They never thought the kid would have to wait this long. Matt Cassel's high school coaches told him that, yes, if he wanted to play college football at Southern California, he'd have to wait his turn. That was part of the deal if he chose to play for a powerhouse.

They didn't say anything about waiting nearly 10 years.

Cassel spent five seasons at USC and never started a game. He was the backup to Heisman Trophy winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, and if Cassel wanted to crack the starting lineup, playing tight end or slot would have been his best chance.

Then he spent his first three NFL seasons as a backup, behind Tom Brady and the airtight job security that four Pro Bowls bring.

Cassel kept waiting, trying to be patient — as his high school coaches had advised.

"You always thought he'd have a shot," said Bill Coan, coach at Chatsworth High, north of Los Angeles. "You'd think that, at one point, he'd get frustrated."

He did. In college, he considered transferring to UCLA. Then as his NFL years passed, some close to him thought the chisel-chinned Cassel had a better shot at landing a television gig.

SURPRISING TRADE

Then it happened. A sequence of events that gave Cassel his first chance in a nearly decade. He won 11 games last year as New England's starter, while passing for 3,693 yards and 21 touchdowns. A week ago, the Patriots traded Cassel, along with linebacker Mike Vrabel, to Kansas City for the Chiefs' second-round draft pick. For the first time since he was a high school senior, Cassel will enter a football season preparing to be a starting quarterback.

"Eight years of just sitting there and waiting," said Cassel, 26. "Everybody is always telling you, 'You have to be ready; you are one ankle sprain away.' I was sitting there going, 'Gosh, nobody sprains their ankle anymore.' "

Cassel learned the hard way that nothing is assured. Chiefs coach Todd Haley said that Cassel and Tyler Thigpen will compete for the starting job. But Kansas City didn't trade for Cassel so he can be a backup.

The Chiefs also aren't likely to take on Cassel's $14.6 million salary, which he's guaranteed by the franchise-player contract he signed with the Patriots, so he can keep sitting and watching.

He had enough of that in college. Coan said Cassel was willing to wait out Palmer. Two or three years, tops. The plan was for Cassel, in due time, to step in and become USC's next star passer.

"He could've won a Heisman," Coan said.

CHOW LIKED LEINART

Instead, the Trojans changed coaches before Cassel's redshirt freshman season. Coan said that offensive coordinator Norm Chow preferred Leinart. Coan said the "knock" on Cassel at USC was that he was always asking why things were done in certain ways, and Coan admitted that although the quarterback's questions were more a learning exercise than a display of snobbery, Cassel's approach might have irritated some coaches.

"It is funny," Cassel says now.

The Patriots took a chance on the unproven quarterback, gambling that his pedigree, build and experience were at least worth a seventh-round pick in 2005.

Coaches kept telling Cassel to stick it out. But Brady kept winning and kept going to Pro Bowls. His Patriots were perfect in 2007, and Brady was voted the NFL's most valuable player. Cassel phoned home often, and his confidants kept telling him his time would come.

"I always tell a kid," Coan said, "he's going to have an opportunity."

The Patriots started the 2008 season with a home game against the Chiefs, during which safety Bernard Pollard lunged at Brady on a blitz. As Brady released the ball, Pollard's right shoulder hit Brady's left knee.

The hit tore the anterior cruciate ligament, and Brady's season was finished.

PATIENCE PAYS OFF

Six months later, Cassel's franchise-player contract makes him one of the NFL's top-paid players, and he'll enter the 2009 season as the Chiefs' best hope for a franchise quarterback. The irony is he'll now share a locker room with Pollard.

"Nobody likes to see anybody go down, I'm sure including himself," Cassel says. "I will talk to him and say, 'Hello'; say, 'Thank you for the opportunity.' "

Coan said he thought, all those years ago, that Cassel's opportunity would have come earlier. Eight years is a long time to ask a player to stay patient.

"It did surprise us a little bit, too," Coan said. "Just finally, after all these years, to prove himself that he is at that level.

"He finally got his shot."