The Coach's Pet

Northwestern's baby-faced Quarterback Tommy Myers, 19, is a football coach's happy pill. He is the first man on the practice field each afternoon, the first in bed each night. He would not dream of breaking training. He does exactly as he is told: he never runs when he is supposed to pass--in fact, he rarely runs at all. "He's got an open field in front of him half the time," says Athletic Director Stu Holcomb, "and he won't even cross the line of scrimmage." But this is just fine with Myers' coach, Ara Parseghian, who says: "What are you going to do with a kid who threw 73 touchdown passes in high school?" Mainly because Parseghian has the answer (let Myers pass), Northwestern's surprising Wildcats are unbeaten in five games this season, rank No. 1 in the Big Ten and No. 2 in the nation.

God-Given Gift. Most first-year men are lucky if they get to play half a game with the varsity--and that is just about what Sophomore Myers played last week against Notre Dame. But while he was on the field, Myers completed eleven of 18 passes for 168 yds., threw for two touchdowns and set up two more as Northwestern won, 35-6. Just for good measure, Myers twice passed for two-point conversions. Such performances are just what Wildcat fans have come to expect from their fuzzy-cheeked passing whiz.

In his first varsity game against South Carolina, Myers completed 15 straight passes for a new collegiate record, and Northwestern won 37-20. Against hapless

Illinois (score 45-0), he played less than 17 min., still completed seven of eleven passes for 108 yds. and one touchdown. Next week it was Minnesota, and Myers threw four more touchdown passes in the 34-22 victory. His protection is often erratic, but he rarely gets rattled under fire. Ohio State tried to red-dog him, and when that failed to daunt Myers, Coach Woody Hayes ordered his defense to fan back and double-team Northwestern's receivers. Myers still completed 18 of 30 passes, and the Wildcats, behind 14-0 in the first quarter, roared back to win, 18-14. Says Halfback Paul Flatley, who caught a Myers pass for the first Northwestern touchdown against Ohio State: "I was covered by three guys, and he threw it right into my hands--right up in front of my face--and I was in the end zone." "That," sighs Parseghian, "is a God-given gift."

Myers' gift showed up somewhat late. As a youngster in Troy, Ohio, he preferred the fife to football. "My mother made my brother Mike a football outfit," he says. "She made me a band uniform." But Tommy turned out for football in the seventh grade, became a quarterback largely by the process of elimination: "I wasn't fast enough to be a halfback, and I wasn't big enough to be a lineman." At first, he threw his passes sidearm--which mattered little, because Troy High never passed anyway: the star of the team was a 200-lb. fullback named Bob Ferguson who went on to Ohio State and All-America honors. Ferguson was Myers' idol: "Everybody in town was talking about how he was going to be able to go to college because of his football ability. I figured I might be able to go if I was as good as he was."

Into the Bull's-Eye. To perfect his passing motion, Tommy hung a canvas target on a wall of his garage, eventually got so accurate that he could fire a football into the center of a 2-ft. bull's-eye from 20 yds. away. Troy High's coach rebuilt his offense after Ferguson graduated--and Myers was it. By the time he was ready to graduate, he had offers from 15 colleges. But when the lanky youngster turned up at Northwestern, Coach Parseghian wondered if the band might not be the best place for him after all. "He was such a white-faced, pale-looking kid that I thought he had mononucleosis."

Parseghian put Tommy on a bodybuilding regimen of weight lifting, soon learned that there never was anything wrong with his passing arm. Last year's first-string quarterback, Tom O'Grady, stalked off the team in disgust, returned meekly, and was shifted to reserve halfback (where he has caught one pass for 9 yds.). In Northwestern's first five games, Myers hit on 72 of 108 passes for 979 yds., ten touchdowns and a phenomenal .667 completion average. Says Parseghian, happily contemplating two more seasons of Myers' passing: "All we had to do was teach him our plays and let him loose."

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