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 Friday, October 19, 2001
Parker fits the Ducks' bill
By Marc Connolly
ABC Sports Online
Most young athletes who roam the Pop Warner, midget and peewee gridirons emulate their favorite players all the way down to the way they wear their wristbands or towels on their waists. Their room walls are smothered with posters and ripped-out magazine glossies of the current Pro Bowlers or college All-Americans right through their high school graduation.
One would think that'd be the way for a kid growing up in Southern California with the Raiders and Rams still in town, as well as being in the shadow of the famed football programs at USC and UCLA. But that wasn't the case for Samie (pronounced Sammy) Parker.
|  | | Samie Parker was slated have a big role in last year's Holiday Bowl, but suffered a shoulder injury in the first quarter on an end around. |
In fact, the gazelle of Oregon's high-power offense hardly knew anything about the vast college football world until the end of the recruiting process during his senior year of high school at the football powerhouse that is Long Beach Poly.
And even then, he didn't turn on the tube on Saturdays to check out the action. Instead, he took five minutes on a Sunday morning to flip through the box scores from all the previous day's action to track a few stats.
"Each week, I would look at the paper and see how many times each team that recruited me would throw the ball," said Parker, a 5-foot-10, 167-pound sophomore on the Ducks. "I had a little notebook and jotted down the four schools that recruited me."
Mike Bellotti's pass-friendly offense at Oregon won out over Washington, Cal and Colorado for his services. But Parker claims that none of those schools would have been interested in him during the fall of 1998 had it not been for another Pac-10 burner -- USC's Kareem Kelly, who lined up at the other receiver slot for the high-flying Jackrabbit offense and had scouts from every major school in the nation drooling over their notebooks.
"He was the main focus and was double-teamed all game and it would leave me over there in single coverage," said Parker. "It opened the door for me. I had to take advantage of that because no one really knew about me."
Funny, because a similar thing is starting to happen now with the fifth-ranked Ducks. Included in an arsenal of talent on Oregon's offense that includes one of the best quarterbacks in the country in Joey Harrington, an All-American candidate at tight end in Justin Peelle (seven TDs already) and a well-rounded receiving corps out wide, Parker is beginning to make a name for himself.
With his sprinter speed -- 4.36 in the 40 and 10.45 in the 100 meters -- and explosive moves, Parker is quickly becoming a go-to guy for Harrington. Two weeks ago, his official breakout game saw him catch six passes for 160 yards and his first collegiate TD against Arizona. Last week, he hooked up with Harrington for another TD and brought his yearly totals to 16 catches for 348 yards, which now leads the team.
"Samie Parker has proven that he is a viable weapon in this arsenal, and he will see more playing time," said Bellotti earlier this week. "In fact, right now he will alternate with Jason Willis at the one position, and he is a starter in the three-wide receiver group, so he's going to play half the time or more. Anytime you have a weapon like that, you need to find a way to utilize him."
Not starting hasn't been an issue for Parker at all. He knows he's the youngest of the group and is still learning, for one. Plus, due to the team's diverse passing game, Harrington is going to get the ball into everyone's hands before the day is through.
"We play about 80 plays a game, so there is enough balls to go around," said Parker. "It's hard to pinpoint one section of our offense to try to stop."
Parker is an obvious deep threat to stretch the defense with his blazing speed, but what's helped him see time on the field the most has been the attention he has paid to blocking, getting off the line against bigger DBs and being more of a possession receiver when called upon to move the chains.
"I don't want DBs to say, 'OK, when he comes in, he's going deep,'" said Parker. "I want them to be iffy, not knowing what I'm going to do."
To accomplish that, Parker spent a lot of time in the weight room over the summer and catching balls almost every day either back in Long Beach with the current nationally-ranked squad or in Eugene with the rest of the Ducks.
"My hands weren't that great last year, probably because I didn't see too many balls," he said, referring to his 11 catches for 201 yards as a freshman.
But his natural talent has been there all along and was noticed even as a redshirt in 1999 on the scout team.
"We knew two years ago he could be special," said Bellotti. "He got hurt his first year. Last year was sort of on and off again. I think his work ethic has improved this year, his understanding of the offense, his ability to grasp the little nuances of the offense. Because he has the big-play potential, it's really fun to get him in there and watch him do some things."
His quarterback has been having fun watching him run under his passes, as well.
|  | | Quarterback Joey Harrington has led the Oregon Ducks to a 6-0 start this year. |
"Samie has been doing some great things on the field, but it comes as no surprise," said Harrington. "He's been doing the same things ever since he first came here, it's just now he's getting his chance. We've got some great players on this team who don't always get a chance to show what they can do because they're playing behind other great players. But when Samie got his chance, he was able to make the most of it."
Two years after thinking that the Pacific Northwest "was like prison" to a SoCal native because of the seemingly endless rain, Parker has adjusted nicely to the scenic campus, whether it be on Saturdays at Autzen Stadium or hanging out with his roommates -- star running back Onterrio Smith and sophomore tight end George Wrighster. For someone who once didn't know a Duck from a Sooner or a Wolverine from a Gamecock, being a part of what should be Oregon's most successful season of all-time has put Parker right in the middle of the big-time college football world that he knew little about just a few years ago.
He's also feeling right at home on a team where he is finally contributing after fighting through a shoulder injury and being far down on the depth chart his first two years.
"The team is starting to develop a certain chemistry," he said, "and I'm feeling that I'm starting to be a factor in helping the team win games by making plays."
And with the way he's been playing, the attention that standouts like Harrington and Peelle are getting on a national level could surely seep onto his No. 1 jersey by the time this season is through.
Marc Connolly is a senior writer for ABC Sports Online. He can be reached at marc.connolly@abc.com.
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