When Norm Chow looks at the talents of Vince Young, he said he sees someone who "could re-write the quarterback position" in the NFL.

Chances are Young will also be the one who shapes Chow's coaching legacy in the pros.

With three Heisman Trophy winners and three national championships as exclamation points on a 35-year stay, the 60-year-old Chow's college cred is already well established after stops at Brigham Young, North Carolina State and Southern California.

The Punahou School graduate's NFL resume, however, is still a work in progress after one season with the Tennessee Titans. What the former Waialua High coach is able to do with Young, the first quarterback chosen in Saturday's draft, will go a long way toward defining it.

Together, these two widely disparate individuals, the coach of Chinese-Hawaiian-Portuguese ancestry from Palolo and an African-American from Houston with 38 years between them, find their careers intertwined in Nashville, a city where they could write songs about such unions.

By all appearances, it was something of a shotgun marriage with Chow and Titans head coach Jeff Fisher preferring Chow's former Trojan protege, Matt Leinart, while ownership and administration wanted — and got — Young.

"Obviously, I liked Matt, he's been my guy for how many years. I love the guy," Chow said. "But a lot of things go (into the selection). A lot of people have voices, the owner, the general manager, the scouts. ... It is not like, 'Oh, Norm, who do you like and we'll go get him.' "

Instead of the polished, fifth-year Leinart, the one who begins the Titans' rookie mini-camp Thursday is the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Young, an immensely gifted but still raw commodity who left Texas a year early.

For a coach who prides himself on polishing and magnifying the talents of his QBs — witness Heisman winners Ty Detmer, Carson Palmer and Leinart — Chow has been assigned a defining opportunity.

"To me it is the ultimate challenge for a coach, to get a guy like this and see what you can make with him," Chow said. "He's got a lot to learn but his upside is tremendous. I'm fired up. I can't wait to get going.

"You watch him in games and he gets hit but he never gets tackled. Nobody goes whomp on him. He has a way of using his body and giving with the blow. He's unique; he makes the game look easy. In the Rose Bowl nobody stopped him.

"If we get him playing, he can re-define the position."

And, if it doesn't work out? "It will be back to Waialua (High), for all I know."

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