Jason Fife is a complex mixture
of crazy, serious and football
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
When writing a feature on an ath
lete, it’s common practice to start
with a story, some anecdote that il
lustrates who that person really is.
But with Jason Fife, there are so
many stories.
There’s the story of Fife sitting on
a desk in a Washington State weight
room, calmly shouldering the blame
for Oregon’s loss to the Cougars.
There’s the story of Fife receiving
the compliments of ESPN’s Harold
Reynolds in the Casanova Center
last week, and Fife, afterwards, ad
mitting giddily that he’s still rattled
by the spotlight, no matter how long
it’s been on him.
There’s the classic one from last
season about Fife’s mullet. Or the
one about Fife dressing up in a tiger
suit for a Halloween segment on lo
cal television, which ties into the
one about Fife’s child-acting days on
“The Addams Family.”
With so many stories, where does
the real Jason Fife tale begin? Does
it start at the beginning, with Fife
bouncing around Southern Califor
nia, acting for the aforementioned
television show, struggling through
a move to suburbia?
No, this is a football story. So it
starts with a football.
This was no ordinary football.
Well, maybe it was an ordinary foot
ball, but Jason Fife didn’t think so.
Because this football wouldn’t throw.
“I didn’t play football up until my
freshman year in high school, and
in my freshman year in high school,
I couldn’t really throw a spiral,” Fife
said. “At all.”
The freshman who couldn’t
throw a spiral instead played line
backer and wide receiver that year,
spawning a love for football. In the
offseason, he would turn his atten
tion to mastering that spiral, and
then he would master it.
“I wanted to be the leader on of
fense, that guy that everybody looks
up to in the huddle, gets the play
called right, makes sure things run
smoothly,” Fife said. “I wanted to be
that guy.”
Then, all of a sudden, Fife was
that guy. He started his junior and
senior seasons for Temescal
Canyon High School, a small
school whose players harbor little
hope of getting noticed by Division
I scouts, the same players who
only heard the names of the big
time college recruits.
“I knew about Samie (Parker),
Keenan (Howry), Kevin Mitchell;
those were big names down there,”
Fife said. “I remember watching the
Mater Dei-De La Salle game, it was
televised, for crying out loud. I
mean, they played it at Edison
Field, it was like a college game.”
But the story goes that Fife threw
Mark McCambridge Emerald
Junior quarterback Jason Fife, a former child actor, didn't start playing football until
his freshman year of high school, but quickly became the starter for Temescal Canyon.
1,920 yards his senior season, in
cluding 21 passing touchdowns and
six more on the ground. This may
have been because of a stud offen
sive lineman who was being recruit
ed nationally, but Fife’s numbers
were gaudy all the same.
Of course, that stud offensive
lineman was being recruited na
tionally. So national scouts were
watching Fife’s team. That’s when
a California-Berkeley scout no
ticed Fife, and word spread
through the Pac-10 that there was
an arm at Temescal Canyon.
“Oregon and Cal were fighting
over Kyle Boiler, and I was going to
be the ‘second choice,”’ Fife said. “If
I wanted to go Pac-10, Kyle Boiler
held my fate.”
Boiler went to Cal, Fife went to
Oregon, and the rest is football
history.
Fife redshirted a year, stood on
the sidelines for the next two and
won a battle with Kellen Clemens
for the starting spot before the
2002 season.
He navigated preseason blowouts
and a nailbiter with another team
that reeruited him — Fresno State.
He suffered his first loss to Arizona
State, then another the next week
to USG, and again tasted defeat in
Pullman. But he’s still the 15th-rat
ed passer in the nation in pass effi
ciency, and still the starter.
“We’re extremely confident (in
him),” linebacker and former room
mate Mitchell said of Fife. “He
makes the plays he has to.
“He makes first-year mistakes,
but everybody does. He’s grown a
lot in these past couple weeks, and
he wants to do great things, and we
see that in him.”
Clemens has the unique position
of watching from the sidelines, a po
sition Fife himself is familiar with.
“Everything with our competition
earlier, the adversity he’s gone
through this year and the success
that he’s had, he and I’s relationship
Turn to Fife, page 12B
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