PEELER: Rivers Keeps Rolling Along

Aug. 5, 2010

BY TIM PEELER

RALEIGH, N.C. - Ten years ago this week, a fresh-scrubbed freshman prepared to take his first preseason snap on the practice field inside NC State's Derr Track. He was already somewhat familiar with how things worked at the school, having enrolled for classes in January, as the rest of his high school class was preparing for its senior prom and graduation exercises.

After a few months on campus, he mostly knew his way around - at least well enough to get from his dorm room at the Stroud Center to the old Dairy Queen on Western Boulevard. Every other night or so, he would knock on the door of junior defensive back Adrian Wilson and the two future NFL stars would amble the mile or so down the four-lane street for a chili dog and a banana split.

"We weren't exactly on the training table plan," he said, laughing at the memory and perhaps suppressing a leftover belch.

At that time, the young quarterback was recovering from a broken finger he suffered in spring practice, but eager to get started on what turned out to be a record-setting career for the Wolfpack.

Hard though it might be to believe, it's been more than a decade since Philip Rivers enrolled at NC State, a mature young man from Athens, Ala., that Auburn wanted to turn into a tight end and Alabama didn't want to recruit at all. The 10-year anniversary of his rain-soaked debut against Arkansas State - the first of his NCAA-record 51 consecutive starts at quarterback - is only a few weeks away.

He arrived with a fire and passion for the game he learned at the knee of his father, Steve, a successful Alabama high school football coach. After rewriting the NC State and the ACC record books, he moved on to the National Football League, taken as the No. 4 pick of the 2004 draft by the New York Giants and immediately traded for top pick Eli Manning to the San Diego Chargers.

Since then, he's become one of league's brightest stars, earning the respect of his teammates for his willingness and ability to play hurt, flashing his All-America schoolboy smile to the cameras and jawing (almost always for fun) with opponents on the other sidelines.

In many ways, Rivers is still that extremely mature young man who gave up his final semester of high school - when his only responsibilities would have been a weight-lifting class, a non-required German class and a daily shift of working as an aide in the principal's office - to begin preparing for his football career.

"From a competitive standpoint, I don't think I have changed a whole lot," Rivers said recently by telephone. "I'm still the same person I always was.

"From a family standpoint, I've been married nine years and have five kids. I'm living on the other side of the country. Things have changed quite a bit since I left NC State."

One thing, however, hasn't changed for the player whose No. 17 jersey hangs on the upper level of Carter-Finley Stadium.

"I do love the Wolfpack and NC State," said Rivers, over the laughter and chatter of his five kids at the backyard pool. "I try to watch every Saturday. I talk to Coach [Joe] Pate every now and then. It's funny, each year, when you come out as a rookie, you still know everybody on the roster. Now you're removed seven years, I don't personally know a single player on the team.

"I don't know a lot of people on the coaching staff, either. I don't have the direct relationship to the people I knew there. But I keep up with everything going on. I love seeing what a great turnout it is. It always makes me want to come back."

Rivers has every one of the games he played at NC State on DVD, a gift from assistant athletics director Jim Sherrill, even though he doesn't really need them. He can rewind his mind and play back nearly every down of his college career.

There are moments that stick out more than others of course: The win over Arkansas State in a driving rainstorm in his first college game, the win over Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl after his junior year, the win against Virginia as a senior when he and Cavalier quarterback Matt Schaub were vying for Heisman Trophy attention.

But nothing, in Rivers' mind, tops Nov. 22, 2003: his final home game at Carter-Finley Stadium. In pregame ceremonies, the school retired Rivers' No. 17 jersey, putting him on par with legends Dick Christy, Roman Gabriel, Dennis Byrd, Bill Yoest, Ted Brown, Jim Ritcher and Torry Holt. The Wolfpack lost the game to Maryland, 26-24, but that's not what Rivers' remembers.

