By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Once upon a distant time at Waialua High, the young football coach used to consider it a good day if he could wrestle enough well-worn footballs away from the junior varsity so his team could practice.

Thirty years later, Norm Chow calls the offensive shots for fourth-ranked Southern California, one of college football's most storied programs, has groomed two Heisman Trophy winners and is one of the best paid and most celebrated assistant coaches in the country.

USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow has groomed two Heisman Trophy winners and is one of the highest paid assistant coaches in the country. The Punahou School graduate began his coaching career at O'ahu's Waialua High School. USC photo

This week especially, the memories are Imax huge as Chow not only confronts the team from home, the University of Hawai'i, Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but some life-long friends on the opposing sideline.

"The job he's done and the places it has taken him are just amazing," said UH assistant Ron Lee, who has known Chow since they were in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu in the 1960s, where brothers Lenny, Mike and Norm Chow, and Tommy, Ron and Cal Lee played alongside or against one another. "You like to see somebody you've grown up around do well and he's certainly made his mark nationally."

After leaving Waialua for Brigham Young, the Punahou School graduate found a Midas touch for tutoring quarterbacks and constructing offenses to record-setting levels. More than a quarter-century at LaVell Edwards' side were good for both Chow and the Cougars and, for the longest time, it looked like that was where he would succeed his mentor and end his career.

But a new BYU administration, replacing ones that had urged Chow to stay on in the face of increasingly enticing offers, including some from UH, had other ideas.

So, Chow tested the market and found a two-time national assistant coach of the year could write his own first-class ticket, which he did in going to North Carolina State for a reported three-year, $1 million deal.

A year after Chow turbocharged the Wolfpack's passing game, new USC coach Pete Carroll said he came to "pursue him just like you would recruit a player," to run the Trojans' offense.

The opportunity "to coach at the highest level in college, a place where a white horse trots around after every touchdown and the band playing gives you chicken skin, that was something I'd have been crazy to pass up," Chow said.

And, when it comes to passing, Chow's journey to the Coliseum has shown him to be anything but a fool.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044