The light at the end of the tunnel
Mike Sciacca
Vince Strang was shrouded in darkness Friday as he made his way
down an unfamiliar path, his only guide a narrow ray of bright light
thatbeckoned him forward.
The 22-year-old was in uniform, traveling -- for the first time --
through the tunnel that leads to the Memorial Stadium football field
at UC Berkeley, where he was to join his Golden Bear teammates for
their first official scrimmage of the 2002 college football season.
As he neared the end of the tunnel and darkness gave way to
intense sunshine, Strang stood still and soaked it all in, staring at
the freshly painted turf while squinting into his future.
As Strang stepped onto the field, it was then that he knew he was
living his dream.
“I had chills all over my body. It was an unbelievable moment and
one that I will remember the rest of my life,” he said.
Not only did the Huntington Beach High School graduate walk on to
the Cal football team, but first-year head coach Jeff Tedford
announced late last week that Strang, a junior wide receiver, is part
of the team’s two-deep roster for Saturday’s season opener against
visiting Baylor.
“To say that I’m ecstatic is an understatement. I have worked
very, very hard to get to this point, but it’s all been so worth it,”
Strang said.
A LONG JOURNEY
His is a tale of an improbable journey that was made possible
through the guidance and encouragement of some key people, but mostly
because Strang refused to be told that he couldn’t do it.
When he arrived on campus as a freshman at Huntington Beach High,
Strang was all of 4-foot-10 and 90 pounds, soaking wet. Yet he wanted
to try his hand at Oiler football, and in that first year he played
for coach Ken Ostrowski.
“As a freshman football coach, we always get a couple of kids that
are so undersized that we, for the sake of safety, would encourage
them to try another sport other than football,” Ostrowski said.
“Vince was one of those kids. He was basically a football helmet with
feet.
“As is the usual case with these kinds of kids, two things are
always true: They will wear jersey No. 1, and they will play wide
receiver.”
Strang did both. Ostrowski said that because the Sunset League is
highly competitive, freshmen football provides a few games a year
that are for players who have little game experience or are
overmatched physically.
Strang played in that district league, and it was there that
Ostrowski said he learned that Strang was “a little different than
some of those other kids that I had coached.”
“It was the last district game of the year, and Vince looked up at
me and said, ‘Coach, throw me the ball. I will catch it,’ ” Ostrowski
recalled. “With a few seconds left on the clock, I relented to
extreme pressure from my staff to try and throw the ball to Vince.
“I instructed our quarterback to throw the safest pass known in
high school football, the dreaded quick slant. Sure enough, Vince
cuts in front of the defender and makes the catch and is smothered
after about a 10-yard gain. I am pretty sure that we lost the game,
but it was like we had won the Super Bowl. Tears of joy were
streaming down his face, and it was a tremendous way to end the
season.”
A nice ending to his first attempt at high school football, but
Strang’s story doesn’t end there.
He went on to play under four head coaches at Huntington Beach
High, which required that he prove himself all over again on the
field to each new coach.
Strang not only proved that he belonged, but he went on to become
a second team all-league wide receiver during his senior year. On
campus he was affectionately called, “Rudy” -- a reference to former
undersized but overachieving Notre Dame football player Rudy
Ruettiger, the subject of the motion picture, “Rudy.”
In fact, the back of Strang’s high school letterman’s jacket bears
his last name and underneath it, “Rudy.”
But no college expressed interest in having Strang, at 5-foot-6
and weighing 130 pounds out of high school, play football for their
school. Instead, he became a part-time student at Orange Coast
College, and Ostrowski asked Strang to help him coach the Huntington
Beach freshman football team.
“Coach O has always been very encouraging and very positive with
me in my football career,” Strang said. “I loved coaching freshman
football at my alma mater, but I was itching to play again. Coach O
encouraged me to do so and told me, basically, to play it because I
had a passion.”
Strang was a relative unknown when he tried out at Orange Coast
College yet quickly caught the eye of the Pirates coaching staff when
he ran a 4.3 in the 40-yard dash.
He went on to play for two years at OCC. He retuned punts and was
part of the receivers rotation his freshman year and as a sophomore
did the same. As the Pirates’ top receiver, Strang led the team in
receptions and receiving yardage, punt returns and return yardage,
kickoff returns and yardage, and all-purpose yardage.
But just as was the case when he finished high school, no major
division school sought Strang, who had “blossomed” to 5-foot-8 and
150 pounds, when he was done playing at OCC.
“It was frustrating, but I just kept plugging away. I knew I had
to take the initiative to get myself noticed,” he explained.
Strang went to work putting together a highlight film of his
career at OCC. He sent out tapes, postcards and letters to Arizona,
USC, San Diego State and a school where he had always wanted to play,
UCLA.
Not a word back. Not from one school. He did get feedback, he
said, from a couple of small schools that were “in the middle of
nowhere,” but held on to his dream of playing Division I.
“No offense to those schools, but I knew what I wanted, and that
was to play where I would enjoy myself, could get a great education,
and have fun in the process,” he said.
ALONG THE WAY
Two instrumental figures during Strang’s time at OCC were teammate
Brandon Hall and assistant coach Junior Tagaloa.
Hall, who played wide receiver with Strang, earned a scholarship
to play at Cal. Tagaloa played receiver for the Golden Bears in the
late 1980s and early 1990s.
Hall and Strang had become great friends while playing at OCC, and
once Hall arrived in Berkeley, he saw the situation and gave Strang
an encouraging phone call.
“Brandon told me that I could fit in at Cal and to make myself
known to the coaching staff,” Strang said. “He and Coach Tagaloa
really have been an incredible support system for me.”
Strang went to Berkeley to see Hall play in Cal’s spring game and
took the opportunity to introduce himself to the Cal coaching staff.
He left them with his highlight tape, and although coaches told
Strang they could use some speed at receiver, their player roster was
full.
Their advice: Don’t get discouraged, and keep in touch, he said.
Hall, Strang said, would on occasion head into the coaches’ office
after practice, “nudging them to keep me in mind.”
“Brandon told me to keep calling them, and I did, but every time
they’d tell me there still was nothing,” he said. “But then, with one
phone call in June, it all changed.”
A DREAM REALIZED
It was two days before the beginning of summer ball when he put in
another call to Berkeley.
This time, he was told there was an opening in camp.
“I threw some stuff into my bag and got right up there,” Strang
said. “I enrolled in summer school and roomed with Brandon. It was
strange, though: For how long I had been plugging away at this,
everything seemed to be happening so fast.”
NCAA rules stipulate that a walk-on player cannot practice with
the team. So, Strang went to work, lifting and running on his own.
He’d study Hall’s playbook at night, preparing for the start of camp
on Aug. 5.
Strang was listed at the bottom of a receivers depth chart that
included 12 players.
“I was a little discouraged but thought, ‘You know what, I’ve been
here before,’ ” he said.
Hall told him the list meant nothing, what mattered was what took
place on the practice field.
“We’re great friends, and I knew that Vince had the ability to
play at this level,” Hall said. “I told him because of his size, he
would need to sell himself. And Vince has done that quite well.”
Hall, in stark contrast to his roommate’s 5-foot-8 and 152
pounds, is listed at 6-foot-4, 240 pounds in the Cal media guide. He
will start at halfback and rotate at tight end.
“I’m thrilled that Vince is here,” Hall added. “He has worked
incredibly hard and never lost that dream.”
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