Road to 1991 Perfection: Motivating a Guy Who Needed No Extra Incentive

Arizona paid dearly for a coach's fib that was told to All-American defensive tackle Steve Emtman prior to kickoff.

Hours before kickoff, the day started innocently enough.

Chris Tormey and Randy Hart, University of Washington assistant football coaches, were walking through Hec Edmundson Pavilion when they met the opponent.

They encountered Pat Hill, Arizona's offensive coordinator and line coach.

Everyone knew each other and exchanged pleasantries.

Hill complimented them on the season that Steve Emtman, the Huskies' All-American defensive tackle, was having. 

The Wildcats coach mentioned, ever so respectfully, that his offensive tackle John Fina was looking forward to playing against Emtman.

Fina was no slouch. He later would become an All-Pac-10 selection, an NFL first-round draft pick and a two-time Super Bowl participant.

The coaches parted ways and headed to their respective locker rooms.

Hart, the Huskies defensive-line coach and a master motivator, saw great opportunity from this casual conversation.

He headed straight for Emtman and slyly passed along a message.

"John Fina said he was really looking forward to playing against you," Hart relayed, "and he told his coach he was going to kick your ass!"

He unleashed a monster that day.

No one on the Arizona offensive line was spared.

It showed at the opening coin flip.

At midfield on bright, sunny day, Emtman shook hands with Wildcats offensive guard Nick Fineanganofo, a stout Samoan who weighed 340 pounds, some 50 more than his UW counterpart. 

Somehow Emtman seemed like the bigger man in this exchange. He cracked a menacing smile for his opponent to see, as if to suggest he was going to swallow another canary whole. Fineanganofo was beaten before the first snap.

"If he wasn't sweating, he was pissing down his leg and he was almost stuttering," said UW center Ed Cunningham, who took part in the coin flip. "On the first play of the game, Emtman picked him up and threw him down. Emtman picked him up on the second play and threw him down again. It was sheer terror. If there's not humor in a 340-pound man in terror, I don't know what then."

Arizona was unable to block the Huskies' proverbial bull in the china shop, with Emtman enjoying one of his more dominant games. He even joined in a rare moment of celebration, doing the body-shaking "Compton Quake" with outside linebacker Jaime Fields on the field, a no-no in their coach's book of game-day etiquette..

"Don James was adamant about us not celebrating, but pure jubilation would set in every once in a while," the UW's All-American offensive tackle Lincoln Kennedy said. "In practice that week, Jaime talking about doing it. Dave Hoffmann said don’t let coach James catch you. Everybody wanted to celebrate because football had become really fun for us. We were rolling. We had our confidence. We were starting to get noticed. We were beating teams in away there was no doubt in anyone’s mind how good we were."

While he never needed anyone else to motivate him, Steve Emtman seemed particularly revved up that day in leading the Huskies to their fourth consecutive victory, a 54-0 dismantling of the Wildcats.

No one across the Arizona offensive line, in particular that guy who lined up at left tackle and was eager to see what Emtman was all about, survived that afternoon.

"Let me tell you this," Tormey said. "It was a long day for John Fina."

  

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