Hall of Fame: Terry Thompson (Estancia)

Richard Dunn

Whether you’re an All-American or bench warmer, you get the royal

treatment once you’ve reached the Rose Bowl game.

“During the whole Rose Bowl experience, you’re treated like a king,”

said former Estancia High football standout Terry Thompson, a walk-on

player at UCLA after playing one season at UC Davis and realizing it

“wasn’t what I envisioned college football to be.”

Thompson never had the size to consider the NFL, sprouting from a

meager 5-foot-4 as an Estancia freshman to 5-11 as a senior, and,

eventually, to 6-0, 220 pounds at UCLA, where he played in 1983-84.

Thompson, who grew up watching college football on television and

admiring teams like Nebraska, Oklahoma and UCLA, decided he wanted the

option of fulfilling a dream, so he left UC Davis and transferred to UCLA

unannounced -- not that anybody on the Bruins’ coaching staff knew him,

anyway.

“Here I am. What do I need to do to try out for the team?” he said the

first day he walked into the UCLA football office.

Thompson, a standout defensive end at Estancia, worked on improving

his speed while adding weight and strength prior to trying out the

following the spring, in which five players out of 100 were called back

-- including him.

In Thompson’s junior year in the fall of 1983, UCLA won the Pac-10

title and reached the Rose Bowl game, in which the Rick Neuheisel-led

Bruins defeated Illinois, 45-9.

“I was just glad to be there. It was a great experience to be part of

that team,” said Thompson, who never played a down for UCLA, but

contributed daily on the scout team, including going head-to-head in

practice with Duval Love, a future All-Pro NFL offensive tackle.

“Neuheisel was out of his mind that game,” Thompson said of the 1984

Rose Bowl MVP.

Thompson, third on the Bruins’ depth chart at linebacker, was thrilled

to be part of the program, then overwhelmed with the pre-Rose Bowl game

amenities, which included the famous Lawry’s Beef Bowl and trip to

Disneyland.

“No one’s ever told me I can’t do something,” said Thompson, now a

successful real estate executive. “Sure, I was undersized and underweight

at UCLA, same as in high school ... there’s something about me, if

someone said I couldn’t do something, I’d set my mind to do it.”

As an Estancia senior in the fall of 1980, Thompson was a first-team

All-Sea View League selection on defense as Coach Ed Blanton’s Eagles

(7-5) went 4-1 in league and finished in a three-way tie for first with

Corona del Mar and El Toro, before advancing to the CIF quarterfinals.

They beat Neff, 34-21, in the first round of the playoffs.

Thompson’s junior year, however, remains his No. 1 prep highlight, as

the Eagles (9-3) won their first outright league championship.

“In our first game that year (‘79), we got our butts kicked by Edison,

35-0,” Thompson said. “They had Kerwin Bell, Frank Seurer, Bill Malavasi.

They were a juggernaut ... Bell ran all over us ... no one gave us a

chance in hell of winning anything that year.”

Thompson, a second-stringer on the freshmen football team two years

earlier, started on the defensive line for the ’79 Estancia varsity as

the Eagles swept through the Sea View League at 5-0, before losing to

Esperanza in the CIF quarterfinals.

Added Thompson, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of

Fame: “The experience I had at Estancia was really about persistence and

determination, and, as an adjunct to that, no one should tell someone

else you can’t do something. I learned that. No one believed me, when I

was a freshman, that I’d start as a junior on the varsity. No one can

tell you what you can or can’t do.”

Thompson said that attitude helped him at UCLA and in business today.

Thompson, the father of two boys (Scott, 9, and Erik, 6 1/2), lives in

Rancho Santa Margarita. He’s been in the commercial real estate business

for 17 years, and last December was appointed to vice president for the

Orange County and San Diego regions of PM Realty Group in Newport Beach.