IT’S THEIR TIME

Perhaps because he has had to dodge real bullets, not merely verbal salvos from critics, Barry Alvarez has a healthy perspective on his life and his job as coach of the Wisconsin Badgers.

He’d always wanted to be a coach, since he was a kid in Burgettstown, Pa., a mining town 25 miles from Pittsburgh. But while at graduate school at the University of Nebraska, where he was a three-year letterman at linebacker under Bob Devaney, he walked a police beat and rode a squad car from 10 p.m to 7 a.m.

“I think I was in the longest high-speed chase in department history, at least to that point,” said Alvarez, who turned down a chance to join the FBI. “And I was in a situation where there had been some rioting. I saw those sparks [from bullets] coming off the sidewalks and I said, ‘It’s time to go back to coaching.’ ”

It was a good choice. He turned a neglected, debt-ridden program and a team that was 1-10 in 1990 into a profitable and successful machine, leading the Badgers on Saturday to their second successive Rose Bowl appearance. Alvarez this season became the winningest coach in school history by compiling a 7-1 Big Ten record and 9-2 overall, improving his 10-season record at Wisconsin to 69-44-4.

Yet, as regimented and driven as he is, he doesn’t allow football to consume him. It is a large part of who he is, certainly. But Alvarez, who turned 53 Thursday, knows there is more to life.

“He’s very much the type that does not bring the game home,” said his wife of 32 years, Cindy, who met him on a blind date at Nebraska. “Every job we’ve had, we’ve always purchased a home that’s within 10 to 20 minutes’ drive so that when he leaves, he can come home and eat dinner with the kids and me and then he goes back.

“Even if it’s only 45 minutes, he clears his head. Very, very seldom do we talk about football at home. He reads and listens to music.”

Perhaps because he has achieved that balance, he knows it’s wise to savor good times and to mask the hurt and soldier on when misfortune strikes.

Pain is overshadowing what should be a happy time for him. The arthritic right knee he ignored too long deteriorated so badly, doctors couldn’t repair it on their first try. He had it replaced Nov. 16, a procedure that left him dependent on a cart to roam the practice field and uncertain whether he can withstand the stress of standing on the sidelines Saturday. He maintains it’s no big deal, but that may not be true.

“He misses it, but he said there were things he could do this year he couldn’t do before,” Cindy Alvarez said of his move to the press box for seven of the last eight games. “We have a new offensive coordinator [Brian White], and he could work with him more than if he were on the sidelines.

“I think the thing he misses most is looking in the young men’s eyes. The one thing I felt sorry for him is that you don’t celebrate if you’re not in the middle of it. He was on the periphery.”

Said offensive lineman Casey Rabach: “I think it really bothered him that he couldn’t be on the sidelines. He loves to be on the field and get a feel for the players and the game.”

Alvarez and his wife are also enduring emotional pain. Their son Chad, the youngest of their three children, was sentenced to 10 days in jail after pleading no contest to stealing and microwaving a parrot that belonged to a Wisconsin fraternity brother last May. Chad, 23, was to be released from Dane County jail in time to be at the Rose Bowl, but he will be on probation for five years. If he completes probation without further incidents, the felony charges will be reduced to misdemeanors.

Neither Barry nor Cindy Alvarez will discuss the incident; friends say they were deeply hurt but are supportive of their son. Barry Alvarez said on a public affairs TV show in Madison the incident should “teach a life lesson so that when it’s all said and done, he can get stronger from it and learn a valuable lesson from this.”

In that, the son can learn from his father.

Alvarez was hired by Wisconsin in 1990, when then-chancellor Donna Shalala--now the secretary of Health and Human Services--decided to upgrade the football program to make money and enhance the school’s prestige. She hired former Wisconsin football star Pat Richter as athletic director; he hired Alvarez, who had spent eight seasons as an assistant coach at Iowa and three seasons as an assistant to Lou Holtz at Notre Dame.

“We never said, ‘We need to get to this bowl by this time.’ We wanted to get respectable and wanted people to come to the game knowing we had a chance to beat anybody,” Richter said. “He’s surrounded himself with good people, and he and the staff have been able to develop people who maybe weren’t top-notch recruits. . . . He’s a very confident person, and he’s got a great relationship with the players. They know that even though the coaches work them hard, they’re going to benefit from it.”

Alvarez worked hard to keep Wisconsin kids--the beefy, prototypal Big Ten bruisers--and to lure skill players from elsewhere. “We didn’t have a lot to sell,” he said. “Kids want to play in bowl games and we tried to sell them on what positives we could. Once you get them, you have to teach them to win.

“We sold them on our great academics and great campus, and when you’re 18, 19 years old a social life is very important, and there’s great social life. The facilities are good. And when you’re selling a program like this, you sell the fact that you can start right away.”

From a team that didn’t win a conference game in his first season, Alvarez took the Badgers to new heights. An offensive power, they were 10-1-1 in the 1993 season and defeated UCLA in the 1994 Rose Bowl game, 21-16. It was their first Rose Bowl triumph in four tries and their first appearance since 1963.

They slid to 4-5-2 in 1995, but the arrival of running back Ron Dayne vaulted them to four consecutive bowl games. They defeated UCLA again, 38-31, to win the Rose Bowl last January and this season won consecutive conference titles for the first time since 1896-97.

The $2.1-million deficit the athletic department faced when Alvarez arrived was wiped out by the return of huge crowds to Camp Randall Stadium. Bowl money has filled the coffers too. But the coach isn’t resting on the school’s bank account or his program’s good reputation.

“The important thing is, you stay hungry and continue trying to improve,” he said. “No one can stay complacent in our league. A year ago, we had a good nucleus back from our Rose Bowl team and we were ranked 10th in the country, yet we were ranked fourth in our league. You’re always trying to tweak things and make them better.”

Although Alvarez has been wooed by NFL teams, Cindy Alvarez said her husband is happy where he is.

“He was offered [an NFL job] and we were very flattered. The money is very alluring,” she said. “I’d say it took him six years to get it out of his system, and there’s no way. Public opinion is that if you’re successful at this level, you go to the pros, but about a year ago he made the decision he won’t.

“In college, you’re the boss and you’re not at the whim of owners, and you’re making more money than the ones you’re coaching. And in the pros, the season is too long. Our season is long enough. When our season is over and recruiting season is over, my husband is exhausted.”

For now, sleep can wait. The Rose Bowl, even the third time around, is too exhilarating.

“Two weeks before the end of the season, when it became a reality, a group of coaches came over to the house and they all wanted the Rose Bowl because he wants to be the first Big Ten school to win back-to-back Rose Bowls,” Cindy Alvarez said. “There were others who wanted other bowls, but this means a lot to him.”

After making his mark on scores of young men, Alvarez is eager to make his mark on history as the first Big Ten coach to win successive Rose Bowls.

“It’s always fun to do something no one else has ever done,” he said. “You look at our league, and the great teams and great players, and no one has ever won back-to-back Rose Bowls. For us to do that would be a tremendous achievement for our program, and it’s a motivating factor for us.”

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ROSE BOWL

Wisconsin (9-2) vs. Stanford (8-3)

Saturday, 1:30 p.m., Channel 7