Posted on: Sunday, August 31, 2003
Dickerson's big game no surprise to those in know
| • | UH supporting cast a big hit |
| • | Whieldon made his first start one to remember |
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
Almost from the day he first set his fleet feet on campus, a lot of people have said that someday Ross Dickerson would break a big kick return for the University of Hawai'i football team.
Practically from the time he signed on out of Saint Louis School, the Warriors knew they would have a big-play threat, someday.
But who knew that it would be last night in the season opener?
That it would come in his first game as a Warrior?
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser "Really — I did," Dickerson said after returning his third kickoff of the game 100 yards for a touchdown on the final play of the third quarter, the most remarkable play in an otherwise largely predictable 40-17 thrashing of Division I-AA Appalachian State.
As highlights go, this one from about two yards deep in the end zone (current NCAA rules only credit from the goal line, however), was the one most of the announced crowd of 36,844 at Aloha Stadium will likely remember from this game.
What only a few know, however, is that this most precocious of redshirt freshmen said he called his shot on the run that matched teammate Chad Owens for the second-longest kickoff return in school history.
"I mean, I told some of the other guys about it at night at dinner at the hotel when they told me I'd be returning kickoffs," Dickerson said. "I told them I'd take one to the house. I thought I could do it, if I got the chance."
So much for freshman awe and the big, wide eyes when the lights go on.
Only Tommy Kaulukukui, who ran a kickoff back 103 yards in 1935 (NCAA rules then credited the spot in the end zone) against UCLA in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a run that has become legend, has gone longer.
Dickerson, who will have four seasons to carve his own niche in the record books, said, "Chad and the others had confidence in me and that gave me a lot of confidence in myself. I felt if they thought I could do it, then I could. I had trouble sleeping the night before (the game) because I was anxious after all the practicing, so I visualized taking one all the way back.
"With the support I had from all the guys on the line and up front, I just had to make the right moves," Dickerson said.
"That's about as fast as I've seen one come back," marveled Erik Rockhold, the Appalachian State kicker.
Not that it surprised many around the Warriors.
"I know that he has done something almost every time we've had a scrimmage," head coach June Jones said. "He's always coming up with big plays. He's a gamer, so we knew it would be just a matter of time until he broke a big one."
Last night, that time came.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
Well, Dickerson, for one.
"I thought I could do it, if I got the chance," Ross Dickerson says of his return.
