He’s a good bet to get a head coaching job

BALTIMORE —  Rick Neuheisel completed his fourth season in football limbo Saturday, doing so in relative anonymity here, along the sidelines of a field in a stadium filled with more than 71,000 purple-clad people.

It isn’t that Neuheisel’s job as quarterback coach and, as of Monday offensive coordinator as well, of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens isn’t important, or that he isn’t challenged or contributing, or feeling a part of a Ravens’ 13-4 season that ended unexpectedly in an AFC semifinal loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

It isn’t that Neuheisel is not learning or is not happy.

It’s just that, if you know him, you know Neuheisel’s eventual legacy in football does not include the words “assistant” or “coordinator” in the job description. He isn’t saying that. Matter of fact, he is being careful not to say that.

But the desire to lead, to be the guy sitting in the front of the bus, the guy wearing the headphones at the 50-yard line, is hard for him to hide.

He is still the same, sandy-haired, good-looking guy who walked onto the UCLA football team back in the early 1980s out of Arizona and eventually quarterbacked the Bruins to a Rose Bowl romp past heavily favored Illinois on Jan. 2, 1984.

He was named MVP that day, and now, at 45, still looks as if he could take snaps in practice for a week, then step in for a play or two.

Now, Neuheisel is a walking dream resume for college athletic directors or NFL general managers. He spent time after his playing days, learning from UCLA’s master, Terry Donahue. Then he went out on his own, got a job as an assistant at Colorado and, after one year, became the head coach, going 10-2 his rookie year of 1995, repeating in ’96 and generally having a grand old time until Washington called in ’99.

It was a chance to go back to the Pac-10, and in his four years there, he made the most of it on the field, taking the Huskies to four bowl games and beating Purdue in the Rose Bowl in 2001. That gave Neuheisel the distinction of being both an MVP and a winning coach in Rose Bowl games.

What happened off the field at Washington, sending Neuheisel out of the coaching mainstream, has been well documented. It also remains so vague and complicated that those same people who see his dream resume may also wrinkle their brows.

Washington and the NCAA were anonymously tipped that Neuheisel and some friends had a basketball pool and that Neuheisel was one of the winners.

Thousands of dollars were involved and soon he was on the hot seat. Then, an internal memo surfaced in the Washington athletic department, written before the incident, that said Neuheisel’s pool was within university guidelines.

By then, though, he was being accused of lying to NCAA investigators, which led to his firing in June 2003. The case became several years of legal he-said, she-said, culminating in a long court battle and a settlement for Neuheisel two years later that has been reported at $4.5 million.

“No, I didn’t get a check for $4.5 million in the mail and just go put it in the bank,” Neuheisel said here Monday, laughing and adding that there were lots of checks he had to write himself, including some for legal fees and repayment of an interest-free loan to Washington that had been part of his coaching contract.

“And no, I didn’t want to settle. I wanted to take it all the way to the end, to get total vindication. But my lawyer convinced me this was how to get on with my life.”

He did have enough to write a check to improve the locker rooms at Rainier Beach High in Seattle, where his existence in football limbo began in the fall of 2003. He was the quarterback coach there, and did his best to grow the team’s talent.

“My quarterbacks there were Junior, Biscuit and Tubby,” Neuheisel said. “Those were both nicknames and descriptions.”

Whether justly or not, Neuheisel knew he was damaged goods, a man with an asterisk on his coaching resume. So Rainier Beach High was perfect.

“It was a great grass-roots reminder,” he said. “Also, I had time to get closer to my boys.”

His sons are Jerry, 14; Jack 12, and Joe, about to turn 10.

When the Ravens hired him in 2005, he was grateful and challenged. He remains so today.

But he also can’t help but keep an eye on his roots. After UCLA stunned USC, he was quick to call his friend Karl Dorrell, with whom he played and coached, and congratulate him both on the win and on showing some fire along the sidelines.

And when the Arizona State job opened, it prompted a thought, even though Neuheisel wasn’t applying. He called Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen and asked, were he ever to get another shot in the conference, would he be welcome? He said Hansen said yes.

One of Neuheisel’s best coaching memories is of a game at Washington against a first-year USC coach named Pete Carroll.

“We won, and I head out toward the middle of the field and I see Pete sprinting my way,” Neuheisel said. “He shakes my hand, looks me right in the eye and says, ‘We’ll be back.’ I remember going into the tunnel and thinking, ‘OK, it’s on.’

“The next year, he’s really got it going and USC wins. I run out to the middle of the field, grab his hand, shake it and say, ‘We’ll be back.’ You should have seen his big grin.”

Expect more of those meetings in the years ahead.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.