"The last one didn't end right, but the whole ceremony before the game, there, with all the fans, all the people I loved, was just kind of surreal," Rivers said. "That might be my favorite moment ever."

GoPack.com is at the top of the list of favorites on his internet browser. He particularly likes perusing the photo galleries of football games and the annual football alumni reunion the weekend of the Kay Yow Spring Football Game. Every year, he promises to be there the next year.

That was impossible this past spring, just a few months after the birth of his fourth daughter, Sarah Catherine. Rivers not only stayed home from the NC State alumni reunion, but he gave up his starting spot in the 2010 Pro Bowl to be home with wife Tiffany and the rest of the family.

"I always think about how fun it will be - hopefully, a long time in the future - when my career is over and I can come back to games at Carter-Finley," Rivers said. "It's just so hard right now, living out here in San Diego, to get back very often."

Rivers and Wolfpack head coach Tom O'Brien caught up with each other on the phone over the summer. O'Brien wanted to get to know Rivers a little better, and make sure the NFL star knew the door was always open for him to return.

"We played phone tag for a while, but we had a chance to catch up over the summer," O'Brien said. "It was great to have a conversation with him about the alumni weekend.

"He wanted to make sure that I understood that he loves NC State, loves everything about it. He has five children and lives three thousand miles away. That's precluded him from coming back very often and being part of the alumni weekend, and I completely understand that."

But O'Brien has made sure that Rivers' is well-stocked with Wolfpack-logoed gear to wear around the locker room.

"I told him that we needed to win a few more games for him," O'Brien said. "He said he needed a little help with some bragging rights."

Rivers, entering his fifth consecutive season as the Chargers' starter, has high aspirations for the coming NFL season. Training camps have just begun, preseason games are just around the corner and the Chargers are not only the favorite to win their fifth consecutive AFC West Division title, they are a prime contender for the Super Bowl.

But Rivers doesn't want to talk about that. The Chargers found themselves caught up in their lofty expectations two years ago and were 4-8 heading into the last quarter of the season. Behind the leadership of Rivers, who threw 11 touchdown passes and only one interception in the final four regular-season games, the Chargers fought their way into the playoffs, losing to eventual Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh. For Rivers, who finished the 2008-09 season as the NFL's top-rated quarterback with a league-leading 34 touchdown passes, it was a lesson-learned to never look past the regular season.

"What we have to remember is that we have to keep getting there," Rivers said. "We aren't guaranteed to be successful in the playoffs just because we've won four straight division titles. That doesn't mean we'll be there a fifth season. Last year, we kind of just went about our business and we had a great regular season [before losing the New York Jets in divisional playoffs]. It's a boring approach but one that works - we just have to take it one game at a time, all the way through Jan. 5."

Last August, Rivers signed a six-year, $92 million contract extension and celebrated by leading the Chargers to a 13-3 regular-season record. They eventually lost to the New York Jets - and Rivers' NC State aerial connection, Jerricho Cotchery - by a narrow 17-14 margin.

Rivers enjoys a good trip down memory lane every NFL season, when he crosses paths with former teammates like Wilson, Cotchery, offensive lineman Sean Locklear of the Seattle Seahawks, defensive end Mario Williams of the Houston Texans, Manny Lawson and Marcus Hudson of the San Francisco 49ers and Leroy Harris of the Tennessee Titans.

"It's fun running into your old teammates," Rivers said. "Whenever they aren't playing us, I'm pulling for them to win."

They talk about some of their experiences together - walking from the Stroud Center to Weisiger-Brown for team meetings, playing ping-pong in the players' lounge of the Murphy Center when it opened in 2003, riding around in Rivers' beat-up 1996 Ford Taurus, using up all his meal points at the Chick-Fil-A on the Brickyard.

It's been 10 years since Philip Rivers came to Raleigh and began his attack on the record books.

"Golly, I can't believe it's been that long," Rivers said.

Some things about that polite young freshman from 10 years ago never change.

You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

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