Glory Day

He said the only way he could feel normal at school was through sports.

Is it any wonder, then, that when he graduated from Trabuco Hills High in Orange County, he wanted to continue playing football, even though he had no scholarship offers?

So, first, there was Saddleback College, where he was benched sporadically. He left before playing a second season.

Then there was Long Beach State, where he lasted only one week and never even met famed then-Coach George Allen.

"I showed up for spring workouts, went to the equipment room to get a football to throw, and they said that only scholarship guys get footballs," he recalled. "So I left."

Sight unseen, he then drove to Western Oregon College, an NAIA Division II school in a small town south of Portland.

The facilities were so bad, he never showered in the locker room after practice. The coaches weren't that impressed with him either, benching him after the first game.

"I thought, how bad can it be?" he said.

He soon found out when he transferred to UC Santa Barbara, had a decent season ... and then the program was dropped.

The next day, sitting on his couch with a beer, Barnes saw Tommy Maddox appear on television to announce he was turning pro.

"I thought, 'There's a place for me,' " Barnes said.

So, in the spring of 1992, with no connections or advocates, he dressed in a suit and put his tapes in a briefcase and showed up for a meeting with the UCLA coaches.

"Here I was, a senior trying to walk on," he said. "I thought I had to look good."

Said Neuheisel: "We thought, who is this? He wanted to join the program and we thought he wanted to invest our money somewhere."

He tried out for quarterback coach Homer Smith while wearing the suit, actually showing him his drop-back footwork in dress shoes.

When it appeared they weren't going to throw him out, he showed up for classes, even though he had not been officially admitted.

He spent a week living in his car, leaving it only to sleep on a buddy's couch at night.

He finally found a room in an apartment, began riding his bike down Wilshire to practice every day, began lifting weights and avoiding alcohol, getting serious.

Nobody noticed.

"A senior, a walk-on, his first year here ... it was like he was a waste," said Charlie Smith, then the student manager who became a close friend. "I was working there for the longest time before I ever even heard anybody mention his name. Why would anybody spend any time on somebody like that, with no future here?"