now all that talk was starting to hit home.

Petko was learning all about pain.

He strapped the red fiberglass brace, which stretched from mid-shin to his thigh, around his right knee. It’s a constant reminder of his last tackle, the one he made on Colorado quarterback Darian Hagan in the fourth quarter of a 27-21 loss on Nov. 4.

Petko remembers the play:

“It was was an option on Colorado’s last play of the game. Hagan went outside and I picked him up. He cut back and I met him and wrapped him up. Then (nose guard Mike) Murray grabbed his legs. When we went down, Murray landed on my legs.

“I heard my knee rip. Then more people piled in and I heard it pop and rip again. People around me were nauseous. It was instant pain. I was wondering if I would walk again.”

Petko tore ligaments in his knee as well as the muscle behind it. Doctors placed him in a temporary cast, suggested surgery and told him to stay off the knee for three months.

Playing in the Fiesta Bowl, they told him, was out of the question.

Petko wouldn’t listen.

“I had it instilled in my mind that it can’t stop me,” he said. “I can’t let a little knee injury blow me out.

“My outlook on everything is to live for the moment. If my number is up, it’s up. I know I’m risking it. Another hard hit could put me in a wheelchair.”

Petko told the Nebraska coaches they would have to take away his shoulder pads to keep him from playing. Brave talk, especially for the rehabilitation that lay ahead.

Forty hours after the injury, Petko cast aside his crutches and was back in the weight room, working on his upper body and left leg. Two weeks later, he was jogging.

Petko sat out the Huskers’ next two games, against Kansas and Oklahoma. He had trouble watching from the sidelines.

“Mike is a very intense person,” Steele said. “That’s a big advantage sometimes for a linebacker. But he also overreacts to things. He was down emotionally and the Oklahoma game was really tough for him.”

Petko sought comfort from his stepfather, Dave Petko, a Santa Ana policeman, and his father, Bill Harris, a former tight end with the Dallas Cowboys now living in Las Vegas.

Harris knew how his son felt. His pro career ended with a knee injury at the end of his first training camp.

“My dad called me and gave me a lot of encouragement,” Petko said. “He kept reminding me that I had to have a future outside football. That stuck with me.”

With an extra five weeks off between the Oklahoma game and the Fiesta Bowl, Petko has worked his knee back into playing shape. Barring any more injuries, Petko will be in the starting lineup on New Year’s Day.

“I don’t want to be like any other linebacker. I want to be the nicest guy possible, off the field. On the field, I don’t want people to recognize me. I want people to say: ‘Who is that dirty, rotten guy?’ “

--Mike Petko

Nebraska wasn’t the first place where Petko overcame problems. He was a standout as a football and baseball player at Servite but struggled in the classroom.

“There were a lot of politics at Servite,” Petko said. “They were going to flunk me in religion, of all things. I had the impression that they were just using me for football there. When football season was over, that was it for me. I said that was fine.”

He transferred to Katella for the second half of his senior year. His grade-point average at Servite was 1.9 on a 4.0 scale, just shy of the academic requirements under Proposition 48.

His grades improved at Katella and his speed (4.7 seconds in the 40) and hard-hitting play earned Petko scholarship offers from Nebraska, Colorado, Michigan, USC and Washington.

At first, Dave Petko was apprehensive about sending his stepson to the Midwest. He wanted him to stay close to home and go to USC. But Dave Petko has changed his mind about the decision.

“I question if Mike could have done as well as he has if he had stayed on the West Coast,” Dave Petko said. “He likes the fast cars and the night life, and there was plenty of that out here. He was forced to adjust in Lincoln.”

Part of Petko’s change in attitude came academically.

One of his favorite statistics this season isn’t his 36 tackles, two fumble recoveries or his interception, but his 3.52 grade-point average in speech communication. As a result, he was named to the Big Eight’s all-academic second team.

“When things get tough, you’ve got to bite it in the butt and butt it with your forehead. It’s that way for linebackers, and it’s that way in life.”

--Mike Petko

Petko repeats one of Steele’s favorite sayings. He learned just what it meant after he tore up his knee.

“When you’re on the field you have to be a little cocky and brash,” Petko said. “I want to keep that kind of respect. But the injury emphasized to me that you can lose something and you can lose it fast.”

Steele laughs when reminded of the brash college freshman he once knew.

“Mike understands that being different in a good way goes a lot further,” Steele said. “He was just a little confused (last spring). I think he has grown up now.”